“I’m a great believer in luck, and I find the harder I work, the more I have of it.”

Thomas Jefferson

What's Ahead
Parents:
The Consequences of Burnout
Coaches:
What Yu-Gi-Oh Can Teach Coaches Coaching
Players:
Good Communications

Maine Youth Sports
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P.O. Box 442
Cumberland, ME 04021
inquiry@maineyouthsports.com
(207) 415-6321

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Choosing Sports Camps

For parents sending their child to a summer sport camp, it is never too early to start planning. Many popular camps fill quickly - sometimes within hours of starting enrollment. For camps with a sports emphasis, the usual summer camp questions apply, such as: activities, staffing, safety, references and schedule. However, sport camps add extra questions to the mix, such as:

• Does your child want to go?
• Will he or she still want to go in the summer after completing the next season?
• Will camp provide your child enough time to recharge between seasons?
• Is the purpose of the camp fun, work or both?
• Is your child in agreement with this goal? Is the camp fee viewed as an investment in skills or in memories?

While a good sport camp can improve a child’s skills for the fall, it is unlikely that a single camp will make dramatic improvements. Years later, the primary benefit of the camp will be the good memories of attendance.

When considering which sport camp to attend, parents may also want to consider these alternatives:

• Consider a camp in a sport other than your child’s primary sport.
• Consider a camp in another state and integrate attendance with a family vacation.
• Consider summer recreational league play.
• Consider using the camp money on private lessons.
• Do nothing. Use the time to recharge and do other family activities.

There are a large number of sport camps to appeal to almost every need. By ensuring that fun and future memories are a large part of selection process, parents can continue to keep their child playing longer and better in youth sports.

Are You Winning by Too Much?

For most coaches, winning is always one of the goals of every game and a win by one point or by ten points counts the same in the record books. However, if a team wins by more than a few scores, a coach has often missed an opportunity to help the team grow even more.

Youth games are team practices as well as competitive tests. When coaches have a game comfortably in hand, they should start thinking about the other things that players can learn in the time remaining. In these situations, coaches can improve team skills by setting certain rules for the remainder of the game, such as asking players to:

• Play different positions.
• Pass more between players to set up better shots.
• Implement new defensive or offensive strategies.
• Attempt more challenging shots or plays.

When winning is almost certain, coaches can use the time remaining to help their team gain skills and the right kind of confidence. To keep things the same and run up the score can give players a false confidence in advance of the next game against a tougher opponent.

Stamina, Strength, Quickness and Agility

Physical conditioning away from sports is an important part of skills development. Without physical conditioning, the body lacks the ability to make challenging plays. To get in shape for sports requires a variety of exercises to improve these areas:

• Stamina - The body’s ability to work hard over time. Exercises such as jogging and sprinting help build stamina.
• Strength - The body’s ability to exert effort. Exercises such as push-ups, chin-ups and leg lifts help build strength.
• Quickness - The ability of the body to move rapidly. Jumping, bounding and skipping rope help build quickness.
• Agility - The ability to start, stop and change direction quickly. Running obstacle courses and zig-zag running help build agility.

There is not a single exercise that covers all these needs. Athletes need to do a variety of exercises throughout the week to give their bodies the ability to perform better at practices and games.

Nothing is more important than the feeling of confidence before the start of the game. What is confidence? Confidence is the belief in your ability and it can include two areas:

1. a general belief in your ability to perform well and win the game; and
2. a task-specific belief in your ability to pass, run, dribble, tackle, or execute.

How do players develop confidence? Confidence comes from many sources and it varies from person to person. Most players get confidence from one or more of the following:

• Past success,
• Experience,
• Performing well in the immediate past,
• Other persons,
• Practice, and
• Having a good support team.

Here are 6 ideas to help you feel confident at the start of the competition:

1. Believe in your skills. This is really the definition of confidence. If you believe in your skills and physical talents, then it is said you have confidence. If you back yourself more than anyone on the court or field, then you have confidence. This comes from your belief in your sports specific skills.
2. Reinforce why you will succeed. I ask athletes to list the reasons to succeed-sort of a self-help exercise. Many athletes don't give themselves enough credit for the successes and other skills that contribute to good play. Athletes sometimes overlooked their own mini successes. Other players disqualify positives in their career. What is your list for the reasons to succeed? It can be comprised of your ability, your team, past success, good coaches, practice, fitness, and many other areas that contribute to confidence.
3. Battle the doubt. Part of staying confident is battling your own internal doubt. No one is perfect and in times of adversity it's tough not to have any doubts about winning. The first place to start it to identify any doubts you have had in the past and that are themes in your career such as "My team is not good enough to win." The next step is to counter the doubt with statements that turns the situation around into an advantage such as: "I have the confidence that my team can is better than any team we play."
4. You have to see it before you can achieve it. It's so easy for kids to have big dreams about the future, but as adults that same ability gets beaten down by others. Keeping the dream alive means seeing and feeling success close in hand. To win at your sport, you have to see yourself win over and over again. With the vision, comes confidence that it is all possible.
5. Use the past to feel confident today. Most athletes would say that past success and experience in playing is the number one source for confidence today. You can tap into your success in the past to help you feel confident today by replaying successful games, practices, conversations, and kudos from others. In today's game, you might recall a successful play you had on a similar field or similar conditions.
6. Patience in a form of confidence. A patient player is a confident player. The challenge in sports is to stay patient when things are not going your way. It's easy to give in to internal doubt and criticism when you are not on top in your sport. But the better choice is to stay patient with results and wait for good things to happen. A patient player says to himself that it might not be happing right now, but I know my play will take a turn for the better.

Info from Dr. Patrick Cohn, Ph.D., Master Mental Game Coach

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