Let’s Play Hockey Expo 2009 – Harrow Sports
This article is part of the Let's Play Hockey Expo 2009 series presented by DailySportsDeal.com. The Let's Play Hockey Expo is the largest consumer expo in the U.S. In this interview, Executive Editor TK Stohlman interviews Jeff Corey with Harrow Sports.Harrow Sports is an equipment manufacturer for hockey, lacrosse, and other team sports. In this interview, Jeff talks about Harrow Sports as well what is unique about the development of Harrow Sports hockey sticks. Be sure to also watch the end of the interview where Jeff has great advice for hockey parents. For more information about Harrow Sports, you can visit their website at: http://www.harrowsports.com/
Let's Play Hockey Expo 2009 - HarrowSports.com
A Parent’s Role in Character Development
Winning the game is not the responsibility of the parent. Only the coach and athlete can control that outcome. However, the parent has a key role in forming the attitudes and life lessons that their child will take away from youth sports. Jim Thompson, Executive Director of the Positive Coaching Alliance, discussed this crucial task with Executive Editor TK Stohlman. Here is an excerpt of their discussion.
TK: So the three things from Positive Coaching Alliance research are don’t push kids into sports, have a can do attitude, and most importantly have unconditional support.
Jim: Right
TK: I know you worked with some big name coaches again such as Phil Jackson and Larry Brown. Are there some lessons that they taught you either through workshops or through different talks that could maybe apply to different youth coaches?
Jim: You know it is interesting, When Phil Jackson first became our national spokesperson, he gave a talk about his journey, from being a pretty negative coach, he said that he coached in the NBA he had gotten kicked out and he led the league in technical fouls in his first year as a coach, but he was smart enough to realize that it wasn’t working. What really makes Phil Jackson successful, by his own words, is the ability to build a community players who really care about each other and who don’t want to let each other down, which is very different from the infuses most youth coaches have like I got to learn the “Xs” and the “Os”. I would also add one thing that Jack Clark, who is the Rugby coach at Cal State, he is not a household name but in the world of rugby he is a giant - winning about 20 national titles in the last 25 years. When he came to a PCA workshop he walked away from it and said “wow, this is great, I learned some things from it.” His definition of leadership is one that I just love. He says that a leader is not somebody who yells at other people and tells them what to do, but a leader is somebody who makes their teammates better and more effective and every player on his team is a leader and needs to be a leader they need to look up for ways that they can make other players better. That’s just an incredible lesson for all coaches and parents and athletes.
TK: So when you talk about Bill Clark and Phil Jackson and the insights they provide, how does that lead to the creation of the PCA and the program that you have called “the second goal parent program?”
Jim: Well the second goal parent is a spinoff of our idea of a double goal coach. A double goal coach is somebody who has a first goal of preparing his team to win, that’s goal number one and that’s important. But, there is a second goal that is even more important, that is that they use sports to teach life lessons. So we want every youth coach, you know if you are a professional football coach then go out there and just win baby, but even the best coaches are concerned with helping their players to develop character. It’s really is about being a double goal coach. You are trying to win but you really need to use all of those teachable moments that come rolling through every day at practice, because every day at a game there really is a teachable moment if you are looking for it. With that said, we ask parents, “should you be double goal parents?” And they always say Yes, Yes, Yes. However, it’s a trick question because we actually then say no. There are two groups of people whose job it is to win games, one are the coaches the other, the athletes. Parents have a much more important job and that is to focus on that second goal, the character building goal. So if your child strikes out at the end of the game with the bases loaded and your team is one run behind you could have a second goal conversation with them. “I know you are disappointed that you didn’t make the play there but you are the kind of kid who really bounces back from setbacks like this.” You talk to your child about results and how great athletes don’t succeed all the time and what makes them great is that they always come back. That’s what it means to be a second goal parent.
TK: So when you talk about second goal parent program it differs from the double goal coach program in that as a parent you don’t even talk about wins and losses. Is that what you are saying Jim?
Jim: Well everybody wants to win and the question is what do you emphasize? If you child comes home from a game and you haven’t been able to see it you might say “Who Won?” However, what does that communicate to your child? It says that winning is the most important thing. So what we are saying is your kid can take away from youth sports the most fantastic lessons that will help them be successful and happy throughout their whole life. And it is a parent’s job to focus on that. Let the coaches and the kids worry about winning. For example if you see your daughter patting a player on the back when her teammate made a mistake, talk about that after the game. Say “hey I noticed that when Molly made a mistake you went over and patted her in the back; tell me about that,” Encourage her by saying “Wow that’s really great, you know that’s great leadership making your teammates feel better, and cheering them up helps. And you know that after you did that, Molly made a play in the next inning.” You’re filling their emotional tank. So you are not focusing on winning, you are focusing on what kids are taking away from it.
Editor’s Note: A special thank you to Jim Thompson for this interview.
The Benefits of Global Training
The goals of any trainer or coach working with a young athlete should include increasing proficiency of motor ability, developing functional versatility and lastly, inhibiting the potential negative effects of specialized training. Upon reflection, these points, both individually and collectively, lend to the credence that when working with young athletes, the mandate should be one of global, all-encompassing development rather than specialized ventures into sport specific training.
With pre-pubescent children, muscle innervation is completed by roughly the age of 6 years. Muscle innervation refers to the final expansion of motor nerve endings within a muscle fiber’s interior. The impact of this action on motor coordination is quite profound. At the conclusion of the muscle innervation process (again, roughly by the age of 6, although individual variances occur), children are now able to learn and begin the process of establishing functional proficiency in gross motor skills and movement patterns. It is critical to understand, however, that the innervation process happens more quickly and earlier (chronologically) in larger muscles. Again, innervation being linked to coordination and motor control, it stands to reason that children gain proficiency in gross motor skills more quickly than finer skills. This remains another argument for why early specialization is counterproductive – every sport requires various degrees of fine motor skills, which can simply not become functional abilities in younger athletes. Global aspects of gross motor skill development are most understandably the crucial component of training pre-pubescent children.
No one can learn how to create 6 or 12 month plans in a day. It takes time and diligent effort to acquire this skill, but your ability to get better over time will have a direct and positive impact on both your young athletes’ success rate as well as your businesses ability to attract new clients. Set an objective for yourself to create a system or plan that allows you to develop long-term and wide-focused agendas for your young athletes. Take several days or weeks if need be to create a system that is streamlined and easy to implement - although your are looking for a comprehensive system, the more basic you make it, the more easy it will be to adhere to.
Start simply. Take a piece of paper and write out where you want your young athletes to be in 4 weeks. Create headings and then just fill in each category. For instance, what skill sets are you working on now? To what degree of competency do you want an athlete or team to be able to demonstrate that skill set in 1 month’s time? This can also be applied to elite adolescent athletes. Are you working on squat or power clean totals right now? If so, where do you want these numbers to be in 4 weeks?
Once you have organized your thoughts on where you would like to be in 4 weeks, you have to consider how you are going to get there. On the same or a different piece of paper, right out how many training sessions or practices you have with this athlete or team between now and 4 weeks from now. Date each training session or practice on your piece of paper. Now, using your skills as a Trainer or Coach, literally, just fill in the blanks. Compare where you want to be in 4 weeks with the number of training sessions or practices you have between now and then. In order to accomplish your 4-week goal, what action steps along a critical path must be taken? This is the essence of how to develop a long-term approach to working with young athletes. You will simply just write out your next several training sessions or practices in order to meet the objectives you have laid out for 4 weeks from now.
This system can easily be applied to 6 months or even a year. Just follow the same type of procedure as mentioned above - set out an objective for the time frame and decide where this athlete or team needs to be within that time frame. Let’s say you have a 13-year-old athlete for 6 months and you want to determine an objective and critical path. Take out a piece of paper and write out where you want this athlete to be in 6 months. Be descriptive with this - what skill sets do you want him to have mastered? What kind of movement-based techniques will he show great competency in. Once you have decided that, break those large objectives down into more manageable ones and make them your first 4-week objective. To get to your end destination, where to you have to be at the end of this month? From there break it down even farther by deciding on how many training sessions or practices you will have over the course of the next 4 weeks and design them in accordance with your 4 week objective. Next month, do the same thing.
An amazing thing happens when you create objectives and critical plans like this. You will start seeing results in your athletes and teams beyond what you ever-dreamed possible. Failing to plan is one of the biggest concerns facing this industry. It seems everything is taken on a session-by-session basis with no vision or thought to the long-term. It could be argued that individual trainers and coaches didn’t know how to plan for the future… well; now you do!
Practice the skill of objective writing and critical path creation. It will take time to design a system that flows well for you, but it is more than worth it to your young athletes and teams.
Editor’s Note: A special thanks to Brian Grasso of Developing Athletics for this article.
Using the Internet to Research Schools
With the advent of the Internet, research has become so much easier. However, with so many colleges to choose from, online research can still be a daunting task. The following article outlines an online tool to help make that job a little bit easier.
Researching schools is an essential part of the recruiting process. A great new website that potential student-athletes can check out is Unigo.com. The site is entirely free and while it is overseen by editors it’s built on content submitted by actual students at the university. The information submitted isn’t just simple reviews, but a robust array of pictures and videos to give prospective students a more accurate view of what its like to actually attend a school. You can also create customized social networks of potential students interested in specific schools or common characteristics.
Obviously, there is tremendous value in getting information directly from current students. Athletes have a unique opportunity to get a snap shot inside a college’s athletic program by taking unofficial and official visits. A little understood rule is that students can begin taking unofficial visits as freshman. The more schools you visit, the better your chances of finding the right fit.
Editor’s Note: Thank you to National Collegiate Scouting Association for this article.
