David Kittner (a/k/a Youth Fitness Guy): Adults in Youth Sports Need To Always Remember It's For The Kids

Submitted by June Is Sports Dads Month on Sun, 06/24/2012 - 17:28. | comments

Editors Note: This blog is part of a special series on dads which originally ran in 2012. Because it is timeless we are sharing it again.

A sports dad, coach, and longtime youth fitness instructor thinks the adults involved in youth sports, including league administrators, coaches and parents, need an attitude adjustment: to remember, first and foremost, that the game is for the kids.

Sports Parents Asking Tough Questions: Are They Troublemakers?

Submitted by Brooke de Lench on Mon, 03/19/2012 - 15:08. | comments

This past weekend, the Hey Coach Tony show on a local Connecticut radio station devoted an entire hour to discussing one of MomsTeam's most popular articles: the one listing questions to ask youth sports coaches at the pre-season meeting with parents.

In case you don't know about Coach Tony, he is what I would call a "guy's guy": a tough-talking "shock jock"-type of radio host who tends to shoot from the hip, and with a reputation for disdaining political correctness and for using outdated terms for people he doesn't like (I cringed while listening to an earlier show when he used the word "retarded" and "retard' more than a dozen times to describe a person he did not care for).

This past weekend, the Hey Coach Tony show on ESPN Radio devoted an entire hour to discussing one of MomsTeam's most popular articles: the one listing questions for parents to ask at a pre-season meeting. Particularly instructive was the way he chose to end his show: with an email from a listener saying that parents who ask questions will be labeled as troublemakers.

What Life Lessons To Teach Is Coach's Choice

Submitted by Hal Tearse on Fri, 08/05/2011 - 01:00. | comments

There are tens of thousands of well-meaning coaches in youth and high school athletics/activites across this nation. Being placed in a position of influence and power over young people, however, requires - to borrow from the Hippocratic oath - that coaches first do no harm, and hopefully do some good. Unfortunately, the sad fact is that many will be remembered by their players for all the wrong reasons.

Being placed in a position of influence and power over young people
requires - to borrow from the Hippocratic oath - that coaches first do
no harm, and hopefully do some good. Whether to teach positive or negative life lessons is the coach's choice.

win-at-all-costs