Why do we keep score during youth sporting events?
Keeping score in youth sporting events shouldn’t be to determine who is the best team. Keeping score in youth sports isn’t so the coach of the winning team can now brag about how their team went 54-o last summer. Keeping score isn’t so youth coaches can coach their teams to win games, as opposed to teaching their teams to grow as individuals and athletes.
Here’s WHY we should be KEEPING SCORE in youth sports:
Keeping score allows you to track the progress of your team. What was the score against the Black Glacier Velociraptors in game 1 compared to game 10 of the season?
Keeping score breads competition. Competition is a healthy way to get kids to play harder and works towards goals.
Keeping score gets kids to learn how to maintain a positive attitude when faced with adversity. If your team is down 7 goals at half time, how can we bounce back?
Keeping score gets kids to understand situations. If your team is down a goal and you have the ball with 20 seconds left, what now?
Keeping score allows league or tournament directors to gauge which Division or Conference your team belongs. We went 9-0 last season in Division II. You think it’s time to play in Division I?
Parents & Coaches, let’s not forget why we keep score. It’s your job to teach your kids that numbers should be used to track progress, breed a competitive spirit, and understand real life situations.
For this week’s motivational quote, we focus on the idea of preparation. When preparing for a game, exam, or interview; it’s important to focus on the opponent your playing, the test your taking, and the company your looking to get a job for. However, don’t get too caught up in learning about everything or everyone else. Don’t forget about what motivates you. Don’t forget about what makes you tick. Don’t forget to prepare yourself. Once YOU can prepare and compete consistently at a high level, than you can start helping, teaching, and worrying about everyone else.
For today’s Throwback Thursday, I would like to share a great article written by an old teammate of mine – “When the West Views the East”
Greg Murray was captain of the 2009 Pennsylvania Men’s Lacrosse Team
Greg Murray was the captain of the University of Pennsylvania Men’s Lacrosse team when I was a sophomore. He was the definition of a leader. One game, Greg was pulled from his starting role as goalie of our team. He was replaced by none other than a freshman. Despite losing his starting job to a freshman, Greg was still the first person to motivate the team during time-outs. He understood that his role on the team was much great than stopping shots. His role was to be a great motivator, teammate, and leader. To this day, I work to develop young studletes into becoming teammates such as Greg Murray.
I hope you enjoy a great article, written by a great leader.
Greg Murray’s blog article for FLG can be found – here!
When your up against a task or test in life, there are certain requirements that must be met to complete that task or test. If you fail to meet those requirements, you lose points and possibly fail. If you work hards towards meeting those requirements, whether it be the first time or a second time, then you pass. Pass or fail, win or loss, what’s next?
As you move through life and do what’s expected of you, think about how you can do a little more. Think about how you can get the extra credit. Think about how you can exceed expectations. Think what’s possible if you walk (or run) that extra mile. Especially on a road that leads to you making a difference doing something you love. That’s #Success That’s #Possibility
After meeting with dozens of families and discussing their children’s recruiting process, we’ve come across some great examples of how parents can empower their kids. Notice how we said, “THEIR recruiting process.” After all, it is your son or daughter who is being recruiting. Meaning, the drive to be great and get recruiting should predominately come from your children. With that said, there are many ways families can and should work together through this process. Below is a list of 8 ways YOU can empower YOUR children through THEIR recruiting process.
1- Collaborate with your child while coming up with their list of favorite schools – do the research together. Once you get an initial list put together, have your son or daughter check-out some of those schools on their own, jot down some interesting facts that stood out, and talk about those items together.
2- While there are certain parts of the recruiting process parents and studletes should collaborate on, there are others by which studletes should take care of on there own. For example, your studlete should be communicating with college coaches – not you! The college coaches are recruiting your children, they want to hear from them too. If a college coach asks your child something they cannot answer, they can always turn to you for guidance or advise.
3- Allow your child to have the difficult conversations – they will be better off in the long run for it. If your child isn’t interested in a school, they should be the one respectfully telling the coach of that school they aren’t interested. If your child isn’t happy about their playing time, they should be the one asking the coach, “what can I do better?” Use this process as a time for your child to grow into a mature young man or woman.
4- Your child is his or her own ISLAND – Don’t compare your child and their recruiting experience to other studletes. Also, don’t let your child compare themselves to others. Have them be happy for those who got a letter from a great school or even who have verbally committed to their top choice.
5- Have your son or daughter work hard every day on the thing they CAN control. For example, stamina, strength, lacrosse skills, confidence, and grades. Don’t focus on the “he said, she said” – focus on the “What can I do to get better?”
6- Have your studlete seek feedback and constructive criticism from their coaches/mentors/guidance counselors. Feedback will turn a lot of rumors, stresses and unknowns into useful information to make this process as smooth as can be.
7- Be there for your child if their “Dream School” doesn’t work out. There are great alternatives to finding that “Dream School” or playing for that “Dream Program.” The more your family learns about all the great schools out there, the easier it will be to find a great fit.
8- Remind your studlete that they are choosing the SCHOOL not just the lacrosse program. Don’t forget to ask yourself, “What would my school experience be like without lacrosse?” A strict focus on finding the right school will motivate your son or daughter to get the grades needed to get in!
Lacrosse recruits put on a great webinar today. The webinar focused on best practices for club coaches and recruiting coordinators. During the webinar, something that really stood out to us was creating a culture around lacrosse clubs.
At FLG, our culture can be defined in two words, ALL IN. We want the parents who sign-up for our programs to entrust us in the tournaments we attend, the meetings we organize, and the recruiting process we follow. In regards to using Lacrosse recruits, we expect all of our families to utilize this online recruiting platform to engineer a better recruiting experience. Why? Because it works. Lacrosse recruits is a great way to bring the FLG Coaches and Club Directors in the recruiting conversation. Below is the THREE BIG tasks we expect our studletes to do on Lacrosse recruits before we talk recruiting:
1. Completely fill out your Player Profile. This includes a picture, fall/summer schedule, contact information, GPA, and transcript
2. Get a highlight reel and at it to your Profile
3. Favorite 15-30 schools and research those schools
Help us, help you. Follow our path. Work with us. Be #AllIn
Today, we would like to feature Power-tek Performance Gear.
Power-tek Performance Gear was started by Tom and Jim Lalli, two brothers with a passion for delivering quality performance apparel at realistic prices.
FLG have been using Power-tek for years now and have experienced nothing but excellent service, reliability, and competitive prices.
They customize their products to our liking and request. They are a pleasure to work with and a highly reputable brand. Katie Lalli and her team of graphic designers are creative and are great to work with.
If you are looking for a great performance gear company, be sure to check out Power-tek
Here are the FLG Girls & Boys Select jerseys for the 2015/16 Season. Looking forward to another great year!
Today we had a great meeting with the new Men’s Lacrosse Staff at Manhattan College. A program that has struggled for quite some time has new leadership, a new identity, and a motivated staff that has this Jasper Program moving in one direction, UP.
First Year Head Men’s Lacrosse Coach, Coach Drew Kelleher, drawing up some plays for his Manhattan team this past fall
Head Coach Drew Kelleher, Assistant Coach John Odierna, and Assistant Coach Andrew Hodgson are re-building the Manhattan program from the ground-up. During our visit Coach Kelleher said, “we can’t focus on beating other programs until we can beat Manhattan College. There are still so many things we have to learn about our school. We as coaches need to learn more about our academic programs, history of the school, and athletics, before we can start focusing on defeating other schools.” In order to learn the ins-and-outs of Manhattan College, Coach Kelleher and co. started networking with other athletic programs, connecting with Manhattan lacrosse alumni, meeting individually with players on the team, connecting with faculty/staff, and much more!
The Jasper Men’s Lacrosse Staff is a passionate, enthusiastic, and positive group. Their kindness and generosity is straight contagious, spreading through all walks of life on campus. From getting to know the on-campus chefs to holding doors for students, connections between Jasper Men’s Lacrosse players and everyone else on campus are being made every day.
Coach Kelleher explained how “…people are going to start showing up at Manhattan Men’s Lacrosse games because of how our player’s represent themselves on campus. If we support other programs, students, and staff at Manhattan, we hope they will support us too.”
Not only is the Men’s Lacrosse Staff at Manhattan looking to build a winning tradition, they want to enhance the studlete experience for everyone at the school. Last night, the coaches had their entire freshmen and senior classes to show up and support their Women’s Volleyball Team. Not only did two classes of Men’s Lacrosse players show up at the game, but the coaches showed up as well. Coach Kelleher said, “We’re not the type of staff to tell our kids to support other programs and not do so ourselves.” Coach Kelleher made it very clear that the Men’s Lacrosse staff was in the business of supporting other Manhattan Athletic Programs, not just Manhattan athletes. Supporting other programs includes coaches and anyone else who helps Manhattan studletes become the best they can be. Tonight, the Men’s Lacrosse Staff, the sophomore class, and the junior class will be attending the Men’s soccer game vs. Lehigh to show their support of Jasper Athletics!
Our meeting concluded at the Riverdale Diner, located next to Gaelic Park, home to where the Jasper Men’s Lacrosse team plays their regular season games. During our conversation at breakfast, Coach Hodgson had some great points about High School studletes meeting with college coaches during their recruiting process. (Please see the FLG Whiteboard for the best of those tips!) The one tip that stood out was the importance of speaking for yourself. For example, if you’re on a visit to a college campus and the coaches ask you a question, don’t have your parents answer. The coaches want to hear you! They want to learn about you! They will one day be coaching and communicating with you!
A big thanks to the entire Jasper Men’s Lacrosse staff for dropping some knowledge on getting recruited, on what Manhattan College is all about, and on their plans for building a winning tradition. The FLG Staff looks forward to watching the Jaspers play during the 2016 season!
#GoJaspers #JasperNation
Update :: 1/27/16 6:30pm EST :: Jasper Nation
After checking in with the Jasper coaches this week, I asked, “How’s the team been looking this winter?” They responded, “we are sticking together, working together, and growing together.” In the last 2 months, the Manhattan Men’s Lacrosse Program has been extremely active off the field. The coaches launched the inaugural Jasper Cocktail Night, which brought together over 100 Manhattan Lacrosse Alums, fans, friends, and family. This night successfully helped the Program spread the overall message of this program is moving in the right direction, join us, and be proud to call yourself a Jasper.
As a team, the Jaspers have been actively doing off-the-field activities to develop team chemistry. The Jaspers had a movie night to introduce the freshmen to the classic film, Dumb and Dumber. Also, they did a buddy system where the coaches paired each freshman or newcomer with a junior or senior and they sit together for every meeting, meal and call each other by assigned nicknames that were given by the coaching staff. Lastly, and by far the best activity the Jasper Men’s Lacrosse team aka The 6th Borough did was suit up in forest green classic style Manhattan sweaters and attend the Manhattan vs. Monmouth basketball game. Thanks to the support of the 6th Borough, Manhattan pulled off a huge win against the MAAC conference top seed, Monmouth. At the time, Monmouth was 14-4, with the 16th best RPI in the country.
See video of the Jasper Lacrosse team celebrating a crucial free throw towards the end of the game.
All in all, the Jaspers are doing pretty good. Looking forward to checking back in this Spring. The Jaspers open up against Bryant next Saturday, February 6th. #Jaspers #JasperNation #6thBorough
I read a very interesting New York Times article last night about kids’ developing “Math Anxiety.” The article was titled – “Square Root of Kids’ Math Anxiety: Their Parents’ Help.” Individuals with high math anxiety demonstrate smaller working memory spans and lapses in mathematical development. The big question is, how do kids develop math anxiety?! Math anxiety is developed when math-anxious parents help too much with their children’s math homework. The more math anxious-parents tried to work with their children, the worse their children did in math.
I’d like to think there are parallels between math-anxious parents negatively affecting their children in math, AND, anxious parents negatively affecting their children in sports. For example, if you’re a parents that goes to your child’s game and can’t help but to scream when your child has the ball, when a play is developing, or when the balls on the ground, than you need to be very contentious of this behavior; children put enough pressure on themselves during play. If they hear their mom or dad screaming during their event, it will only add to anxiety. If your child is looking over at you after this play, than its a sign they’re becoming an anxious player.
Youth laxer seen playing with confidence
Additionally, if you’re a parent that gets anxious during your son or daughter’s games, you need to be conscious of what you say and do with your children on the walk to the parking lot, on the car ride home, and when your children are playing in the back yard. Let your children bring up events from their practice or game on their own. If they don’t feel like discussing it, than talk about something else. If your children don’t feel like getting instruction during their play in the backyard, than let them just play.
Children are inherently creative. They should have the confidence to try new things, make mistakes, and experiment during sporting events. If your child is feeling anxious during PLAY, than they won’t have the confidence to try new things and develop their game. Their development will be flawed both mentally and physically, not allowing them to progress.
Sometimes doing nothing can mean everything for your child’s development. Let your children make mistakes. Let them be creative. Just let them PLAY. Every child develops at a different rate. Some kids pick up things quicker than others. Substitute some of that anxiety with patience and support. Your child will be successful in whatever they pursue.
Why do we keep score during youth sporting events?
