Click on the link for full article.
In a push to boost female enlistees at West Point, Army is adding DI women's lacrosse for the 2015-16 academic year
M|11
Miller Lacrosse M|11
Tuesday, February 25, 2014
Friday, February 21, 2014
3/22/14 Mens Lax Schedule
| Saturday, February 22, 2014 |
| Air Force |
| vs. Canisius |
| 11:00 AM |
| Albany |
| vs. Drexel |
| 1:00 PM |
| Binghamton |
| vs. Siena |
| 12:00 PM |
| Boston U. |
| vs. Lehigh |
| 1:00 PM |
| Bucknell |
| vs. Navy |
| 3:00 PM |
| Cornell |
| vs. Hobart |
| 1:00 PM |
| Delaware |
| vs. Mount St. Mary's |
| 1:00 PM |
| Denver |
| vs. Marist |
| 1:30 PM |
| Fairfield |
| vs. Manhattan |
| 1:00 PM |
| Furman |
| vs. Army |
| 12:00 PM |
| Hartford |
| vs. Bryant |
| 1:00 PM |
| Holy Cross |
| vs. Loyola |
| 1:00 PM |
| Jacksonville |
| vs. Bellarmine |
| 2:00 PM |
| Johns Hopkins |
| vs. Michigan |
| 12:00 PM |
| Lafayette |
| vs. Colgate |
| 12:00 PM |
| Massachusetts |
| vs. Harvard |
| 1:00 PM |
| Mercer |
| vs. Richmond |
| 12:00 PM |
| North Carolina |
| vs. Dartmouth |
| 2:00 PM |
| Notre Dame |
| vs. Penn State |
| 3:00 PM |
| Ohio State |
| vs. Marquette |
| 12:00 PM |
| Princeton |
| vs. Hofstra |
| 11:00 AM |
| Quinnipiac |
| vs. Brown |
| 12:00 PM |
| Sacred Heart |
| vs. High Point |
| 1:00 PM |
| Syracuse |
| vs. Maryland |
| 1:00 PM |
| Towson |
| vs. Georgetown |
| 12:00 PM |
| UMBC |
| vs. Monmouth |
| 1:00 PM |
| Vermont |
| vs. Providence |
| 1:00 PM |
| Virginia |
| vs. Rutgers |
| 5:00 PM |
| VMI |
| vs. Saint Joseph's |
| 1:00 PM |
| Yale |
| vs. St. John's |
| 1:30 PM |
Monday, February 3, 2014
Lacrosse Youth Participation Up 158%
Youth Participation Weakens in Basketball, Football, Baseball, Soccer Fewer Children Play Team Sports
http://online.wsj.com/news/articles/SB10001424052702303519404579350892629229918
By RYAN WALLERSON
Updated Jan. 31, 2014 12:44 a.m. ET
Enlarge Image
Participation in high-school football fell 2.3% in the 2012-13 season from 2008-09. Washington Post/Getty Images
If there's an unofficial national day for America's sports passion, it is Super Bowl Sunday, and one of the largest U.S. television audiences of 2014 is expected to watch the Seattle Seahawks face the Denver Broncos.
But ahead of this weekend's spectacle in New Jersey, there is some sobering news about the country's most-popular team sports: Fewer children are playing them.
Combined participation in the four most-popular U.S. team sports—basketball, soccer, baseball and football—fell among boys and girls aged 6 through 17 by roughly 4% from 2008 to 2012, according to an examination of data from youth leagues, school-sports groups and industry associations.
Lacrosse participation was up 158% in 2012 from 2008. Washington Post/Getty Images
During those five years, the population of 6-to-17-year-olds in the U.S. fell 0.6%, according to the U.S. Census.
Organized sports have long been regarded as a valuable defense against increasing rates of disease-inducing inactivity among America's youth.
Declines in youth sports participation could bear long-lasting consequences, says William W. Dexter, a Maine physician who is president of the American College of Sports Medicine. "It is much more likely," he says, "that someone who is active in their childhood is going to remain active into their adulthood."
The trend has business implications, too. U.S. baseball-bat sales in 2012 fell 18% from 2008 sales in dollar terms, while football sales dropped about 5% and team-uniform sales for basketball and soccer were flat, according to the Sports & Fitness Industry Association, a trade group.
More
Poll Finds 40% Would Sway Children Away From Football
Related Video
40% of Americans say they would encourage their children to play a different sport than football due to concerns about concussions, according to a new Wall Street Journal/NBC poll. Photo: Getty
From 2011 to 2012, total sporting-goods dollar sales rose 2.1%, half the projected increase, the SFIA says. While the association doesn't poll members about the reasons for the soft sales, "there is certainly the potential for those declines to be connected" with decreases the SFIA has noted in youth-sport participation, says VJ Mayor, the association's research director.
In recent decades, while some outdoor play—climbing trees, jumping rope, playing tag—faded as a childhood pastime, organized sports remained relatively strong. But that bright spot is dimming.
While football still draws crowds to the TV set, participation in the sport in U.S. high schools was down 2.3% in the 2012-13 season from the 2008-09 season, according to the National Federation of State High School Associations. High-school basketball participation fell 1.8% in the period.
While high-school baseball participation rose 0.3% in the period, some data on the next generation of players presage a decline: Little League baseball—the biggest children's baseball league—reports that U.S. participation in its baseball and softball leagues in 2012 was 6.8% below that in 2008.
Signs of that dwindling participation among younger players show up in other popular sports, too. A new survey by the SFIA and the Physical Activity Council, a nonprofit research agency funded by seven trade groups, found that participation by players aged 6 through 14 in organized football in 2012 was 4.9% below that in 2008.
Basketball participation fell 6.3% in the 6-to-14 group during that period, according to the survey of nearly 70,000 households and individuals.
Even soccer, which has seen strong gains in recent decades, shows signs its numbers are stagnating. The high-school federation reports that soccer participation was up 7.4% in the 2012-13 season from 2008-09. But the United States Soccer Federation, which governs U.S. youth soccer leagues other than school-based leagues, says its youth soccer participation was flat between 2008 and 2012.
The causes of declines in youth sports aren't clear. Experts cite everything from increasing costs to excessive pressure on kids in youth sports to cuts in school physical-education programs.
In Ohio, where the high-school federation data show high-school participation in basketball fell 15% to about 39,400 during the five years ended last spring, the less-elite players are going missing, says Greg Nossaman, president of the Ohio High School Basketball Coaches Association. "The kid who practices hard and who takes pride in being part of the team but who gets only a few minutes in the game—that kid has too many other options," says Mr. Nossaman, head basketball coach at Olentangy Liberty High School in Powell, Ohio.
Fifteen-year-old Jessica Cronin is the daughter of a former three-sport high-school athlete. But Jessica doesn't participate in high-school sports, choosing to spend her time outside of class volunteering in her community and going to her temple youth group each Wednesday. "I considered doing track, but it takes up so much time," said Ms. Cronin, a sophomore at Bethlehem Central High School in Delmar, N.Y.
Social networking, videogames and other technology may be drawing children away from sports. As many as 140 kids used to try out for 45 slots on the baseball team at Shawnee Mission North High School in Overland Park, Kan. Today, fewer than 45 kids try out, says George Sallas, the school's athletic director.
"Kids are more trained now to stay at home and play videogames," he says. "Sports don't intrigue them."
The main reason kids fall away from youth sports "is that the sport isn't fun to the child," says Michael Bergeron, Executive Director of the National Youth Sports Health & Safety Institute. "We have to be aware of single sport specialization, overuse, overworking kids searching for the elite athletes; all of these things are causing kids to leave youth sport and not return."
Football faces another hurdle: growing concern that concussions and other contact injuries can cause lasting physical damage.
Several high-profile former players have said they wouldn't want their kids to play the game—a sentiment echoed by the nation's sports-fan-in-chief. "If I had a son," President Barack Obama told New Republic Magazine in one of multiple interviews he has given on the subject, "I'd have to think long and hard before I let him play football."
Some public-health officials believe the risks associated with playing football and other sports are overblown, especially compared with the risks of not playing anything at all. "In terms of overall health, I'm more concerned about an inactive child than a child suffering a head injury," says Cedric X. Bryant, Chief Science Officer for the American Council on Exercise.
Dr. Bryant says he worries that media attention on the safety risks of contact sports may be turning parents against not only football but also hockey, baseball and soccer.
The soccer-participation data may be the biggest surprise, because the sport has been one of the brightest spots in U.S. sports.
In the past quarter century, Americans have embraced the sport, giving rise to Major League Soccer and making heroes of U.S. women's Olympic teams. Among American youth, participation grew in leagues governed by the U.S. Soccer Federation to about four million in 2007 from about two million in 1990.
Then growth sputtered. From 2008, the annual number hovered around four million. In 2012, the last year for which the figures are available, the number of youth soccer players in the federation fell slightly below four million.
The SFIA/Physical Activity Council survey, which included youth league and school-based participation, found a steeper drop in the period, with soccer participation down 7.1% in the 6-to-18 age group.
"Booms like the one we experienced can't go on forever," says a soccer federation spokesman. "A ceiling or end to such rapid growth is to be expected. I see the fact that we've maintained this high point of participation among kids as more important than the fact that the rapid increase has reached its end."
The shift in youth participation worries youth-health officials who see organized sports as an antidote to growing problems like youth obesity. The federal Centers for Disease Control and Prevention has noted a sharp increase in youth obesity since the 1980s.
The percentage of inactive 6-to-12-year-olds—youths involved in no physical activities over a 12-month period—rose to near 20% in 2012 from 16% in 2007, according to the SFIA/Physical Activity Council survey. Inactive 13-to-17-year-olds rose to 19% from 17%.
Because organized sports provide supervision, coaching, structure, social interaction and team-building skills, many health experts believe they represent an ideal solution to youth inactivity. "Youth sports can become the choice solution to the public-health problem based around inactivity," says Dr. Bergeron of the sports-health institute.
Sporting-goods sellers are concerned as well. So far, new products and rising prices have helped sustain sporting-goods dollar sales, says a spokesman for the National Sporting Goods Association, which represents sporting-goods retailers and dealers. But, he says, "decreases in team sports participation are a significant concern in the long run for sporting goods retailers who sell team sports equipment."
There are a few rising stars in youth sports. By one estimate, from the SFIA/Physical Activity Council survey, 770,000 youth participated in organized lacrosse in 2012, up 158% from its 2008 estimate. The sport uses many of the same skills as football, though with less contact, and may be gaining some participation from football's losses.
The survey showed ice-hockey participation growing 64% from 2008 through 2012 among the 6-to-18 age group. But that sport, too, is small: The council estimates that 549,000 youth played it in organized teams in 2012, compared with about seven million participants in basketball and 6.6 million in soccer.
—Sara Germano contributed to this article.
http://online.wsj.com/news/articles/SB10001424052702303519404579350892629229918
By RYAN WALLERSON
Updated Jan. 31, 2014 12:44 a.m. ET
Enlarge Image
Participation in high-school football fell 2.3% in the 2012-13 season from 2008-09. Washington Post/Getty Images
If there's an unofficial national day for America's sports passion, it is Super Bowl Sunday, and one of the largest U.S. television audiences of 2014 is expected to watch the Seattle Seahawks face the Denver Broncos.
But ahead of this weekend's spectacle in New Jersey, there is some sobering news about the country's most-popular team sports: Fewer children are playing them.
Combined participation in the four most-popular U.S. team sports—basketball, soccer, baseball and football—fell among boys and girls aged 6 through 17 by roughly 4% from 2008 to 2012, according to an examination of data from youth leagues, school-sports groups and industry associations.
Lacrosse participation was up 158% in 2012 from 2008. Washington Post/Getty Images
During those five years, the population of 6-to-17-year-olds in the U.S. fell 0.6%, according to the U.S. Census.
Organized sports have long been regarded as a valuable defense against increasing rates of disease-inducing inactivity among America's youth.
Declines in youth sports participation could bear long-lasting consequences, says William W. Dexter, a Maine physician who is president of the American College of Sports Medicine. "It is much more likely," he says, "that someone who is active in their childhood is going to remain active into their adulthood."
The trend has business implications, too. U.S. baseball-bat sales in 2012 fell 18% from 2008 sales in dollar terms, while football sales dropped about 5% and team-uniform sales for basketball and soccer were flat, according to the Sports & Fitness Industry Association, a trade group.
More
Poll Finds 40% Would Sway Children Away From Football
Related Video
40% of Americans say they would encourage their children to play a different sport than football due to concerns about concussions, according to a new Wall Street Journal/NBC poll. Photo: Getty
From 2011 to 2012, total sporting-goods dollar sales rose 2.1%, half the projected increase, the SFIA says. While the association doesn't poll members about the reasons for the soft sales, "there is certainly the potential for those declines to be connected" with decreases the SFIA has noted in youth-sport participation, says VJ Mayor, the association's research director.
In recent decades, while some outdoor play—climbing trees, jumping rope, playing tag—faded as a childhood pastime, organized sports remained relatively strong. But that bright spot is dimming.
While football still draws crowds to the TV set, participation in the sport in U.S. high schools was down 2.3% in the 2012-13 season from the 2008-09 season, according to the National Federation of State High School Associations. High-school basketball participation fell 1.8% in the period.
While high-school baseball participation rose 0.3% in the period, some data on the next generation of players presage a decline: Little League baseball—the biggest children's baseball league—reports that U.S. participation in its baseball and softball leagues in 2012 was 6.8% below that in 2008.
Signs of that dwindling participation among younger players show up in other popular sports, too. A new survey by the SFIA and the Physical Activity Council, a nonprofit research agency funded by seven trade groups, found that participation by players aged 6 through 14 in organized football in 2012 was 4.9% below that in 2008.
Basketball participation fell 6.3% in the 6-to-14 group during that period, according to the survey of nearly 70,000 households and individuals.
Even soccer, which has seen strong gains in recent decades, shows signs its numbers are stagnating. The high-school federation reports that soccer participation was up 7.4% in the 2012-13 season from 2008-09. But the United States Soccer Federation, which governs U.S. youth soccer leagues other than school-based leagues, says its youth soccer participation was flat between 2008 and 2012.
The causes of declines in youth sports aren't clear. Experts cite everything from increasing costs to excessive pressure on kids in youth sports to cuts in school physical-education programs.
In Ohio, where the high-school federation data show high-school participation in basketball fell 15% to about 39,400 during the five years ended last spring, the less-elite players are going missing, says Greg Nossaman, president of the Ohio High School Basketball Coaches Association. "The kid who practices hard and who takes pride in being part of the team but who gets only a few minutes in the game—that kid has too many other options," says Mr. Nossaman, head basketball coach at Olentangy Liberty High School in Powell, Ohio.
Fifteen-year-old Jessica Cronin is the daughter of a former three-sport high-school athlete. But Jessica doesn't participate in high-school sports, choosing to spend her time outside of class volunteering in her community and going to her temple youth group each Wednesday. "I considered doing track, but it takes up so much time," said Ms. Cronin, a sophomore at Bethlehem Central High School in Delmar, N.Y.
Social networking, videogames and other technology may be drawing children away from sports. As many as 140 kids used to try out for 45 slots on the baseball team at Shawnee Mission North High School in Overland Park, Kan. Today, fewer than 45 kids try out, says George Sallas, the school's athletic director.
"Kids are more trained now to stay at home and play videogames," he says. "Sports don't intrigue them."
The main reason kids fall away from youth sports "is that the sport isn't fun to the child," says Michael Bergeron, Executive Director of the National Youth Sports Health & Safety Institute. "We have to be aware of single sport specialization, overuse, overworking kids searching for the elite athletes; all of these things are causing kids to leave youth sport and not return."
Football faces another hurdle: growing concern that concussions and other contact injuries can cause lasting physical damage.
Several high-profile former players have said they wouldn't want their kids to play the game—a sentiment echoed by the nation's sports-fan-in-chief. "If I had a son," President Barack Obama told New Republic Magazine in one of multiple interviews he has given on the subject, "I'd have to think long and hard before I let him play football."
Some public-health officials believe the risks associated with playing football and other sports are overblown, especially compared with the risks of not playing anything at all. "In terms of overall health, I'm more concerned about an inactive child than a child suffering a head injury," says Cedric X. Bryant, Chief Science Officer for the American Council on Exercise.
Dr. Bryant says he worries that media attention on the safety risks of contact sports may be turning parents against not only football but also hockey, baseball and soccer.
The soccer-participation data may be the biggest surprise, because the sport has been one of the brightest spots in U.S. sports.
In the past quarter century, Americans have embraced the sport, giving rise to Major League Soccer and making heroes of U.S. women's Olympic teams. Among American youth, participation grew in leagues governed by the U.S. Soccer Federation to about four million in 2007 from about two million in 1990.
Then growth sputtered. From 2008, the annual number hovered around four million. In 2012, the last year for which the figures are available, the number of youth soccer players in the federation fell slightly below four million.
The SFIA/Physical Activity Council survey, which included youth league and school-based participation, found a steeper drop in the period, with soccer participation down 7.1% in the 6-to-18 age group.
"Booms like the one we experienced can't go on forever," says a soccer federation spokesman. "A ceiling or end to such rapid growth is to be expected. I see the fact that we've maintained this high point of participation among kids as more important than the fact that the rapid increase has reached its end."
The shift in youth participation worries youth-health officials who see organized sports as an antidote to growing problems like youth obesity. The federal Centers for Disease Control and Prevention has noted a sharp increase in youth obesity since the 1980s.
The percentage of inactive 6-to-12-year-olds—youths involved in no physical activities over a 12-month period—rose to near 20% in 2012 from 16% in 2007, according to the SFIA/Physical Activity Council survey. Inactive 13-to-17-year-olds rose to 19% from 17%.
Because organized sports provide supervision, coaching, structure, social interaction and team-building skills, many health experts believe they represent an ideal solution to youth inactivity. "Youth sports can become the choice solution to the public-health problem based around inactivity," says Dr. Bergeron of the sports-health institute.
Sporting-goods sellers are concerned as well. So far, new products and rising prices have helped sustain sporting-goods dollar sales, says a spokesman for the National Sporting Goods Association, which represents sporting-goods retailers and dealers. But, he says, "decreases in team sports participation are a significant concern in the long run for sporting goods retailers who sell team sports equipment."
There are a few rising stars in youth sports. By one estimate, from the SFIA/Physical Activity Council survey, 770,000 youth participated in organized lacrosse in 2012, up 158% from its 2008 estimate. The sport uses many of the same skills as football, though with less contact, and may be gaining some participation from football's losses.
The survey showed ice-hockey participation growing 64% from 2008 through 2012 among the 6-to-18 age group. But that sport, too, is small: The council estimates that 549,000 youth played it in organized teams in 2012, compared with about seven million participants in basketball and 6.6 million in soccer.
—Sara Germano contributed to this article.
Friday, January 24, 2014
Blog of Trevor Tierney "WHY FINDING THE BEST TEAM MAY NOT BE WHAT IS BEST FOR OUR KIDS"
Excellent read on the role competitive sports and how it plays on life and learning to become resilient off the field.
Blog of Trevor Tierney
WHY FINDING THE BEST TEAM MAY NOT BE WHAT IS BEST FOR OUR KIDS
Posted: 20 Jan 2014 08:08 PM PST
“And why do we fall, Bruce? So we can learn to pick ourselves up.” - Batman Begins
Don’t get me wrong here. I love all of the players, parents and families that I get to work with in sports. I would not want to be doing anything else with my life! But lately, I have been bewildered by a phenomena that seems to be growing in youth athletics. There is a constant search amongst parents and players to be on the “best team” that wins the most games and tournaments. It is no longer enough for our children to play on a local youth or high school team and enjoy the experience of playing sports. Furthermore, it is no longer even enough for our children to play on a good club travel team that plays well together, is competitive with other great teams from around the country and has top-notch coaching. Rather, there is a “grass is greener” mentality amongst parents and young athletes who are on the constant lookout for the absolute best team to be a part of.
There are a lot of factors driving all of this. It is partly due to the parent’s misconception that the better their child’s team, the better their chances for recruitment and success down the road (by the way, college coaches do not even know the scores of the games that they are scouting high school games—they only know notice who is 6’4”, 225 and runs like a gazelle in the Serengeti). I believe that this mentality runs deeper than that though and we have simply lost touch of what sports are all about. You know when you watch the people on a reality show like Honey Boo Boo or Swamp People and you say, “man…those people are nuts!”? Well, I hate to tell you. That is all of us in sports right now! We are the crazy people. And for the past few years, this perception of making sure our children win all the time and at all costs has become utterly mind-boggling. Every single game in sports, one team wins and one team loses. That’s just the way it works. It is completely narcissistic for us to think that we ourselves (or our child) should never lose. What fun would sports be if we knew that we were going to win every time anyway?
Every great athlete and coach that I know has had their fair share of ups and downs. Even though my claim to lacrosse fame is that I won two NCAA National Championships, a MLL Championship and a FIL World Championship with Team USA, I also got my butt kicked a whole lot along the way! My youth teams were disgraceful, my high school team had some serious rough patches, I can’t even count how many goals Syracuse scored on me at Princeton over the years and I was on the only USA team that lost in the World Championships since 1978 for goodness sake! Even Michael Jordan (who I apologize for even mentioning in the same paragraph as my athletic career) admitted in a commercial, “I've missed more than 9000 shots in my career. I've lost almost 300 games. 26 times, I've been trusted to take the game winning shot and missed. I've failed over and over and over again in my life. And that is why I succeed.” The point is, that no matter what an athlete does in their career, they will have some wins and they will have some losses. Trying to control that is not going to change anything. Furthermore, there is actually something about the pursuit of always winning that is detrimental to our children’s development as athletes and as people.
As I have pondered this mindset that we are witnessing in youth sports for the past few years, I knew something was wrong. I just didn’t know how to explain it, other than sounding like a grumpy old curmudgeon. However, there is scientific evidence that shows why we should actually want our children to lose! Again, as I have written time and again, I am not saying that athletes should not care about trying to win and just act like it does not matter. And I am certainly not an advocate for the “everyone gets a trophy” mentality. Our young athletes should care deeply about trying to win and be their best. And when they go into competition and want nothing more than to win that game, it will be absolutely fantastic for them when they lose! Before you think I have been hit in the head with too many lacrosse balls (which is completely factual), let me explain further…
In the past month, I have been fortunate enough to study under one of our country’s leading researchers on human resilience at Harvard, Dr. Shelly Carson. As soon as I sat in our first lecture this January, the lightbulb flashed on! I started to realize that when we want our child to play on the most dominant team, we are completely missing the boat on how sports build resilience for young men and women. This is not just me blabbing about it either. There is decades of research being compiled by people much smarter than me (surprising I know) that explains how we all develop resilience and how this leads to overall happiness, well-being and success. And isn’t that what we really want for our children?
I am starting to understand how sports are actually the perfect set up for resilience training as losses are very stressful and a challenging adversity for young athletes to face. When you see it from this perspective though, you realize that no one is going to die, get seriously injured, get cancer, lose a family member, get dumped by their girlfriend (and if so, good riddance I say), lose their home, get thrown in jail, fail out of school, or face anything truly tragic from losing a game. And while I might be acting contrite here, the fact is that all of us will face one or several of these things at some point in our life. Nobody’s existence on this earth is perfect. We all face some serious adversity whether we like it or not. With that being the case, don’t we want our kids to learn how to deal with it in a skillful manner?
In the field of psychology, resiliency has been defined by Luthar (2000) as, “the ability to recover from or adjust easily to misfortune or change . . . a positive adaptation within the context of significant adversity,” (as cited in Carson lecture, 2014). So, not only do the skills of resiliency allow people to overcome and recover from tragic experiences in their lives, but resilient people also flourish, grow and experience tremendous well-being and success in their lives. And that is exactly what we want for our children. I will take that over any win, any tournament championship and any trophy. The best aspect of athletics, in my mind, is that it teaches us resiliency, the ability to endure, overcome and find greatness in our lives. The best part is as coaches and parents, all we have to do is be positive and supportive of our children no matter if they win or lose. We just have to be there for them as they learn to get back up and keep moving on with their heads held high. That is how we learn to deal with life on life’s terms on their own as strong individuals. What a great gift that is to bring our children and I cannot think of a more powerful way to do it than through athletics.
There are a lot of ways in which resiliency can be taught through sports, which I will go into some more detail down the road. One of the most effective ways is utilizing "problem-focused coping" which means taking an active approach towards finding a solution. To sum this all up, I will pass along what I tell my players and parents on our Denver Elite lacrosse teams. Instead of finding a better team to play on, find a way to make your team better. This is how you can truly learn to win something of lasting value through the sports.
Blog of Trevor Tierney
WHY FINDING THE BEST TEAM MAY NOT BE WHAT IS BEST FOR OUR KIDS
Posted: 20 Jan 2014 08:08 PM PST
“And why do we fall, Bruce? So we can learn to pick ourselves up.” - Batman Begins
Don’t get me wrong here. I love all of the players, parents and families that I get to work with in sports. I would not want to be doing anything else with my life! But lately, I have been bewildered by a phenomena that seems to be growing in youth athletics. There is a constant search amongst parents and players to be on the “best team” that wins the most games and tournaments. It is no longer enough for our children to play on a local youth or high school team and enjoy the experience of playing sports. Furthermore, it is no longer even enough for our children to play on a good club travel team that plays well together, is competitive with other great teams from around the country and has top-notch coaching. Rather, there is a “grass is greener” mentality amongst parents and young athletes who are on the constant lookout for the absolute best team to be a part of.
There are a lot of factors driving all of this. It is partly due to the parent’s misconception that the better their child’s team, the better their chances for recruitment and success down the road (by the way, college coaches do not even know the scores of the games that they are scouting high school games—they only know notice who is 6’4”, 225 and runs like a gazelle in the Serengeti). I believe that this mentality runs deeper than that though and we have simply lost touch of what sports are all about. You know when you watch the people on a reality show like Honey Boo Boo or Swamp People and you say, “man…those people are nuts!”? Well, I hate to tell you. That is all of us in sports right now! We are the crazy people. And for the past few years, this perception of making sure our children win all the time and at all costs has become utterly mind-boggling. Every single game in sports, one team wins and one team loses. That’s just the way it works. It is completely narcissistic for us to think that we ourselves (or our child) should never lose. What fun would sports be if we knew that we were going to win every time anyway?
Every great athlete and coach that I know has had their fair share of ups and downs. Even though my claim to lacrosse fame is that I won two NCAA National Championships, a MLL Championship and a FIL World Championship with Team USA, I also got my butt kicked a whole lot along the way! My youth teams were disgraceful, my high school team had some serious rough patches, I can’t even count how many goals Syracuse scored on me at Princeton over the years and I was on the only USA team that lost in the World Championships since 1978 for goodness sake! Even Michael Jordan (who I apologize for even mentioning in the same paragraph as my athletic career) admitted in a commercial, “I've missed more than 9000 shots in my career. I've lost almost 300 games. 26 times, I've been trusted to take the game winning shot and missed. I've failed over and over and over again in my life. And that is why I succeed.” The point is, that no matter what an athlete does in their career, they will have some wins and they will have some losses. Trying to control that is not going to change anything. Furthermore, there is actually something about the pursuit of always winning that is detrimental to our children’s development as athletes and as people.
As I have pondered this mindset that we are witnessing in youth sports for the past few years, I knew something was wrong. I just didn’t know how to explain it, other than sounding like a grumpy old curmudgeon. However, there is scientific evidence that shows why we should actually want our children to lose! Again, as I have written time and again, I am not saying that athletes should not care about trying to win and just act like it does not matter. And I am certainly not an advocate for the “everyone gets a trophy” mentality. Our young athletes should care deeply about trying to win and be their best. And when they go into competition and want nothing more than to win that game, it will be absolutely fantastic for them when they lose! Before you think I have been hit in the head with too many lacrosse balls (which is completely factual), let me explain further…
In the past month, I have been fortunate enough to study under one of our country’s leading researchers on human resilience at Harvard, Dr. Shelly Carson. As soon as I sat in our first lecture this January, the lightbulb flashed on! I started to realize that when we want our child to play on the most dominant team, we are completely missing the boat on how sports build resilience for young men and women. This is not just me blabbing about it either. There is decades of research being compiled by people much smarter than me (surprising I know) that explains how we all develop resilience and how this leads to overall happiness, well-being and success. And isn’t that what we really want for our children?
I am starting to understand how sports are actually the perfect set up for resilience training as losses are very stressful and a challenging adversity for young athletes to face. When you see it from this perspective though, you realize that no one is going to die, get seriously injured, get cancer, lose a family member, get dumped by their girlfriend (and if so, good riddance I say), lose their home, get thrown in jail, fail out of school, or face anything truly tragic from losing a game. And while I might be acting contrite here, the fact is that all of us will face one or several of these things at some point in our life. Nobody’s existence on this earth is perfect. We all face some serious adversity whether we like it or not. With that being the case, don’t we want our kids to learn how to deal with it in a skillful manner?
In the field of psychology, resiliency has been defined by Luthar (2000) as, “the ability to recover from or adjust easily to misfortune or change . . . a positive adaptation within the context of significant adversity,” (as cited in Carson lecture, 2014). So, not only do the skills of resiliency allow people to overcome and recover from tragic experiences in their lives, but resilient people also flourish, grow and experience tremendous well-being and success in their lives. And that is exactly what we want for our children. I will take that over any win, any tournament championship and any trophy. The best aspect of athletics, in my mind, is that it teaches us resiliency, the ability to endure, overcome and find greatness in our lives. The best part is as coaches and parents, all we have to do is be positive and supportive of our children no matter if they win or lose. We just have to be there for them as they learn to get back up and keep moving on with their heads held high. That is how we learn to deal with life on life’s terms on their own as strong individuals. What a great gift that is to bring our children and I cannot think of a more powerful way to do it than through athletics.
There are a lot of ways in which resiliency can be taught through sports, which I will go into some more detail down the road. One of the most effective ways is utilizing "problem-focused coping" which means taking an active approach towards finding a solution. To sum this all up, I will pass along what I tell my players and parents on our Denver Elite lacrosse teams. Instead of finding a better team to play on, find a way to make your team better. This is how you can truly learn to win something of lasting value through the sports.
Monday, January 13, 2014
Mens Division I Lacrosse Scrimmages Dates & Times
| Date | Time | Home | Away | Location |
| Jan. 18 | 1:00 PM | Delaware | Mercyhurst | Newark, DE |
| 12:00 PM | Ohio State | Hill Academy | Columbus, OH | |
| Jan. 23 | TBA | Furman | Limestone | Greenville, SC |
| 4:00 PM | Georgetown | Johns Hopkins | Washington, DC | |
| 5:45 PM | Penn State | Lehigh | University Park, PA | |
| Jan. 25 | 11:00 AM | Air Force | Adams State | Colorado Springs, CO |
| 10:00 AM | Army | Manhattan | West Point, NY | |
| TBA | Bellarmine | VMI | Louisville, KY | |
| TBA | Bellarmine | Tusculum | Louisville, KY | |
| 1:00 PM | Boston University | Merrimack | Loudonville, NY | |
| 12:30 PM | Bucknell | Villanova | College Park, MD | |
| 1:00 PM | Delaware | Colgate | Newark, DE | |
| 12:00 PM | High Point | Marquette | High Point, NC | |
| 10:00 AM | Hofstra | Le Moyne | Syracuse, NY | |
| TBA | Maryland | Villanova | College Park, MD | |
| 10:00 AM | Maryland | Bucknell | College Park, MD | |
| 1:00 PM | Massachusetts | St. John's | Amherst, MA | |
| 11:00 AM | North Carolina | Denver | Chapel Hill, NC | |
| 12:00 PM | Ohio State | Navy | Columbus, OH | |
| 3:00 PM | Siena | Merrimack | Loudonville, NY | |
| 11:00 AM | Siena | Boston University | Loudonville, NY | |
| 10:00 AM | Syracuse | Hofstra | Syracuse, NY | |
| 10:00 AM | Syracuse | Le Moyne | Syracuse, NY | |
| TBA | VMI | Tusculum | Louisville, KY | |
| Jan. 26 | 1:30 PM | U.S. Team Blue | U.S. Team White | Lake Buena Vista, FL |
| Jan. 28 | 4:00 PM | Fairfield | Army | Fairfield, CT |
| Feb. 1 | 12:00 PM | Army | Bryant | West Point, NY |
| TBA | Denver | Colorado State | Denver, CO | |
| TBA | Drexel | Maryland | Philadelphia, PA | |
| TBA | Drexel | Penn | Philadelphia, PA | |
| 12:00 PM | Hobart | Rutgers | Hempstead, NY | |
| 2:00 PM | Hofstra | Rutgers | Hempstead, NY | |
| 10:00 AM | Hofstra | Hobart | Hempstead, NY | |
| 1:00 PM | Johns Hopkins | Penn State | Baltimore, MD | |
| 11:00 AM | Loyola | North Carolina | Baltimore, MD | |
| 1:00 PM | Manhattan | Saint Joseph's | Riverdale, NY | |
| 1:00 PM | Michigan | Marquette | Ann Arbor, MI | |
| 12:00 PM | Navy | Virginia | Annapolis, MD | |
| 2:00 PM | Notre Dame | Bellarmine | South Bend, IN | |
| 12:00 PM | Ohio State | Robert Morris | Columbus, OH | |
| 1:00 PM | Penn | Maryland | Philadelphia, PA | |
| 1:00 PM | Richmond | Mount St. Mary's | Richmond, VA | |
| 11:00 AM | Sacred Heart | Lafayette | Fairfield, CT | |
| 11:00 AM | Siena | Massachusetts | Loudonville, NY | |
| 10:00 AM | St. John's | Hartford | Queens, NY | |
| TBA | Stony Brook | Villanova | Stony Brook, NY | |
| TBA | Stony Brook | Monmouth | Stony Brook, NY | |
| 12:00 PM | Syracuse | Bucknell | Towson, MD | |
| 2:00 PM | Towson | Bucknell | Towson, MD | |
| TBA | Towson | Syracuse | Towson, MD | |
| 12:00 PM | UMBC | Georgetown | Baltimore, MD | |
| 1:00 PM | Vermont | Saint Michael's | Burlington, VT | |
| TBA | Villanova | Monmouth | Stony Brook, NY | |
| Feb. 2 | 1:00 PM | Jacksonville | Florida Southern | Jacksonville, FL |
| 12:00 PM | Notre Dame | Detroit | South Bend, IN | |
| Feb. 3 | 3:00 PM | Boston University | Marist | Boston, MA |
| 11:30 AM | Boston University | Dartmouth | Boston, MA | |
| 1:15 PM | Dartmouth | Marist | Boston, MA | |
| TBA | Detroit | Albion, Hill Academy | Pontiac, MI | |
| Feb. 8 | TBA | Albany | Penn | Albany, NY |
| 2:00 PM | Brown | Vermont | Providence, RI | |
| 1:00 PM | Dartmouth | Quinnipiac | Hanover, NH | |
| 1:00 PM | Drexel | UMBC | Philadelphia, PA | |
| TBA | Hobart | Le Moyne | Geneva, NY | |
| 1:00 PM | Monmouth | Sacred Heart | West Long Branch, NJ | |
| 1:00 PM | Saint Joseph's | Lafayette | Philadelphia, PA | |
| 1:00 PM | Stony Brook | Yale | Stony Brook, NY | |
| Feb. 9 | 1:00 PM | Cornell | Iroquois Nationals | Ithaca, NY |
| 1:00 PM | Robert Morris | Mercyhurst | Moon Township, PA | |
| Feb. 14 | 5:00 PM | Cornell | Cortland | Ithaca, NY |
| Feb. 15 | TBA | Harvard | Providence | Cambridge, MA |
| 1:00 PM | Penn | Quinnipiac | Philadelphia, PA | |
| Feb. 16 | 12:00 PM | Cornell | RIT | Ithaca, NY |
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