The news last year that a Kentucky high school football coach was charged with reckless homicide in the heat-related death of 15-year-old Max Gilpin was not a shock to me.*

Hewas not the first youth sports coach to be charged with reckless homicide of a young athlete and, until we can get the word out to all sports parents and coaches about why football players are especially vulnerable to heat illness, the steps that can be taken to reduce those risks, including following a strict fluid replacement strategy, I am afraid he won't be the last. Sadly, even though heat-related illness is one of the most preventable of all youth sports injuries, players continue to die. In 2008, six players at the high school and college level died from heat-related illness, matching the average for the last several years.

The day after Max died, I received an e mail from a Kentucky dad in the same school league as Max to tell me what had happened and what had almost happened to his son practicing with full pads during some brutally hot days. He was asking permission to download a number of YouthSportsParents articles from the MomsTeam Hydration Safety Center to hand out to all of the coaches and parents, permission which, of course, I gladly granted.

Each summer for the past nine years MomsTeam has received hundreds of emails from parents complaining about coaches putting their children at risk of heat stroke by running practices when the NOAA heat index says that there is an elevated risk of heat illness, or worse, and by failing to take the frequent fluid breaks and other steps that are needed to protect them. Parents are at a loss of what to do or what to say, especially during summer try-outs.

Perhaps, it will take a football coach going to jail to bring increased awareness and finally get coaches to think twice about pushing their players too hard during pre-season practices in the sweltering heat of summer, some out of ignorance but many out of a misguided, macho belief that it toughens them up and that they need to learn to "take it like a man."

At some point, though, I am afraid the only way to really protect our kids from heat stroke is to pass legislation that mandates the steps that every coach must take to eliminate the risk and makes them criminally liable if they don't.

I have been researching and writing about youth sports for over fifteen years. Central to my work is to keep kids safe while participating in sports. Whenever I am interviewed by the media or while giving community talks I remind parents to remember that the three "H"s( Head, Heart and Hydration )are the key to preventing catastrophic injury or death in sports. To that end, MomsTeam has comprehensive safety information about concussions (head), cardiac safety (heart) and hydration.

I encourage you to visit the Health & Safety Channel on MomsTeam, to link to our site and to download our articles to give to your child's coach and to hand out to other parents on your child's team.

Together we can make sure that Max did not die in vain.

* The coach was later acquitted 

Which youth sport, golf or tennis, is gaining in popularity in recent years, and which is losing? You might be surprised to learn, given their overall public profiles, it is the number of youth tennis players that is up, with participation jumping 43% since 2000 , with the USTA's innovative QuickStart and No-Cut programs credited for the increase.

For years, I have been on a mission to change the culture of youth sports: to think about sports, not just as a place to showcase the gifted and talented but as a place where all children can begin a love affair with sports and physical exercise lasting a lifetime, instead of ending, as too often is the case, in early adolescence.

To grow a sport is actually pretty simple, if you implement a five-part strategy:

1. Shrink courts, fields and diamonds down to size for the youngest kids (this is something youth baseball and soccer have been doing for years, of course);

2. Give younger kids age-appropriate equipment with which to play; 

3. Eliminate cuts at the high school level;

4. Increase access by building more courts, fields and diamonds and use the "power of the permit" to give preference in using existing facilities to programs that are inclusive and child-centered; and

5. Bring women and mothers out of the bleachers and from behind the counter at the concession stands and on to the coaching sidelines and into the board room.

In other words, make sports more fun, more inclusive, more accessible and no longer a No Mom's Land.

Growing youth tennis: recipe for success

According to a recent article in The Wall Street Journal, it is formula that the United States Tennis Association (USTA), the folks in charge of tennis in this country, have used with great success to grow the sport of tennis. 

Putting a lie to the myth that kids' participation in tennis would rise and fall with the rankings of U.S. pros, the USTA has been able to increase the number of children age 6 to 17 playing tennis from 6.8 million to 9.5 million (43%) since 2000, according to the Sporting Goods Manufacturing Association.  To do it, the USTA basically followed my four-pronged strategy:

1. Grab kids early with the USTA QuickStart tennis program, an affordable ($500) and fun child-version of the game using foam balls and played on a "court" (gymnasium floor, parking lot, driveway) about one-fourth the size of a regulation court.

2. Keep high school kids playing with the USTA "no-cut" program in which, in return for discounted equipment and training help, participating high schools (3,000 at last count) agree to let every kid who wants to keep playing tennis practice with the full team, even if they don't get to play against other schools;

3. Maintain the interest of college players by supporting club and intramural co-ed tennis.  Of the 290,000 high school players who aren't able to make it on to college rosters, 40,000 are now playing club and intramural tennis, making it one of the fastest-growing club sports at the collegiate level; and 

4. Provide seed money for new or refurbished courts: The USTA has contributed $5 million over the past six years as part of a $50 million program that has built or re-built 2,600 courts across the country.

Again, notice the theme here: making tennis more fun, more inclusive, and more accessible to kids, teens, and young adults so that it becomes a sport that provides a lifetime of enjoyment. 

Youth golf: off course?

On the flip side of the coin, I also wasn't surprised to read in the same Journal article about the decline in the number of youth golfers.  

Despite programs such as The First Tee, the well-publicized national program aimed at introducing younger players to the sport, and the infusion of $65 million in grant money by the United States Golf Association, some of it specifically targeting increasing access to golf by youth golfers, the number of youth golfers (age 6 to 17) dropped 24% from 3.8 million to 2.9 million between 2005 and 2008.

The reason is obvious: unlike tennis, little has been done to make golf kid- and family-friendly.

• Regulation, 18-hole courses are way too long for kids (the Journal article put it best by posing the following question and answer: "Want to make an eight-year old cry? Tee up a ball for him on a 450-yard hole with a green surrounded by bunkers and tell him to hole out before the group waiting to tee off starts complaining to the course superintendent.")

• Most of the new courses being built are resort and premium courses, not accessible, affordable courses for kids and families.  While there are 492 more courses in the U.S. today compared to 2000, the number of id- and family-friendly 9-hole and par-3 courses have dropped and pitch-and-putt courses where kids and families "can hone their skills playing a mini-version of the game that doesn't involve putting through a windmill" are, sadly, few and far between.

Among the suggestions offered by those interviewed for the Journal article for growing youth golf:

• start kids out on the putting green, instead of the driving range, to build success (and a love of the game and self-esteem) with a shorter swing before progressing to a longer one;
• build more 9-hole and pitch-and-putt courses, and
• retrofit existing courses to include "mini-tee boxes" 130, 230 and 300 yards from every hole, so a family can play together.  

Again, notice the theme here: grow the sport by making it more fun, more inclusive, and more accessible to kids.

Lessons learned

As a lifelong golfer, it was sad to hear about the decline in the number of young golfers. But not only was I happy to hear about the USTA's success, but I was gratified to have played at least some small role in the new programs it has initiated to grow youth tennis.

In August 2007, nine months before the launch of the QuickStart program, I was asked by executives at the USTA to advise them on the roll-out of the new program. They had read my book, Home Team Advantage: The Critical Role of Mothers in Youth Sports, and thought I could help them on ways they could "avoid the problems that [some] of the national youth sports organizations have encountered over the years," including the conflicts between parents and coaches that had plagued many other youth sports organizations.  Hours of consulting time ultimately led the USTA to invite me to attend the 2007 US Open in Flushing Meadows, where I delivered a keynote address to USTA's Regional Directors who were charged with growing youth tennis by making the sport fun for kids to learn.

It thus comes as no surprise to me that USTA Youth Tennis has grown as fast as it has since the QuickStart program was launched close to three years ago.  They went to school on the mistakes so many national youth sports organizations have made, which have led to declines in their participation numbers, and followed my most important advice: critical to growth and success in youth sports participation is to value and include women's voices, not only as team parents but as coaches and administrators.

Bravo USTA! Game, set, match!

What is it like to be the parent of a gifted athlete? Last week I learned a little more when I attended a panel discussion hosted by the Cambridge Center for Adult Education (CCAE).

On the panel were Tom Brady Sr., father of New England Patriots quarterback, Tom, Tom Sr.'s daughter Nancy, a triathlete; and MomsTeam blogger and author of Minor League Mom, Pam Carey, and her son, Todd, who played seven seasons in the minor leagues for the Boston Red Sox.

Did either Tom, Sr. or Pam have any idea that their sons (Todd's brother, Tim, was also drafted by the Red Sox and played two seasons in the minors before hanging up his spikes) would ever make it to the big leagues. "You know they're good because they keep making it to the next level," remarked Todd and Tim's mom, Pam. "You just want them to have the skills to make the high school team."

Tom Brady agreed; he had no idea if Tom would even continue to play after a disappointing freshman year in high school. Tom was the backup freshman quarterback at his high school in San Mateo, California. "Tommy rarely made it off the bench, never threw a touchdown, and his team never even won a game that season," he said. But he loved football, so Tom Sr. did everything a parent could do to help his son make the most of his god-given abilities, hiring private coaches, sending him to football camps, and producing a recruiting video that Tom Jr. used to earn a scholarship from the University of Michigan.

After he got to Ann Arbor, Tom announced to his family that his goal was to someday be an elite quarterback in the NFL, even though, at the time, he was only the back -up quarterback for the Wolverines. Tom Sr. thought his son was dreaming, but he kept his doubts to himself. "It wasn't my place to limit my child or detract from his dreams. The rough world will do that," he told the audience that was eager to ask questions. "You don't limit their horizons because of your horizons. We got our chance. Now they get their chance."

Like Tom, Sr., Pam Carey never imagined her sons would get as far as getting drafted by the Red Sox and playing in the minor leagues.  Her most important job was to make sure her boys got a great education. "There are priorities in life," Carey told me over a cup of coffee before the talk, "one being education." Pam kept her sons on task, never allowing them to watch TV during the school week.

With a master's degree in education from Columbia, Pam was always involved in her sons' school and afterschool activities, including the Boy Scouts and music. She and her husband expected their sons to each bring home "A's." "Our expectations became their expectations and they expected certain things for themselves," she said of her sons.

Whatever they did as parents worked: Both ended up graduating from Ivy League schools, Tim from Dartmouth and Todd from Brown University, and went on to earn graduate degrees, Tim in Asian Studies and International Relations from the University of California at San Diego and Todd an MBA from Bryant University in Rhode Island.

Perhaps the most surprising answers of the night came in response to a question from the panel moderator: "You weren't like any of those crazy out-of-control parents, were you"? Tom, Sr. was quick to admit that, "Yes, yes. I was ... I was all over my kids' sports." (Tom Jr. has three older sisters who grew up being very involved in sports, especially softball). Pam, too, admitted that she was one of "those crazy hockey moms up in the stands being too loud and overly engaged."  But Todd was quick to point out that "we put an end to that right away." Although neither Tom, Sr. nor Pam seemed to me to be the pushy or aggressive type, it was clear that their total involvement in their kids' sports was pivotal to their success.

Pam said that, by the time her sons went off to college and then into the minors, she had learned to take a bit of a back seat and step back.  Even though she felt she could voice her opinion, she realized then that her role wasn't to be a critic when, one day, after critiquing Todd's play, he proceeded to tell her that she "was ill-informed and should just watch the game." It is good advice, she says, which she now shares with other parents, telling them that "there were coaches to do that. Your role is always that of a supporter, and once you leave that role, it's tough for the child to accept."

I will be writing more on the subject of parenting elite athletes in future blogs.  Is your son or daughter a gifted athlete?  Are you dreaming that your kids will one day become elite athletes? Do your kids share those dreams? What are you doing to help make those dreams a reality?

I would love to hear from you and share your stories with our viewers.

In the meantime, remember Pam Carey's advice: be a supporter, not a criticizer. 

Good news on the concussion safety front today from the National Federation of State High School Associations (NFHS) Wrestling Rules Committee and the NFHS Board of Directors.  Among the four rule changes it approved for the 2010-2011 season was one requiring that  wrestlers showing signs, symptoms or behaviors consistent with a concussion be removed immediately from the match and not allowed to return to competition until cleared by an appropriate health-care professional.

The new rule is a good one for four reasons. 

First, since the vast majority of concussions do not include a loss of consciousness, it jettisons the outdated rule that only required a wrestler to be removed from a contest if he was "apparently unconscious." 

Second, it continues to empower referees to remove athletes from competition if they exhibits signs of concussion, which is something I have been advocating for years that football referees be allowed to do.

Third, while the old rule required return-to-play clearance from a medical doctor, the new rule allows a wrestler to return to play after being cleared by "an appropriate health care professional," including, presumably a certified athletic trainer, who play a key role in concussion evaluation and management.

Fourth, the new concussion language is being placed in all NFHS rules books for the 2010-11 season, as well as the "NFHS Suggested Guidelines for Management of Concussion." 

On Saturday, March 27, the world observed the fourth annual Earth Hour, a global event started by the World Wildlife Fund. During Earth Hour, cities, towns and individual families from around the world were encouraged to turn off all non-essential lights from 8:30 to 9:30 p.m.  People in more than 92 countries participated in a global call to action for, and to demonstrate the urgency of, climate change. It was amazing to watch coverage on the Sunday Today show of all the cities that powered down their lights, from Paris to Prague.

Sitting quietly in a room lit only by candles I had a chance to ponder the impact on world energy consumption that all of us, acting as individuals, accomplished together.  It got me thinking about thinking outside the box to create change and how I could do the same thing to change youth sports, as MomsTeam have been doing since 2000. What could I suggest that individuals could do at the team level that might have an impact across the country?

The first idea that popped into my mind was my suggestion that coaches step out of the coaching box and let the kids themselves run a part of every sports practice.  In other words, just let them play.  I have been suggesting that coaches let kids run practices on a regular basis for a long time, both in my book Home Team Advantage and on MomsTeam.  Here's what I said:

Some of the best practices my teams ever had were those where I followed a "games-based" teaching approach-where I stepped off the field and told the players to take over the practice and do what they wanted, to organize the practice themselves, so long as they had fun. They would usually decide to play a skill game, one of about twenty-five that I use to develop skills without drilling. The only time I stepped in was when I saw that a certain skill could be taught in order to help the play.

As I was thinking about the importance of unstructured play, it just so happened that in my email inbox was a note from a friend in New York who heard about a group at the State University of New York (SUNY) called Youth Sports New York which is organizing an event they are calling SANDLOT DAY 2010^TM. According to the group's website, the "goal of Sandlot Day 2010 is to give young ballplayers in organized leagues the gift of pickup baseball that their coaches and parents experienced. From this one day they'll get personal memories that last a lifetime, a sense of ownership of the game, an ability to organize themselves, and so much more."

I think Sandlot Day is an excellent idea, but why just one day? Why not allow the kids to run a part of every practice?

If you coach youth sports, I know what you were thinking: turning over a part of every practice to the kids is simply unworkable. You can't teach the kids what they need to learn unless you micromanage every second of the hour to hour and a half the practice runs, filling every nook and cranny with teaching tips and drills.

But just ask the kids who played on my soccer teams, especially the players who were told by the town travel soccer club that they weren't good enough to play travel soccer but who, after playing on one my teams, went on to play high school varsity soccer. I bet they would say one of the reasons they continued playing was because letting the kids run practices and engage in  free play builds team spirit, gives them a chance to experiment without fear of being corrected by the coach, to be creative, to take chances and try new moves, and ultimately to do what kids everywhere have been doing for fun since the beginning of time: play.

As Mother Teresa said, "We cannot do great things on this Earth, only small things with great love." Turning over a portion of every sports practice to the kids may sound like a small thing.  But given the fact that one of the principal reasons kids drop out of sports is that they aren't having fun, I bet it could go a long way to making practices more fun.  If enough coaches made it a regular part of their practice routine, maybe, just maybe, it would catch on across the country.  As Malcolm Gladwell wrote in his best-selling book, The Grassfire Effect, this is how to ignite change.

So, my question to youth sports coaches out there is, Have you ever let your players run a practice? And to parents, I am wondering whether your child been on a team where the coach let the kids run the practice? How did it work out? Let me know at delench@momsteam.com.