Youth Sports Lessons Learned
[Music]
scott moser i work with at silesianum
school
as the athletic director also coached
the soccer team there
and i’m fortunate enough to have a job
at uh delaware fc a big
youth soccer club uh so i’m in a unique
position
where i get to see i’ve been doing it
for 20 years too by the way so
i’m in a unique position where i get to
see players that are
three years old seven years old like in
the youth soccer world
and then i get to see them go all the
way through 19 and i get the chance to
coach
a lot of them or at least see them be
coached and see them develop
so i get an opportunity to see their
personalities at say seven
eight nine years old and then i get a
chance to see him at say 19 years old
and i get a chance to see how youth
sport
has uh helped or maybe hurt them as they
went so it’s been a
passion of mine to talk about youth
sports in particular
my daughter’s uh 15 now and when she was
12 11 or 12 they were playing in
regionals a high level soccer tournament
and i don’t coach her never did and i’m
standing next to a division one coach
and he and i are watching the game
they’re in the regional finals if they
win the game uh they get to go to texas
for nationals in the final four
nationally
really big deal 11 and 12 year old girls
goes to pk’s
and then they all stand at midfield well
i don’t know
but they stay way back at midfield it’s
like a thousand steps for
girls that age and they one at a time
walk up to take penalty kicks
every single player from both teams as
they walk up
are wiping away tears from their eyes
because the
intensity is so high and i’m standing
there with
a fellow coach and we just looked at
each other and said
this isn’t right right like girls
walking up hysterically crying before
they take a penalty kick at 11 years old
so
um and of course is my daughter so
there’s definitely an attachment there
so
you know really made me think about you
sports and kind of what we’re doing we
i always have in the jobs i’ve had but
that’s just a good example so
i want to talk a little bit about
lessons we want our
children to learn through you sport
and then lessons maybe that are actually
learned through you sport
and discuss some of the pitfalls maybe
that come along the way
so why do parents drop their kids take
their kids to the first soccer practice
right we have meetings every year in the
soccer club in particular
9 10 11 year olds and we have a team
meeting and we say
okay what do you want out of this youth
sport you’re going down this road
say travel soccer what are you looking
for by the time your kids are
say 17 18 19. and what do you think they
say
character development um they want to
have
fun uh they want their kids to be
socialized
right socialization for our
three-year-old program we have about 83
year olds and a three-year-old program
is somebody else can take my ball and
it’s okay right that’s huge
learning for a three-year-old at that
age so
teamwork physical fitness
character development and a big one that
they say
at the end there i should wear my
glasses is
adversity so ultimately in some way
shape or form
they say i want my child to learn how to
deal with adversity
and for me that’s a major major point i
would love
for players that come through a program
of mine to be able to deal with
maybe the number one if you ask me
because if you can’t deal with adversity
sooner or later
your world stops for the most part
because sooner or later you’re going to
have some adversity so how do you deal
with that
and these are all the things all the
time every single year every single team
parents will say right so that’s where
we’re going to sort of start from this
is
this is what we want to have happen
for our young athletes that go through
that
got to talk about mental health there’s
other talks that will get more into this
very important in today’s society
very important uh in youth sport in
particular
but but
ncaa said 30 percent of college athletes
have have self-reported that they have
bouts of depression or mental health
issues
and those students at a higher rate
athletes are found to have a higher rate
of mental health issues
so you you’re saying wait like we put
them in you
sport and you go through this youth
sport to learn
characteristics and abilities to deal
with the world that’s really what
parents originally
want out of you sport and then they go
through you sport
and i use my daughter’s team again as an
example you see him as 13
and they have as much anxiety if not
more anxiety than most
because of all the fears of losing or
not playing well and the team
you know going against them or something
along those lines
uh and it just the two don’t add up
and i think in today’s society when we
talk mental health
and we talk you sport such a popular
activity
and those two don’t add up then that’s a
major
major issue for me and it should be a
major issue for everybody that’s
involved in you sport
because we’re not getting out of it what
we want
so one of the issues is paid coaches so
youth sport a lot of money goes
multi-billion dollar industry across the
country and what
for paid coaches um what are what are we
asking them to do so
i have a staff of maybe 20 paid coaches
how do i evaluate those paid coaches am
i evaluating
for wins am i evaluating them
based on them developing character the
kid’s having fun
so that’s certainly a part of the
process and what do
what do we profile on our website
so ultimately the question is why is
there higher mental health in
athletics than anywhere else and really
the
the focal point today is there’s higher
mental health
because we look at athletics as a result
not as a process and that’s really the
main thing at a young age
like when uh you you go in and you have
your child with you they just got done
playing the game and you see grandmom
and grandpa
then uh what’s the first thing they ask
them did you
win did you score without fail those are
the first two questions that they ask
right and that’s fair it’s grandma and
grandpa right
so that’s the first thing to ask they
might get to did you have fun
right but right away kids learn that
it’s about the result
all right so if athletics is a process
then if you view athletics as a process
then i think that’s critical
so young athletes need to learn that
it’s a process
what better environment is it
athletics than to learn through
athletics that it’s a process so
there’s no real ramifications for
athletes
like i played in college i heard a lot
of other people talk about playing in
college
and it’s an intense environment but
really does that influence your life i
take a lot from gina ariyama
yukon’s women’s coach and he says before
the finals the ncaa finals his pregame
speeches
which i bought and my team will know
this now they think i create this every
year
but they he says your life
will be no different if you lose this
game tonight
and that’s for me that’s such a profound
statement for dealing with coaches who
don’t feel that way
he says uh you know you’re still going
to have your scholarship
you’re still going to have work
opportunities you’re still going to have
your family around you your friends your
teammates around you virtually nothing
changes tomorrow morning
if you don’t win the national
championship tonight it’ll be fine and
all
now he might be the most competitive
coach out there because the smart thing
about that
is they’re going to play better if
they’re not worried about that result
so another um another point that stuck
with me
years ago maybe 20 years ago ahmad
rashad interviewed michael jordan
and a whole list of top athletes
roy jones jr warren sapp um
derek jeter a whole group of them and
they asked a moderate shot asked the
question and he said
how do you how do you all feel about
losing
and uh went through one after the other
of course what do you think they said i
hate losing
roy jones jr said if uh if i lose
against my eight-year-old daughter
playing cards i throw my cards
and i get i can’t sleep at night and
every one top the other and finally got
to michael jordan
and he said nah he said he said i
welcome losing
and everybody was like you welcome
losing uh
i’m surprised you say that like you’re
notorious for being competitive and
trying to win
they said no he said i welcome losing he
said and this is something that’s always
stuck with me i never i’ve never been
more motivated to get better
than after i’ve lost and anybody that’s
played on a team if you play poorly and
win
doesn’t have quite the same dig as if
you lose and if you lose the next
day you played he played
trained harder he was in the gym he’s
trained harder to get better
and i thought what a great opportunity
what a great way to approach athletics
in that you seek better competition to
exploit your flaws
so you can then be a better athlete a
better person
a better success and like the penalty
kick story
what age is it appropriate to go through
this process what age is too much
and i think if if kids at a young age
are taught
that it’s a process and it’s not the
result
then i’m hoping those girls aren’t
wiping away tears when they’re walking
up to penalty kicks i’m hoping they’re
thinking wow this is cool
i remember my first year at sally’s
we’re in the state finals
20 years ago and uh we were up two to
one gave up a late goal goes to 2-2
and then we end up winning overtime 3-2
but giving up that goal was traumatic it
was like two minutes left we were about
to win the state for the first time for
the school in a long time
and then years later i talked to
somebody that was on the field and he
said
you know when we came in after
regulation
which was i thought a very traumatic
time he looked at his friends and said
isn’t this awesome seniors in high
school we get to play
another 30 minutes with each other now
they almost won the state
and i look back on that and i think
that’s just an awesome
personality to have and by the way it’s
a really successful
personality to have to really focus on
the enjoyment of sport
and so how do parents perceive failure
what if parents perceive failure
as a negative right to ride home in the
car
if parents perceive failure as a
negative then
how’s the kid again how’s the child
going to perceive failure at what age
does that start
you know if there’s a three-year-old
going to practice that personality is
started at three
you got to do this and you got to do
that literally at three and four years
old
you hear parents talking to them about
this
all right and so what do we focus on the
process or result
and at a young age if we can really make
sure
people are attuned to the process as
opposed to the result they’re actually
going to have
more success they’re actually going to
win more if they’re
less focused on that result think about
somebody going up to
shoot a basketball a foul shot at the
end of the game
what should they be focused on should
they be focusing on
the opportunity to have or the concern
and anxiety if they miss we want them to
be focusing on that process
and that’s an opportunity for them to
get better
so another another statistic sports
psych
high achievers have high motivation to
achieve success
and low motivation to avoid failure and
for me what that means is high achievers
spend all of their time
on how to be successful and they spend
very little time
on how not to fail which to me makes
sense but when you think of
and i hear i hear athletes talk
and they say i hate losing hate losing
hate losing and when you break that down
to a youth to like a 12 year old
age group if there’s a player
a young player who hates losing then
their whole and if they identify
themselves as an athlete
if they miss the shot if they lose and
their self-identification is i’m a good
athlete
or i’m a scorer and they don’t win the
game their whole personality crumbles
if that’s what they stand for if that’s
all they stand for
but if they have other things going on
in their life and they don’t identify
themselves as just an athlete
then the process is a much easier
process and their life won’t be over if
they don’t win the state championship
that’s just a part of the process for
them and high achievers have
demonstrated
that they’re going to focus more on
being successful and they’re going to
focus
very little time on not being successful
and failing
all right so imagine a world where
parents view adversity as productive
and by parents i mean the students
or the children of those parents view
athletics as an adversity
in athletics as just a process
for them to go to and if they lose
imagine a parent at nine years old
player going up to take a penalty kick
and them thinking
man it’d be great if they missed this
penalty kick what a great opportunity
for me to talk to
that nine-year-old about what that means
how did you feel
what do you stand for like are you going
to work on it more
were you nervous right that’s that’s an
opportunity
that somebody that doesn’t play an
activity or play that sport
they’re just they’re not going to get
i’m a big advocate for you sports and
i’m a big advocate for you sports
because
we get to learn through something that
really doesn’t have
any serious consequences for our lives
later they do at nine
but later in life that’s not and if they
can learn those principles there
then they’re going to be better off
and people use athletics as practice to
develop that
that sorry
and institutionally management uh you
need we need to recognize it’s really
systemic
in you sports it is a culture
of paid sports and with paid sports
i’m a part of it so i can say it and
with paid sports the hope is with the
professionals
the hope is that they are focusing on
the key points
and they’re not focusing on the just
winning the problem is when you’re
trying to grow a business and use sports
and
because becomes monetized that
inevitably you’re talking about high
level you’re talking about wins
and so going to websites and seeing what
do you promote on the website for your
youth sport
that’s really going to dictate the
principles of that club so if i have 20
staff members and one guy’s winning am i
going to pay him more is he a better
staff member
but there might be a guy working with
bnc teams that’s creating all these
really cool
personalities on their team and working
with them which one do i promote
and ultimately as parents which one are
you going to put your kids into
so hopefully this gives you a little
indication from my experiences
that we really need to focus on
athletics as a process
for players to develop personality if we
go back to the beginning of why you put
your kids
into sports in the first place then it’s
going to make the parents and the
coaches and the adults in the room
it’s going to give them a better
perspective on why we do use sports to
be one
thank you