In an effort to further demonstrate this idea of Personal Ownership and Responsibility in Creating Athletic Success let me also relay to you a true event that occurred while watching my own kid play soccer on their high school team. It is customary for me to sit fairly quietly during games and just watch, giving only positive support when good shots, passes, or plays take place.

About mid-way through the game, a pass was made to a player nearing the goal, that player settled the ball and promptly took a shot that went pretty wide right of the target. The player’s parent was sitting in the bleachers in front of me and showed a slight level of disappointment but nothing out of the ordinary. A little while later the same thing occurred, only this time the shot went well over the goal post. A little more emphatic was the disgust, but again nothing that anyone could really hear unless you were sitting right there. It was not too long after that, the same player took a third shot that was, again, far off the mark.

Now I am not sure whether it was the fact that my kid was a senior captain and had played on the varsity team all four years or that this parent knew I was a teacher and had coached sports at the high school level or something else, but after that missed shot, the parent turned directly toward me and stated that the coach needs to spend more time with the team practicing shooting, and that their kid was much better at putting shots on goal during the club season. My response was simple and came directly from the principle concept I have been discussing in this post. I replied, “If an athlete is not happy with the amount of practice time spent on shooting and they feel they need more focused time on this skill, why don’t they take a ball and train this skill on their own after practice is over?” The parent looked at me for a moment or two, giving no response, and then turned back to watch the rest of the game.

My hope was that this parent understood the meaning behind my comment of encouraging their young athlete to take responsibility for making themselves better rather than leaving it up to someone else. You see, to me it was really irrelevant whether the coach spent time on shooting or not. I did not feel that my job as a parent of an athlete on the team was to try and evaluate what the team’s training needs were. I am only there to support and encourage, not to criticize and second guess. In addition, I have no idea how much time the coach spends on shooting, whether he feels he has other more important priorities for practice at this stage of the season (especially since practice time is governed by the amount of daylight), or whether he spends half the practice on this skill. And even if I knew that information and did not agree with what was being done at practice, I am extremely reluctant to criticize another coach’s training. Nothing positive will come out of doing that, plus, who is to say I am right? I learned a long time ago that there is almost always more than one right way to accomplish something and what might work best for me may not work best for someone else. So, I saw my job as a parent of a daughter on this team as one of support and encouragement—that is it. (In fact, I have a standing rule for myself, unless what the coach is doing endangers the health and safety of my child, it is up to my child to work out the issue they are having. Find a way, I always say!)

I am under the firm belief that it is this attitude of taking Personal Ownership and Responsibility in Creating Athletic Success that allows athletes, and teams, to reach levels of success others only dream of. That when one adopts this concept as part of their foundational belief system, doors of further opportunity open up for them, and more control over what happens to them becomes theirs to decide. As I have said before in other blog posts, that is when the impossible becomes possible.

There was a time when I assumed that my strong belief in this principle developed through the adversity I faced in the high school athletic experience I mentioned briefly in a previous blog post From the Athletes Perspective (http://www.momsteam.com/node/1290, http://becomingatruechampion.blogspot.com/2008/06/from-athletes-perspect...). However, as we all grow older, and hopefully wiser, we start to reflect on the many happenings that occur throughout our life. The same is true for me, and I came to realize that it was actually my father who had planted the seed for this idea of personal ownership and responsibility. The athletic experience I had in high school was merely a situation for further growth of this seed that had been planted much earlier.

One day, when I was only about 5 years old, I remember coming in the house in tears to complain to my father that some bigger boys (of my own age) were picking on me. My dad was in the bathroom shaving as he listened to me babble through tears my complaint. Once I had finished my tearful jabber, and sympathetic requests for him to come out and take care of these guys for me, he turned to me and said “Gee, Kirk that’s terrible, what are YOU going to do about that?” I was completely taken aback by his response (since I fully expected him to come out with me) and distinctly remember, even at 5, thinking about the expectation that my father trusts and expects me to take care of this myself. I think it was at that moment that I realized, as well as a 5 year old can, that if I did not like something or wanted something, that the responsibility for taking the action needed was mine. To be completely honest, I don’t even remember what I did about the “bullies” down the block, but I most certainly remember this situation and the feelings of empowerment it left me with. It is so funny how clear some memories of early childhood experiences can be while others are just fleeting moments in time that disappear forever. This particular one certainly had an impact.

My purpose in telling that story is just to show how the little seeds of personal responsibility can be sown at fairly young ages. The situation does not have to be as drastic as the one I experienced. In fact, any situation where it is safe for a child to engage in personal ownership, and be expected to do this with the trust and confidence of his or her parents, can help support the belief in oneself of Personal Ownership and Responsibility for Creating Athletic Success, or any success for that matter.

Kirk Mango
Becoming a True Champion

Much of what I discuss in my blog and in my book Becoming a True Champion, centers on the teenage athlete (up to any age) and the perspective they should take in order to gain what they could out of their athletic experiences. Through my years as high school teacher and coach, I have come to the conclusion that the more responsibility an athlete takes for the things they would like to achieve, the more control they have over the possibility of accomplishing what they want. It is this type of attitude that makes the seemingly impossible become possible.

The strong foundation for my attitude on the concept of the athlete’s perspective grew out of a seed planted long ago gaining fruition through a life-changing occurrence in which the direction of my life changed, or actually gained direction, based on a very inspirational experience I had as an athlete in high school. It is what I learned through that experience (an epiphany of sorts), in combination with my educational, teaching, and coaching background, that has helped to create my focus from the “athlete’s perspective.”

It is commonly understood that when children are younger their parents, coaches, teachers and other adults in their life play a very important, or essential, role in creating a healthy developmental environment for kids and, in the context of this blog, young athletes. The choices we make and parameters we set, at the younger ages, help determine the foundations from which they make their own decisions and set their own parameters. (At least that is our hope). However, there comes a point in time when children become adolescents and young adults, full of their own desire to assert their own uniqueness. It is during this time that adult influence seems to have much less impact. That is not to say that creating a healthy environment is not still of high priority and importance, or that still setting appropriate parameters is any less significant, just that a definite shift of assertiveness to making one’s own decisions and choices takes place in those pre-teen and teen years. This is no less true for kids involved in sports, and, in essence, it is the choices the young athlete makes themselves (on their own) that will become the essential piece to whether they gain the intrinsic values available through their sports experiences and/or achieve a solid understanding of what “true” success is really all about.

In other words, no matter how good a parent, coach, or program is it will be the choices that the individual athlete makes that will determine the successfulness of that individual athlete. It is not that the guiding influences mentioned above are of little importance, “actually, many people contribute to the success of any sport or athletic activity, whether it is a team or individual sport. So, of course, coaching, parental support and good programs are important factors. But it needs to be said more loudly and clearly that the importance of these factors is still secondary to the role young athletes themselves must play in creating their own success” (excerpt from Becoming a True Champion).

It is for this reason, in addition to the experiences I have had involving my own athletic, coaching, and teaching career and watching my own two daughters struggle through the adversity of their athletic careers (from youth through college) that I have centered my energy and focus on the perspective of the athlete. And not only for the purpose of helping the athlete better understand their role and responsibility in their own athletic success but also, and just as important, to help parents better understand this perspective so as to aid in supporting personal ownership for this in their young athlete.

With the positive influences that MomsTeam is bringing to the current youth sports environment, in combination with teaching young athletes how they can succeed regardless of the environmental “cards” they’ve been dealt, “making a difference” for young sports enthusiasts becomes more reality than just possibility.

This brings me to my next blog article where I will discuss in more detail the idea of personal ownership and responsibility in creating success and why it is so important to the success of young teen athletes.

Kirk Mango

Becoming a True Champion

Youth sports participation today has become more popular than ever. It is estimated that approximately 10 million high school age students participate in extracurricular athletic programs in the United States. If you take into account all sports participants from age 6 to 18 years of age, the number more than triples to approximately 32 million as reported by the National Council of Youth Sports (NCYS) in their 2000 census. And based on current trends, it is more than likely that these numbers will not be decreasing anytime soon.

Along with this increase in popularity has come a slew of articles discussing a variety of issues in youth sports, not the least of which centers on the loss of “fun” in sports participation for kids. You would be hard pressed to find any information (whether in a book, on the internet, or in your local newspaper) raising concerns over youth sports involvement that doesn’t mention the word fun somewhere, at least from the perspective of “loss of” or “need for” it. What I find most interesting is that few, if any, make an attempt to define what fun really means in sports. It is simply taken for granted that if it is not fun, it is not good, and if it is fun, it is. However, this leaves me with two more pressing questions, what does having “fun” really mean when it comes to sports participation and where does this “fun” come from?

These very questions draw my attention to several past comments made to me over the years by parents of, predominantly, collegiate athletes. Many of these interpretations, based mostly on their kid's experience, centered on the idea that sports (especially college sports) for their competing athlete had become like a job to them. That the time and effort they were, or had been, putting in had literally become “work”, and not the term work as in extra effort but work as in occupation. Basically, that playing sports for their young adults was not fun anymore. Even some college athletes (or their former high school coaches) that I have personally spoken to echo similar complaints. Some express their current dissatisfaction with their college sports experience, others leave college sports behind before their eligibility ends, and still others decide to never play their sport again. All because it is not fun anymore.

I can distinctly remember not being able to relate to these statements and being perplexed and confused by them. It was just so different for me. When I look back at my own experience as a high school and collegiate athlete, those types of thoughts never entered my mind. Sure I remember working hard and forcing myself to train and condition (my conditioning was extensive) at intense levels, and with high expectations, but I cannot remember one time where I felt like what I was doing was like a job, and I spent a lot of hours in the gym. I'd say around 5 hours a day 6 days a week. If it was possible, I would have continued 4 more years of collegiate competition, and the training that went with it.

For some reason, my perspective (or frame of reference) was completely different. I just never looked at my experience in the manner that the earlier examples demonstrate. So the big question then becomes, what made the difference in my perspective versus theirs?

Before I answer this, at least from my vantage point, let me talk a little bit about what I think makes sports fun to play. For younger participants, the key word is the last word used in my previous sentence “play.” That is what kids like to do, and that is what I liked to do, just play the game. You ask younger elementary school kids what their favorite class is and most will say physical education (or recess), at least that is the impression you get when you watch them in a physical education class at that age level. To them, just playing the game for the sake of playing is fun.

At some point, and I do not know exactly when this happens or the best time for it to happen (however, I do think this is very individual in nature), the competitive aspects of sports will become more important to an athletic child. Just playing the game will, and should, always be part of the fun in sports (it is part of developing and deepening a “love for the game”) but sooner or later a young competitive athlete themselves will want to become better or good at what they are doing, and they will derive less or more enjoyment out of playing sports based on their feelings about this. I know I did. In fact, I believe that where I learned to place my focus and what I decided was most important to me, with regard to competitive sports, had a great deal to do with my feelings about my own sports participation (not getting burned out or looking at it like a job), and in turn, any level of success I had.

There came a point in time (occurring when I developed those feelings of wanting to be good) that I started to place a higher level of importance on how good it felt to perform a skill well. I am not talking about the adulation one receives from others when hitting a home run in baseball, hitting an ace serve in tennis, or a spike in volleyball, but the actual positive internal feedback one gets from performing a skill at a higher level of competency than what one normally performs. For example, the sound and physical feeling one gets from the crack of the ball off the exact sweet spot of the bat in baseball knowing it was a good hit before it even leaves the bat, or the same feeling from a tennis serve as it comes off the sweet spot of the racquet, or the perfect approach, timing, technique and crushing of the ball on a spike in volleyball. These types of intrinsic feelings, for me, became so strong that they developed into the main focus of my training, and the fun behind why I competed. Don’t get me wrong, I loved to win and hated to lose; it was just that I placed a much higher priority on trying to master and perfect skills, and perform those skills in competition, than just winning the competition itself. I loved the feeling of moving and catching a tough ground ball right in the center pocket of my glove in my younger days of little league, and hitting a solid forehand or backhand in tennis executing the appropriate spin for the shot (one reason why I still play tennis), and performing a swinging movement in gymnastics without any wobble or extra swing in the still rings event. This was where I derived my enjoyment, or fun, from playing and competing in sports, and it is where I developed a true understanding of the intrinsic value behind my own sports participation. What this type of perspective did was allow me to enjoy my athletic experiences based solely on aspects that I controlled; they were intrinsic. I placed less importance on the win itself and more importance on the process, which, in turn, greatly increased my chances of reaching my potential.

This type of perception is a point of view that I do not see held by many and thus, is not stressed as a focus in youth sports today, and it should be. Younger athletes should be encouraged to take great pride on being able to accomplish, improve on, or master something today that they could not do yesterday. It should be of primary importance and take precedence over emphasis on any one win or competition. Doing so will place winning right where it should be, as an outcome of the efforts you put in, and allow young athletes to truly enjoy their sports experiences for years to come.

Photographs provided by: Richard M. Cook, Frank Angileri, and Bill Hois

Kirk Mango
Becoming a True Champion

In my last blog post The “FUN” in Sports Participation, I make reference to the large number of youngsters involved in sports using figures reported by the National Council of Youth Sports (NCYS) in their 2000 census. I state in the blog that these numbers, 32 million, are not likely to decrease in the future.

I recently came across an article in “Kids Sports” on CNN.com by Laura Hilgers that currently estimates this number of competitive youth sports participants to be somewhere around 41 million. On average, that is about a 1+ million per year increase over the last 8 years, very substantial to say the least. That is a lot of kids, and with that huge number of young participants comes the ability to either positively or negatively impact them through the athletic experiences they have. It is not something we, as a sports involved society, should take lightly. There are other highlights in the article that bring into better focus several of the positive aspects of competitive sports in addition to emphasizing the loss of perspective I have discussed in previous blogs. Ms. Hilgers, using Dr. Dan Gould’s (director of the Institute for the Study of Youth Sport at Michigan State University) expertise, also details the large amount of time it actually takes for any one athlete to master their sport and the pressure parents are putting on their kids to specialize and cram all this training in, in their “first two years.” The first two parts of this statement by Dr. Gould, the time it takes for mastery and specialization, are points I have heard many others allude to in the past.

At this point, I will not try to identify whether the hours spent in becoming an “expert” or specializing in any one sport are a good or bad thing, other than to state that both are very dependant on the situation and individual athlete. There are just too many important questions to be asked and answered (i.e. at what age, for what purpose, what is there to gain, what is there to lose, etc.) before any conclusion can be made. As a matter of fact, I don’t think anyone can or should dictate a global response to these two debatable ideas. These two ideas of hours spent for mastery and specialization, however, may be something I address in a future blog.

Ms. Hilgers’ article identifies several significant issues, on both sides of the coin, and presents information that helps broaden the perspective of understanding for anyone involved with kids and sports. It is another good read I would recommend.

http://www.cnn.com/2006/US/07/03/rise.kids.sports/index.html?iref=newssearch

By Laura Hilgers
Special to CNN.com

Kirk Mango
Becoming a True Champion