John O’Sullivan is a world renowned speaker who has created the “Changing the Game in Youth Sports” organization, and is a parent and former Technical Director of Oregon Rush Club. His presentation encourages to self-reflect on the importance and impact of our words.
‘Did you know that in the USA every year about 40 million children engage youth sports, yet 70% of them drop by the age of 13?’
Just the opening statement in this TED Talk highlights the importance of this topic. 70% of children drop youth sports by the age of 13. We must be doing something very wrong for this to happen.
I know that’s a hard statement, but it’s unfortunately true. Somehow, somewhere, we lost our path, and we started replacing the word “play” for the word “work”. We added pressure, expectations, and post game analysis on the car ride home, and financial stress, and college commitments, and a lot more to a game that was simply created to be played, because at the end and at the beginning, like Jorge Valdano said:
“Football is just an excuse to be happy”
Jorge Valdano
We see hope though, we can still reverse this, and we thank you for being here as these pages are the first step we take together towards changing this reality.
We offer you the next 14 minutes as an introduction to this sports parenting journey. You’ll find a strong message coming from one of us that might change your whole experience as a soccer dad, mom, or coach. Don’t miss them, they’re worthy, and try to always remember that as Professor Simon Sutton Smith said:
“The opposite of play is not work; it is depression”
Professor Simon Sutton-Smith
Thanks for joining the team.