Sharing A Child's Sports Experience: A Gift For Parents

Submitted by Tim Twellman on Mon, 05/21/2012 - 13:57. | comments

Have you ever taken the time to sit back and really think how fortunate you are as a parent to be able to share your child’s athletic experiences with them? Do you appreciate how such moments can actually bring the family together? Do you know just how excited your kids get knowing that we are watching them play?

I know that, when you are going through the experience, it is sometimes hard to stop to realize just how fortunate you are to be given these years with your kids.

Someday you will look back at these years, and hopefully in a positive way. I know I have.

As sports parents, it is important to slow down long enough from the whirlwind of raising kids to realize just how lucky we are to be able to share with our children the gift of athletics.

Hal Tearse

Communicate, Communicate, Communicate

Submitted by Hal Tearse on Tue, 06/14/2011 - 03:03. | comments

I was visiting recently with a friend who was the assistant coach on a local high school team the past several years. The head coach had been under great pressure from the parents of the players for many years, but it had intensified the past year.

He told me that no matter the quality of the coach, nobody should go through what the head coach had to endure with the result that, after 9 years, the head coach was taking a leave of abscense for a year. I agreed with him, but, as I thought more, I realized that much of the blame really fell on the coach. He is not a good communicator and manager of people. He is passionate about the sport, studies the game like no other coach, but yet he failed to sell his vision and program to the parents and players.

Youth Sports Heroes of the Month: Armando Galarraga (Cumana, Venezuela) and Jim Joyce (Beaverton, Oregon)

At Detroit's Comerica Park on the night of June 2, 2010, the nationally televised Detroit Tigers-Cleveland Indians game offered children - indeed, Americans of all ages - enduring lessons in compassion and personal responsibility. The teachers were a pitcher, Armando Galarraga, and an umpire, Jim Joyce, improbably thrust into the limelight after years in relative obscurity, and their dignity and grace created a "teaching opportunity" for parents, teachers and coaches who seek to shape children's values through sports.

Brooke de Lench

Indiana Teen Unfairly Kicked Off Basketball Team Because Of Length Of His Hair

Submitted by Brooke de Lench on Mon, 01/10/2011 - 17:10. | comments

Last October, 14-year-old Austin Hayden earned a place on his Greensburg, Indiana middle school boys' basketball team. A week later, he was told he could no longer be a member of the team after refusing to cut his hair (which was long, but not long enough to pull into a pony-tail) to comply with the coach's policy, which required that his hair be above his collar and ears.

2010 Top Five Youth Sports Heroes Reflect Adults' Positive Impact

A 2010 Reuters News/Ipsos poll caused a stir by concluding that parents in the United States are the world's worst behaved parents at children's sports contests. Sixty percent of adults who attend kids' games have seen parents verbally or physically abuse coaches or officials, a higher percentage than in any of the 21 other nations polled. Nationally-recognized youth sports expert and longtime coach, Douglas E. Abrams, believes the poll seriously distorts the state of youth sports in America.

Parents