We have to Redefine winning in Youth Sports.
Winning today means being on the best team – it should mean being the best teammate for what the team needs
Winning today means being on the starting roster no matter what- it should mean you earned your spot on the starting roster
Winning today means that you took home a trophy/medal/award, it should mean you stretched yourself further than you thought possible, and you learned from it, win lose or draw.
Winning needs a redefinition, and parents need a constant reminder of what winning in youth sports really is.
It’s about LEARNING, everything is about learning and growing and being better than YOU were yesterday. None of this matters, and when it does matter it still really doesn’t matter. It’s sports. If you think winning anything as a 9-year-old 12-year-old even an 18-year-old matters your nuts.
Winning may be a state of mind but no one is going to win everything.
Remember none of us will make it out of here alive.
Process and mastery should be the state of mind.
Everyone wants their kid to be this ‘phenom’ who magically makes their way to play professional sports.
How do kids make it to professional sports? First off in many cases they are far superior than others naturally… and second, THEY NEVER QUIT. If most parents took a few minutes to research pro athletes and what their childhood and teen years looked like, and searched for the real ‘Secret Sauce’ they’d find that it came down to a deep drive and innate desire to work as hard as possible to be the best.
And they understood that it was a process with peaks and valleys, but ultimately, they controlled how much work they had to put in.
The ones that make it very far, in anything, are outliers. They are not normal.
And it’s not because their parents made them be that way, it’s because they showed them how to be an outlier through their actions, what you are as a parent is more important that what you do (but what you do has a lot to do with what you are).
Secondly, they wanted to put the work in. They understand that mastery takes time, and it’s doing the BORING stuff on a consistent basis that will make the difference.
Steph Curry is the best shooter in the league, possibly of all time. Michael Jordan was not the best player when he entered college, he was great, but his dedication, drive and willingness to learn from every aspect of the game, from a great coach who pushed and expected the very best out of his players, was what propelled him to greatness over over the next few years.
Not because his mom wrote the coach a scathing note to the coach that he was not starting, getting enough playing time, or playing the position he was made to play and has been practicing for.
When did parents change to become their kids sports agent?
What are our kids being taught when we critique the ref for making bad calls? What does a kid learn when we point out that ‘Jimmy on the other side of defense should have been in position’?
What are our kids learning from having a tough conversation on the ride home, as an 8 year old, because their team lost??
Parents today mean well, but they are pointing in the wrong direction.
The direction should be towards mastery of a process, and fun.
Without fun, kids don’t want to do the work. And without learning mastery of a process, what are they really taking away from the sport experience?
Winning in sports for kids should be about:
- Learning that with preparation, practice and repetition, you can learn new skills
- When you’re working for the good of a team you can do more than you can as an individual
- Respect and status on a team/group is earned, not negotiated.
- Improvement every day, win lose or draw, is more important than winning.
When our post game conversations revolve around these topics EVERYONE will have a much healthier relationship with sports.