Love in Youth Sport

In a recent coaches' training, the topic of love was brought up by a participant.

Love in youth sport is a tricky topic given some of the recent abuse scandals.

To add, the coaches' teams were from special populations that are especially vulnerable including youth living in residential treatment, group homes, and underserved youth.

After much discussion, a few meaningful comments were made including:

• Appropriate physical and emotional boundaries are of utmost importance. 
• Creating an environment where a child feels safe, cared for, and has healthy attachments is desirable within the sport and coaching context. 
• Caring can be modeled through your interactions with your coaching staff and others that are in the sport context.  

Any thoughts to add? 

Doc Wayne Girls All-Star Game Video

The Doc Wayne MetroWest Girls Program celebrated it's mid-season  Flag Football All-Star Game today (May, 15th). All-Stars were selected by their coaches and awarded in two categories:

1. DtG Skills
2. Athletic Skills

The Doc Wayne Program is known for it's incredibly impactful do the good (DtG) life skills curriculum that embeds key concepts into sport through teen friendly slogans.

In addition to the All-Star Game, every player was invited to participate in a skills competition, challenging them to reach for their potential in many areas (throwing, catching, agility, running, etc.). Individual scores were kept, but comparisons were not made to others.

RR

www.docwayne.org

What does it mean to be an "All-Star?"

What does it mean to be an “All-Star?” The professional sports leagues seem to define “All-Star” as a player who is either among the elite players statistically, the fans or coaches’ favorites, or someone who boosts the television ratings. Nowhere in this definition is any consideration for life circumstances, tremendous off court or field development, or perhaps a player’s impact upon others.

In youth sport it’s especially important to be intentional. All-Stars should represent what your program or league values.

On Tuesday, 16 do the good (DtG) Girls All-Stars will proudly play representing the Doc Wayne program and all that we value. They have been selected very carefully by their coaches. These 16 girls were not selected based on their statistics, television ratings, or by the hundreds of Doc Wayne fans at each game ;-).  Instead they were selected based on their DtG skills, accomplishments overcoming many obstacles in life and most of all because they are the epitome of “All-Star!” in our DtG dictionary.

do the good,

RR
www.docwayne.org