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chelseaweimann

How Many More Kids Will We Lose To Poor Coaching, And Who's Really

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Kids love to run, to play, and to just have fun in general, so why is the youth sports drop out rate at a staggering 60%? Some may argue that the children who quit lack discipline, no drive to advance and therefore lose interest. What these critics fail to acknowledge is the fact that less than 20% of coaches receive adequate training and in more cases than not, the coach is what drives the kid away from the sport. What good is a coach who was never educated on the delicate aspects of communication, development, and leadership? An individual may know everything there is to know about a sport, but the real challenge is transferring their knowledge in an effective manner to their developing athletes.
There a very few courses on the market that emphasize the importance of adequate coaching techniques, rather than the drills and skills of specific sports. Of the limited cognitively focused courses, an even smaller amount are offered at a reasonable price for a volunteer coach. The Fundamentals of Youth Sports program of the National Athletic Coaching Certification Center seems to be the only course that successfully provides beneficial material to coaches and continues to offer resources for a full year following course completion.
Youth sports are designed for our kids to enjoy, to learn from, and to grow from. It is vital that we provide the best environment for our kids, starting with creating good coaches for them to learn under. Parents should be confident that their child will only take away positive experiences from playing youth sports. The first step in providing everyone with the best experience is ensuring their leader is prepared, and coaching education is the only way to do so. The days of uneducated coaches need to become a memory from the past, and it's up to us to make that happen.
Chelsea Weimann
National Athletic Coaching Certification Center
Chelsea.Weimann@naccc.info

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I know this is just a veiled-marketing post to shill for online courses, but I think the subject is an important one, even if I disagree with the premise that the 60% dropout rate is due to coaches not being trained. Like most everything, I think there are some good coaches, some bad coaches, and a whole lot of average coaches. And while it's certainly true that every coach can improve himself/herself in some respect, I think this post conveniently overlooks an enormous cultural shift that appears to have happened in the last 20-30 years.

Among parents, there's a level of narcissism and "child-worship" that didn't broadly exist 30 years ago. And among kids -nearly 1/3 of whom are overweight or obese- there's a level of entitlement, self-indulgence and instant gratification that also didn't broadly exist 30 years ago.

I don't know a more perfect storm for undermining the best things about coaching and youth sports than the above combination. In today's world, even Mr. Miyagi looks out his window and sees nothing but unwaxed cars. That's because Daniel-san went home to play Xbox and post selfies on Facebook.

Oh no, wait. That was Mom. And it wasn't selfies she posted- it was 307 instagram photos and 47 videos of Daniel scoring touchdowns in pee wee football.

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Chelsea,

Usually I would remove this post from the boards as I agree with whiskey that this is just a promo for your site, but I do believe that we have issues in youth sports with the amount of money that is thrown around and the focus becoming only about winning no matter what age.

I disagree with you on a couple of points.

1.) It's not only because of poorly prepared coaches. I agree with Whiskey in that this issues is coming more from the parents losing their perspective on what youth sports is about. They want to win and they think their child is going to be the next all-star professional athlete.

2.) The Positive Coaching Alliance has been around for years and they offer low cost training for youth sports organizations.

I would love to hear more about what you all offer and what your take is on how to fix the problems in youth sports.

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Disappointing that there has not been any response from Chelsea. Which is kind of another issue with youth sports. Someone is always trying to make money off youth sports parents.

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