I was hired by the NFL in 1995 to address the worrisome decline in youth football participation. The remarkable progress we made during that tenure involved setting up a series of programs that not only attracted more kids to play football, but, more importantly, made the game safer to play.
sports
Three Things Female Athletes Can Do to Avoid a Season Ending ACL Tear
Female athletes should not be trained like their male counterparts. Their workouts should focus on improving range-of-motion and strengthening specific muscle groups—like glutes and hamstrings—during pre-season. What’s more, keeping up with such training throughout the regular season can dramatically reduce the risk of ACL injuries.
Sports Equipment for Your Home Coaching
With these six basic pieces of equipment, you can engage your kids in fun, challenging athletic training at home.
You Are Your Child’s First Coach—Freeing Your Child from Oppressive, Hyperorganized Sports
From the moment they are born, we guide our children along life’s wondrous, rocky path, shepherding them lovingly through the vulnerable early stages of their development. We help them navigate daily physical and emotional challenges and nurture and harbor them as they gradually gather the strength and skills to function on their own.
Is It Harmful for My Child to See So Much Sports Violence on Television?
What can I do about the alarming things my kids see while watching sports on television? The brutal one-on-one fights in NHL games. The baseball brawls. All the taunting and bad sportsmanship on display.
Fixing The American Athlete Podcast
The only way to change the youth sports paradigm in America is to influence coaches, parents and kids. They are the key stakeholders—if you’ll forgive the corporate speak.
Why Is My Young Athlete Always Bored?
At home my son Noah used to be able to find stuff to do to keep himself occupied, but since he’s been playing a lot of sports he gets bored so easily.
Is There Value to Free Play?
My gut tells me that unstructured and semistructured play is an important part of my kid’s growing up. The years go by so quickly!
A Team Pulls Together
The bottom line: These girls had missed the game-playing stage of play development because of their intense involvement in youth sports from an early age.
Are Organized Sports Eroding My Child’s Imagination?
Before he began playing organized sports, my seven-year-old had a really rich imagination. He seemed to be able to make sense of the world by working things out through play.