SCORE Book Series
What role will you play in improving the sportsmanship environment surrounding youth sports?
Things have changed in youth sports
Kids are trying to tell us they don’t like being treated like a commodity anymore. Putting a first grader on a traveling team so they can begin preparing for their varsity season twelve years down the road is absurd. Does everything have to be organized? Does everything have to be tournament-related? What happened to the driveway time? What happened to good old-fashioned 1-on-1 or 2-on-2 games on the playground? Where have all the pick-up baseball games gone that used to be played in the back field or schoolyard with no adults present?
We must stop putting unrealistic expectations on our kids and let them enjoy the journey. We have to end the anointing of our children as being the next 5-star prospect or prodigy. Our children want stability, consistency and loyalty – exactly what a dog provides. They want coaches who care enough to catch them smoking on a bridge and help them get involved in something productive. They want parents, not just their pets, who will love them unconditionally, like our Lord and Savior Jesus does with us. They want a stress-free environment they can trust, like sports used to be until parents and adults, in general, goofed it up. The best part is we can fix it too, and we won’t have to pretend to wag our tail like a dog.
The SCORE book series can help us regain what we’ve lost…
“Every athlete exercises self-control in all things.”
1 Corinthians 9:25 (ESV)
Book One Now Available!
SCORE: A Guide to Supporting and Instilling Exceptional Sportsmanship
For: Parent/Grandparent/Adult Influencer
My father introduced me to sports at a young age. He wasn’t trying to groom the next Lew Alcindor or Jerry West. He was simply trying to provide me with a fun activity to experience. This quality time evolved into a love for the purity of sports, as I was taught sportsmanship and fair play, qualities that aren’t always present in today’s me-first world of tremendous salaries and intense competition.
For today’s parents of young athletes, there are some simple principles that will help smooth out the sports parent journey. Especially at a younger age, our goal should be for the kids to have enough fun to want to come back the next year. Kids will develop confidence through wins and will be challenged through losses – if they’re having fun.
Book one in the SCORE series walks through these principles for parents in detail. Order yours now!
Purchase Your Copy On Amazon →
Book Two Coming in 2024!
SCORE: Inspiring Youth Coaches to Provide Respectful and Encouraging Support
For: Coaches and Youth Developers
Aside from a child’s parents, grandparents, or adult influencers, there is only one person in youth sports who is more important – a child’s coach. Based on the emphasis placed on sports in today’s society, this is an extremely vital person in their life. An individual can go a long way in determining whether a child will pursue sports in the future. These coaches have opportunities to provide positive, worthwhile, long-lasting experiences, or potentially scar kids for life.
This second book in the series is for coaches and youth developers, that when they lead the right way, organized sports can be a great environment for kids to learn decision-making skills. Good decision making is a complex process that sometimes takes years to master. Are coaches given enough time with their programs to help kids develop proper decision-making fundamentals? Do coaches have enough patience to wait for kids to develop great decision-making skills? Better yet, do parents have enough patience to allow coaches to teach the players proper decision-making, or must they win now?
Because coaches must win now – or lose their jobs, coaches feel compelled to micromanage their players in order to maximize winning opportunities. As a result, players are told just about everything at every stage of a contest, so they don’t have to think. The result is generations of players not knowing how to react on their feet, despite this important mental aspect of sports being paramount in teaching great lessons for life. Unfortunately, this micromanagement not only hurts development as players and thinkers, it’s taking away the fun of sports. Even so, kids get recruited to universities, high schools and even youth programs, to play the games they love. They want these environments to be consistent and safe so all they have to worry about is participating.
So, make the experience fun! Take pride in all the kids wanting to come back next season – the talented and untalented. If youth coaches truly focus on helping kids, it can be one of the most enjoyable experiences ever, and you’ll be rewarded by the thousands of smiles you help create.
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