Youth paddling - A work in progress...

Take the journey.

Sometimes a journey starts with a single step, and sometimes it's a shove in the back.

Nine years ago, Joe Manns and I were the co-founders of the Rice Creek Boat Club. I came to my first USCA Nationals in Bristol, IN, met a bunch of people, and I got to race a couple of races. But mostly I was there in company of about 15 youth from the Rice Creek Boat Club (thanks for the shout-out, Jan). We made it to the subsequent Nationals in PA, WI and MI, but unfortunately we weren't seeing growth in the youth ranks. In 2011, we were invited to bring 4 of my best kayak athletes to a camp in Chula Vista to give sprint kayak a try. And at that point, I switched my entire focus to coaching Sprint.

The difference in turnout between sprint and marathon is pretty shocking. USCA Nationals is usually 10-25 kids of all ages (5-19). USAC/K Sprint Nationals is 300+ kids, with 12-15 year olds being the sweet spot. It's not unusual to have 30-40 13-14 yo boys, and 20-30 girls, lining up for sprints, Go to Canada, and you'll find 600 youth racing ICF canoes and kayaks in Halifax/Dartmouth alone!

Share the experience

Why the difference? It's not the training hours, it's the number of kids training. The development athletes (planning to go to Nationals) put in 6-8 hours a week in the summer, the elite (planning to make finals at Nationals) are putting in closer to 15-20, and in training of some kind year around. The serious difference is who they are training _with_. As much as most kids love their grandparents, training all the time with grandpa and his friends is not nearly as much fun as training with 10-20 of *your* friends.

Note I've been focusing on sprint here, but it also applies to marathon, or SUP, or touring. Our marathon group has ebbed and flowed, but it still revolves around the youth. Kids are the single best recruiting tool you can have. You, as adults, have to back that up with equipment and volunteers to help coach, drive, chaperon, fundraise, etc.

Burnout.

Another BIG reason. Take a look at the number of parents who have their little darlings scheduled from school-out to late bedtime with sports, sports camps, individual coaching, travel teams, And that's just for the 8 year olds!  The sports budget for a "typical" traveling team 8-10 year old is $6,000 - $15,000 per year! For hockey, dance, gymnastics or ice skating, it can be far more. The sad news is that by the time they are 12-15, most of these kids will be so burned out and injured that they *hate* the sport that mom/dad have invested their college education fund in pursuing. Oh, and the chance of actually getting a scholarship for those single sport athletes? - Nil.

Connections

Mostly, they do prefer to be connected, both to the digital world and to the oxygen breathing one. They like to watch their friends race, they like meeting other kids who do the same activity, and they like having the shared experience. The digital generation isn't disconnected from reality and buried in a game, they just interact differently than the gray-hairs do. Watch a group of kids after practice or after a race and they'll be actively on their phones with their friends across the country or even world, via snapchat, twitter, instagram or messenger, sharing their experience. Like as not, half of the people standing/sitting around with them are part of that experience.

Join a guild.

This year, as they have for the past few years, I'll be out with a group of 8-10 young athletes who are on the water at 6:00 AM 4-5 mornings a week, and back at 5:00 PM 4 days a week. They have a variety of reasons for being there, but mostly it's to belong, to strive, to excel. And mostly, they come because they know they will have friends out there with them, sharing the experience and also striving to improve. Norman Bellingham, past USOC Exec Director, and I think the last US athlete to wear Gold for sprint kayak (with Greg Barton) called it "Joining a guild" - a community of like minded people striving to improve at their craft, learning from each other, their 'guild masters' (coaches) and sharing their knowledge.

Learn the game.

Want to do something about kids racing? Find ways to help people like Steve Corlew get their club started up and racing. Find an old sprint boat or two and get a group of kids out to paddle. Need help or ideas? Yell. I'll be happy to help you find a club near you, or help get one started.

Multi-sport youth

In the past few days, I've read a number of articles and blog posts regarding why college football/basketball coaches like to see young athletes pursue more than one sport.  The reasons are numerous, but they really come down to better conditioned, more versatile and more engaged.  I'd add to that less jaded, more energetic about sport, and in general better rounded as people and students.  And I'll add my voice to the hum of coaches who firmly believe that single sport athletes are being led down the wrong path for life.

I just left a strength training workout for my kayak racing team - athletes ages 12-18.  These kids/athletes are all there solely because *they* want to be there, to get stronger for kayak racing, but also to be stronger in general and for their other sports.  All participate in multiple sports, including gymnastics, rock climbing, track and cross-country running and volleyball.  I'll add the Nordic skiers in a couple of weeks as their seasons end.

The challenge facing a coach in this kind of environment really isn't getting the athletes to take part, it's crafting a program that is complimentary - and respectful of - their current in-season sport.  That means that the volleyball player who had a tournament today and still wanted to come may not do her normal weights, or maybe skips out on something that engage overused muscles.  It also means programming around the rock climber who had a meet (yep, competitive climbing is a club sport outside the high school) might not do the same lifts.  It's all about working with the individual programs that are currently 'in season'.  I know the volleyball player's coach is happy with her progress - stronger, more leap, harder serve.

It requires being aware of the individual athletes, expecting them to communicate about their off-season activities, and as a sport outside the high school system, sometimes meeting with their AD to develop an understanding of what your sport is providing that's not available inside the system.

And it requires a *lot* of parents who may, or may not have grown up playing sports.  It's often easier to deal with the parent who didn't grow up playing sports through high school.  They have fewer preconceived notions about athlete development, and usually more concern about the roundness of their particular athlete.  Parents who grew up playing sports, particularly those who 'made varsity' are much more difficult to convince that the path [they've often forgotten] to success leads through being a well rounded athlete and person, not just a great sophomore playing football/soccer/hockey/whatever year around.

The 'year around sport' phenomenon is a recent one.  Most varsity athletes in past generations played 2 or 3 sports - linemen were often the 'field' part of track and field, and the 'skill' positions doubled down on the running events.  A lot depends on the region and sports at a particular school or region.  There certainly have been specific coaches who pushed the 'only my sport or the highway' mantra, but they were certainly fewer and farther apart.

There's a great blog post making the rounds right now about Urban Meyer's preference to recruit multi-sport athletes.  Since coming to Ohio State, Coach Meyer has shown a nearly 10-1 preference for multi-sport athletes. Is it possible this has something to do with winning a National Championship?

So the message for parents is simple - if your child wants to play several sports, please encourage them.  If they are committed to doing only one, still encourage them, but try to suggest other sports activities as a break, cross training, for injury prevention, or any other reason you can find (except perhaps that they should play it just because *you* did).

And in the end, what we really want to see are young athletes who are well-rounded, energized, and on a path to be fit for life.

~marsh

Coaching philosophy - LTAD

I read a friend's post on Facebook the other night about his daughter's tryout for volleyball.  My friend is one of the most positive people I know, and he was not at all 'up' about the process of team tryouts for middle school volleyball.  I agree.  As a society, we have hit a point where parents spend thousands a year (hockey - $2500-12,000/year) for their young athletic prodigies to attend sports camps, away tournaments and in some cases, specialization and position camps for team sports - IN ELEMENTARY SCHOOL!  Hockey, in particular, is a disease among Minnesota parents, but I know you can find the equivalent in most regions (like Texas and Football).

I'm certainly not saying that kids shouldn't play sports.  Far from it.  I'm talking about the idea that parents seem to expect kids have to become great at a sport while they are still in elementary school, make the regional travel team in middle school, and be on the college scouting reports by high school, winning that college scholarship and then being drafted to the pros or National team.

Sadly, many of the kids who specialize in a sport in elementary school won't be playing it when they exit high school, and most will have their (or their parent's) dreams crushed by those awful college scouts and coaches before they start college. Hopefully, they have a 'Plan B'...

There are lots of reasons for this tailing off process - career ending or cumulative injury, burnout, lack of athletic ability, even being on the wrong team at some point.  Lack of athletic ability often gets blamed on coaching, but in reality the opposite is often true - good coaching can make the most of poor talent, teach fundamental skills and take you all the way to a point where physical ability of other players 'catches up' as everyone else passes puberty and starts to mature into their bodies. Malcolm Gladwell talks about the blessing of having a January birthday in Outliers.  Kids born in January are more likely to be the oldest in their age group, grade, and will likely have more opportunities to do well in sports while still young simply because they *are* the best in their particular year.  Assuming of course they don't flame out...

Injury is another whole kettle of fish.  Football and Hockey players are 4-5 times more likely than other high school sports to incur concussions.  Other sports like soccer or basketball may also have career ending injuries from torn tendons and fractures.  And I'll rile some parents by this, but I believe competitive gymnastics is one of the *worst* in terms of injury and burnout.  Gymnastics injuries seem to be more hand/wrist and back, but the burnout toll... wow.  Not only burning out mentally from a high volume of workouts, competitions and pressure from parents and coaches (who generally have a financial stake in keeping kids coming), but also from pain and injury.  NOT exactly a ringing endorsement of the club machine.

And don't think that just because little Bart or Bettina is in climbing camp, running camp and power soccer camp plus canoeing and soccer practice 6 hours a day all summer means they avoid the issues of a single sport focus. Personally, I think this is throwing gasoline on the fire and then playing with matches - just increases the likelihood of major burnout or injury.

As I've become more involved in coaching and developing my own personal philosophy, I've become a big believer in the Long Term Athlete Development (LTAD).  The Canadian Sport for Life organization has a great description of this model, broken into seven stages, running from birth to early 20s.  The first two stages, encompassing ages 0-8or9 can be lumped into "Learning to Play", moving into "Learn to Train" and "Train to Compete" and "Training to Win".  The model spells out expectations and cautions for each age level in very common sense terms.

"Inappropriate or premature specialization can be detrimental to later stages of athlete development if the child is playing a late specialization sport. Premature specialization promotes one-sided development and increases the likelihood of injury and burnout." (Canadian Sport for Life)

The entire process is meant to remove the pressure of conformity, and sport specialization from younger children, allowing them to run, jump, climb rocks and trees, exposing kids to a broad range of activities without imposing leagues, traveling teams and competitive pressures to *most* kids, and hopefully setting them up for 'sport for life'.

This is not to say that for some young athletes who show particular prowess and drive at a fairly young age in a particular sport (like figure skating, gymnastics, and yes, even hockey) that leagues, meets and regular practice are not appropriate or encouraged.  They can be great activities - but make sure that the activity is right for the kid, not right for the parent.  It's one thing to for a girl who loves tumbling (a great class for all kids), is likely to only grow to 5'2" and has trim bodied parents to take up gymnastics and 'climb the ladder'.  It's another entirely for parents to insist that their son who is likely going to be very average size, average height and doesn't particularly *like* cold to go to hockey 4 times a week in hopes that he may make the traveling team like dad did.  Odds are by 15, he'll be burned out, beat up and hate skates.

In general, I'd like to suggest that up until age 8 or 9, most kids should be in mixed play - park/rec programs to expose them to many sports, riding bikes, skiing, paddling classes, swimming classes, tumbling, etc.  These are usually inexpensive and require little commitment in terms of time, travel or equipment.  9-12 can be more of the same, or focusing on 2-3 sports, but still not an all-encompassing effort to make the traveling team.  Kids who show a particular interest in a sport after this point can do so.  If their aptitude and size lend them to the potential of doing well, but their skills are less than their peers (since they haven't been doing the camps from age 5), NOW is the time to sign them up. The desire and maturity will help greatly to move them toward competitive levels with their peers.  And coaches *will* see the desire at the same time that their peers who have now been in sport for 10 years but aren't doing the same level of work may well be fading.

Again, there are exceptions to every 'rule'.  This post is intended to at least push some parents to think about what's best for their child, not what they'd like to see their child do.  I welcome dialog about this process.  It's something I feel applies to most sports and most kids, but maybe not to you/yours.

~marsh