All Articles by Brooke de Lench

During a college lacrosse game, I stepped into a hole on a poorly maintained field, tearing my ACL and the menial meniscus cartilage in my right knee. My knee was so badly damaged it required two surgeries and months of casts and rehabilitation. I never played lacrosse again. If someone had taken a few moments to check the field before the game began, I probably would never have been injured.

Several years ago, I started a travel soccer club after our triplet sons, who had been on an undefeated U 12 (under 12) travel soccer team in the Massachusetts town where we live, were not offered the chance to continue playing travel soccer that fall when they moved up to U-14. My immediate goal was to give them, and about sixty other kids who were also cut from the existing program, a chance to keep playing travel soccer.

There are between 450,000 and 600,000 soccer goals in the United States. Many are unsafe because they are unstable and either unanchored or not correctly anchored or counterbalanced.

Soccer was the only sport that actually grew in total participation during the 1990s, enjoying its greatest growth in high schools and community leagues according to the Sporting Goods Manufacturers Association (SGMA).

Goalies suffer a disproportionate number of injuries compared to those playing other positions. The American Journal of Sports Medicine reported in 1995 that, even though goalies comprise only six percent of soccer players, they suffer nineteen percent of all soccer injuries. When a player collides with the post of a heavy, stationary goal post, the player absorbs all of the impact of the collision.

The Games Based Approach differs from more conventional methods of instruction, characterized by lining up and standing around, which relies on repetition. With the Games Based Approach to teaching sports, all aspects of the sport, from the basic skills to more technical moves and strategies, are taught in the context of fun, yet instructive, games. Players practice skills with creative exercises.

No matter how talented your child may be, there are going to days when he doesn't play his best, or when, despite his best effort, his team loses. How you manage both the ups, and the inevitable downs, will play a large role in whether your child has a successful youth sports experience.