Getting Kids Started Off Right: The Foundations Of Championship Athletes

The Little League World Series is now again upon us, so it got me to thinking about my experience as a youth coach and what I have seen during my experiences with youth sports.

For those of us ex-high school jocks out there, communities across the country are hurting to find help in coaching youth sports.  Youth sports form the foundation for our local high school athletics, area college athletics, and eventually professional athletics for the lucky.  It is one of the most fulfilling services one can give back to their community, yet is often times done in very crazy ways that do more harm than help.

The following suggestions are just a few tips to use if you decide to go down the road of coaching a youth sport.  My examples will mostly be from baseball because I coach little league, but remember this stuff applies to children playing any sport.

1.  Play the sport

It isn't necessary to have played a sport to coach it, but to develop a player, it is fundamentally important to have played the sport.  Having played the sport, you have an instant credibility.  It is clear to the kid that you know you are doing.  Sometimes this is a major obstacle.

2.  Do not be a parent of a kid on the team

Some people may say, "What's the harm in that?"  There is actually sizable harm in that (none of it however is intentional). 

The obvious one is preferential treatment.  You are more inclined to keep your kid in when it comes to substitutions or give them the more important jobs.

Another obvious one is reverse preferential treatment.  In order to combat claims of preferential treatment, you always take your kid out on substitutions.  This isn't fair to the kid.

There is also the notion of a conflicting perspective.  Everyone has seen the parents out there that want their kids to win in athletics so they can brag.  It's the competitive nature in all of us.  It reminds us of when we were out on the field doing some remarkable things.  This has the potential to shift a coach's focus from individual success through development to team success through winning.  This is a step that can't happen.

Put yourself in your kids shoes, and you find another problem:  having to impress.  Kids put themselves under an enormous amount of pressure in athletic contests.  For example, in my second year of coaching, my best all around player came up with his team down a run with two outs in the final inning in a pitch count league (each kid gets 7 pitches from the coach).  He got all the way to the last pitch and fought off what was an impossible pitch to hit foul.  He went back to the dugout after striking out, shook the other team's hands, came back to the dugout and just sat in the corner crying.  Why?  He thought he had let his team down.  That coach wasn't even his parent...it was me.  Picture if that was his mom or dad and how that kid would have felt.  It wasn't just his team he let down, he just let down his parent.  This isn't just in games.  Every single thing they will do during that season carries the added weight that their parent is watching over them and scrutinizing what they do.  It is something they can't escape and is very counter-productive.

A degree of separation is the best thing in the world for a coach.  It takes pressure off the kid immediately.

3.  Psychology matters

Granted we are not all psychologists, but if you think back on how it was when you played, there are some things you can figure out.  The best example of this is the old adage about "don't think about it, just do it."  This past season, I coached a team with another man in town.  He believed that all skills in the game could be used with a cookie cutter approach (the same skill the same way for everyone).  Anyone who has played a sport for long enough will realize very quickly that this is not the case.  What he did was to break down the pitching motion into 6 steps, so that the kids could count down from 6 and complete the delivery.  Mechanically, completely sound information.  If you did the six steps in order, you would throw around the plate.  One thing that has been learned in neuro-science concerns the ability of anyone to reproduce a physical skill on numerous occasions.  The more you think about something, the less likely you are to reproduce it, specifically if you think about it step by step, precisely what this coach had placed upon the kid.  Once instructed, the kid couldn't throw strikes any more, the exact opposite of the desired effect.

4.  Let the kids make some decisions

When the kids make some of the decisions for the team, they feel ownership for the team, thus they will give everything they can for it.  Let the team make most of their rules, then chime in with other things that need to be there.  The rules are much more likely to be recognized and followed.

5.  Look ahead

One of the major mistakes that is almost always made in youth sports is treating the kid by their current body type.  Let me give an example from basketball.  While I was growing up and playing basketball, I was the largest kid in my school.  Obviously, this meant I was going to be a highly effective and efficient player in the post.  I turned out to be one at the time.  As I got older and moved on to high school, I didn't grow.  I was left with big man skills and a guard's body.  I had to learn in high school how to be an effective ball-handler and shooter as opposed to being a post-up player and a rebounder.  This set me back significantly.  I had not been taught enough how to be a guard at a young age.  Take the time to teach every kid all the skills their sport requires.  The runt of the team may turn out to be the giant some day.

6.  Success

Youth sports ultimately are about success.  Most people translate this to winning games.  You can't do that.  Youth sports are about success in personal achievement and skill development.  These are fundamentally different.  The mission is to develop useful players primarily for your high school.  The example I like to use here is from a professional organization, the Los Angeles Angels of Anaheim.  I call it the Scoscia System or the Angel Way.  Every player that comes through the farm system of the Los Angeles Angels of Anaheim is instructed in every single skill for every single situation.  They are expected to come to the big club with the ability to do anything on a baseball field (with the exception of pitching and catching).  Clean-up hitters are forced to lay down bunts and hit to the right side to move runners along.  Speedsters are forced to hit fly balls to score runners from third base.  Infielders are required to play all infield positions (a la Chone Figgins).  It is no small secret that the Angels are one of the top teams in the majors year in and year out.  The same thing is relevant in youth sports.  Develop the skills (give incentive for success in the skills), and you will build a successful pipeline for your local high school, breeding great success.

Hopefully these tips can be found worthwhile.  Please feel free to edit this article by adding additional tips to the list.