My Youth Sports Survey Shows Training Better Coaches, Managing Parent Behavior, and Promoting Fun Are Important Ways to Make the Sports Experience Better for Our Kids!

By Bob Bigelow

Bob spent over twenty years speaking around the country on ways to improve sports for kids, and conducted literally hundreds of basketball clinics for youth coaches and players over this same period. Through this experience, he learned what ways are most important to improve youth sports.

Several years ago, Bob decided to conduct his own research as to what people involved in youth sports think are the best approaches, to capture their ideas with an online survey to gather the opinions of coaches, administrators and parents. Bob received over 600 responses from folks involved in youth sports who have shared their points of view.

Of the people responding, 83% include coaches and referees, people who are intimately associated with the youth game. Others include (percentages add to more than 100% as some people have multiple roles):

• 59% - Team parents or parents only
• 40% - General volunteers other than coaches or referees
• 39% - League administrators and/or board members
• 31% - People who are part of some organization dedicated to improving youth sports

So the survey has included is a wide variety of people involved in youth sports.

The survey asked a critical question of these respondents: “Please rate the importance of the following overall ways to improve youth sports”. Survey takers were provided twelve options for improvement, and asked to rate these on a scale of 1 to 5, with 1 being “not really important”, 2 = “not sure”, 3 = “somewhat important”, 4 = “important”, and 5 = “very important”. Here are the results in order from top down, with the percent of people rating each item as either “important” (4) or “very important” (5):

Most important

• Ways to keep more kids playing as they get older – 95%
• Ways to make the program more fun – 94%
• Promote sports as education and not just competition – 93%
• Better training for coaches in child development needs – 93%
• Better training for coaches in teaching sports skills – 90%
• Rules to enforce better parent and coach behavior at games – 90%

Also important

• Rules to promote fairer teams – 86%
• Rules to ensure equitable playing time – 80%

Still worth considering

• Ways to make travel programs better and/or less stressful – 68%
• Make programs easier for board members to manage – 63%
• Approaches to de-emphasize winning – 56%
• Changes that de-emphasize or even eliminate travel programs – 43%

Looking for ways to keep kids playing, along with making programs more fun, topped the list with over 90% rating these as either important or very important approaches. Too many kids drop out of youth sports by the time they hit middle school, often because they were no longer having fun. This ties also in to the next items on the list, namely the need for kids to learn new skills to stay engaged, and for coaches to be well trained in promoting skills and also understanding that they are coaching kids and not little adults. Many programs from my experience only provide minimal training for youth coaches, especially at recreational levels for younger kids.

Training is available from many sources and organizations even if the local program is not a member of a national youth sports organization (YSO) such as the Y. There are plenty of online resources for how to teach kids the game, with handy booklets and videos, including Bob's DVDs. In addition, there are organizations such as the Positive Coaching Alliance that provide youth coaches training programs at reasonable cost.

In addition to promoting fun, learning and coach education, all of which help increase player retention, it is important to monitor and instill positive behavior by parents and coaches alike during games. This often comes down to league administrators being diligent in publishing and promoting rules that call for positive standards of behavior, and enforcing these when the adults get out of line at the expense of the kids. NASPE (The National Association for Sport and Physical Education) has published a “Bill of Rights for Young Athletes” that gets to the heart of the matter.

1. Right to have fun.
2. Right to participate in sports
3. Right to participate at a level commensurate with each child’s maturity and ability.
4. Right to have qualified coaches and administrators.
5. Right to play in developmentally appropriate forms of activities, not adult versions.
6. Right to share in leadership and decision making about their sport participation.
7. Right to participate in safe and healthy environments.
8. Right to proper preparation and conditioning for participation in sports.
9. Right to an equal opportunity to strive for success in sports.
10. Right to be treated with dignity by players, coaches, spectators and parents.

In addition to these most important ways to improve youth sports, the survey also showed that people rate creating fair teams and providing equitable playing time as important considerations. This means we should not allow coaches to hand-pick teams and should provide minimum play rules that ensure all children get meaningful playing time in every game. Kids do not have fun sitting on the bench watching other kids play or watching their coaches coach. They all want to play!

Kids need as close to 50% of a game minimum as possible to ensure they learn how to play. Just a few minutes won’t do it and won’t make it fun. At younger ages, play time should be as evenly distributed as possible.

Fair teams make for more exciting games. While coaches may like to win by wide margins, close games are more fun for the kids. What kids aren’t excited by the game coming down to the buzzer beater, whether win or lose?

Several other aspects were not rated as highly, but are still worth considering. These include how travel programs are managed when these are in the mix, how programs are organized so adult volunteers can focus on the things that matter most (i.e. the kids), and how winning and losing is presented to coaches and parents alike. Kids will always try to win their game, so we never need to worry they won’t try their best. That said, one of the bigger land mines in youth sports is adults who compete with each other through their players.

Please look at your local program and ask these important questions in order to assess where you are at, and your opportunities for improvement:

• Are the vast majority of kids having fun and coming back for another season?
• Are your coaches receiving at least some level of education and training not only in sports skills but also about how kids’ needs in sports are not the same as adults?
• Is learning skills a higher priority than competition, keeping track of standings and/or wins and losses?
• Are your coaches and parents well behaved at games most of the time (hopefully the vast majority)?
• Are teams as balanced as possible and playing time meaningful for all kids in the program?

If your answer to these questions is “yes”, then your program is very likely doing a good job. If it’s “no” to one or more of these, then there things you need to look at to improve. Remember, youth sports is about the kids and we all must always strive to meet their needs as the number one priority!