The Sports Doc Chalk Talk

I believe the time is now that we make concerted efforts to better educate and prepare families for their child’s eventual sport retirement.  With sports being as big as they are in this country, its a shame that so many athletes are still left to themselves to figure out who they are, what their talents are beyond sports, and what future paths exist for them when in the midst of the sport retirement transition.  Fortunately, most athletes do not fall into the worst-case scenarios of suicide (as with the recent passing of Junior Seau), but literally millions of athletes from various sports, backgrounds, and types, experience great distress during sport retirement – often resulting in depression, anxiety, role confusion, and poor future planning.  In order to cope with this distress, many athletes turn to drug and alcohol abuse, aggression, and reckless behaviors (like gambling).

The message I am sending today is designed to promote more action in the ways of better educating sports families about the athletic identity, and how kids often develop an exclusive athletic identity that hinders them when they end their careers in sports.  With so many kids now specializing in one sport and playing it nearly year-round, it becomes easy to see how athletes develop their self-worth around “athlete.”  Their social identities (or how others view them), are also constructed around the athletic identity, too (like when we immediately ask about the game before anything else).  None of this is “bad” necessarily, but it all leads to the fact that most kids never play beyond high school (only about 5% do), making the sport retirement transition usually an abrupt and unplanned one. Without better educational efforts, families will continue to struggle when their kids (who are often just teenagers without great coping skills due to their youth) experience distress during this period — making it that much more important that we make things better.

Help is Here!

One approach that we have developed is Sport Success 360, a licensed educational system designed to help schools and youth sport leagues by providing key psychosocial information, tips, and strategies designed to help kids have a safe, fun, and meaningful athletic experience.  I encourage you to learn more about Sport Success 360 by watching this introductory video — Sport Success 360 includes a broad range of topics (including sport retirement), complimentary videos, and free downloads of Sport Success 360 and Sport Success 360 PLUS audio program.

If you are reading this blog, then it can be assumed you have an interest in youth and interscholastic sports (probably as either a parent, athlete, or coach).  While you may not be a decision-maker in your school or youth league, you can help raise awareness by mentioning Sport Success 360, or other great sport education programs out there that can help kids not only better prepare for sport retirement, but also learn about key psychosocial issues like the dangers of performance enhancing supplements, youth sport burnout, hazing, and many more issues.  In all likelihood you have also experienced more traditional issues, like playing time, cuts, sportsmanship, tough coaches (or parents), and travel leagues – Sport Success 360 covers those topics, too.

Education Helps On and Off the Field

Mental toughness is needed on the field, but it’s not limited to just wins and losses — we need to help families learn the culture of sports today, and successful strategies to help kids cope with the pressures they commonly experience in sports.  Just as important as the X’s and O’s are, we need to help kids with performance anxiety, as well as the resiliency needed to bounce back from adversity.  Ironically, these are really life skills and not limited to sports, making these kinds of sport education efforts that much more vital.

Better and more prevalent education does not imply that sports are bad, or that all kids who play sports have terrible experiences — far from it.  Instead, we need to realize that the days of a handful of casual summer games played on the local sandlot are long gone — replaced by high-level, intense, pressure-filled travel league sports schedules for kids who sometimes struggle to keep up.  Of course, these are not bad kids, either – they are just that, kids, vulnerable to kid mistakes when trying to deal with pressure.

Helping Kids – Even the Ones that Don’t Speak Up

Kids don’t always speak up when they feel pressure – be it from their parents or team expectations.  In some cases kids have a talent for a specific sport, but don’t love playing the sport — yet still refrain from speaking out because the see the time, money, and energy being invested in their athletic career.  Some kids have a lot of trouble multi-tasking other activities – like school and social activities — while others have difficulty dealing with resiliency that sometimes manifests into unsportsmanlike behavior and/or uncontrolled aggression.

When we view youth sports through the lens of it being an often intense, complex, and radically different experience than generations of the past, it helps us better frame the educational approach to youth sports as being one of “keeping up with the times” than one that needs to be done because of “problems.”  Introducing new and more advanced ways of delivering contemporary sport education is not an admission that an athletic department or youth league has gone out of control, but instead an example of sports leaders making important budgetary decisions that go beyond the traditional basics.  Of course, finding new revenue streams is never easy, but when issues become important enough people become resourceful – this is often referred to as a “tipping point.”  Are we there yet?  I think so, and from my experiences with many sports people, it sounds like there is increasingly more support to improve future efforts.  I personally believe this will happen, and I hope you do, too.

www.drstankovich.com

Sport Success 360 is the premier sport education system, designed to improve the culture of your youth or interscholastic team/league!

Roger Clemens is in court again, trying yet again to discretely exit out the backdoor and maintain his innocence while facing mountains of empirical and circumstantial evidence that clearly link him to banned and illegal steroids and performance enhancing supplements.  Once known to baseball fans as a role model, winning pitcher, and fearless competitor, today Clemens comes across as a coward — a person so terrified to ever being discovered having been a cheater that he has gone to unimaginable lengths to protect his less than glamorous past.

While countless baseball peers of Clemens have come clean and admitted to their guilt (even if they were essentially forced to do so), Clemens continues to hold a poker face and maintain that he never used any kind of performance enhancement supplement during his career.  Of course, Clemens, like anyone charged for a crime, is “innocent until proven guilty,” but there is so much going against Clemens denials and so much evidence supporting he used that it’s almost comical watching how far a man will go to preserve his name and reputation — that at least partially was built upon cheating.

I would imagine many MLB players, especially those who played during the time Clemens played, are quite bothered by the position Clemens is taking.  I would also suspect that those players who were caught during the steroid era in baseball are really troubled by the fact that there’s a good chance that Clemens will somehow squirm out of the charges against him, while they had to pay a terrible price through public humiliation and a tarnished reputation.  But not Roger Clemens — rather than “manning up,” as he used to do in pressure game situations, he continues to take the cowards route of denial.

While there is an extremely remote chance that Clemens never cheated, there are many factual pieces to this case that certainly refute his innocence, including the following:

• Clemens played in the steroid era — legions of players from this time have already been busted, and many more have talked about how widespread usage was amongst players.  We have learned in retrospect from players during the steroid era that the baseball culture during that time was filled with steroids and PED’s — and the ridiculous power numbers that have yet to be duplicated since the steroid era certainly support this claim.
• Clemens clearly became more fit as he aged, and his pitching numbers improved dramatically as well.  Never before – nor since the steroid era – have we witnessed baseball players getting bigger, stronger, and better as they aged. Father Time didn’t tap Clemens on the shoulder and grant him “special” abilities.
• There are stacks of medical reports and even DNA evidence connecting Clemens to steroid paraphernalia and unprecedented medical rehabilitation success.  In fact, every claim that Brian McNamee (Clemens former trainer) has made has been confirmed – even his claims about injecting Clemens wife with human growth hormone - but somehow he is lying about only one man – Roger Clemens?
• McNamee admitted under oath about Clemens’ usage, and Clemens former best friend Andy Pettitte has also confessed that Clemens used.  Pettitte has nothing to gain by making this claim, and is (was?) actually a friend of Roger Clemens. His testimony may end up being the most damaging in the end if Clemens is found guilty of using.
• Outside of Clemens and Barry Bonds (another player who squirmed out the back door rather than admitting his usage), nearly every player from the steroid era in baseball who used has either: a) been caught, or b) admitted to using.
• Finally, even though there is enough evidence out there already that shows Clemens is almost certainly lying, ask yourself how your gut feels about his innocence?  Is there any part of this case where you feel Clemens didn’t use?  While I would never suggest a person rely exclusively on intuition and “gut feelings,” I would encourage onlookers to trust those feelings, especially as they add to the already existing evidence that is almost impossible to refute.

Is Roger Clemens a role model?  Hardly.  Is he a coward who looks foolish trying to shirt from the truth, when he could simply come clean and help millions of young athletes learn about the dangers of steroids and performance enhancing supplements?  In my opinion, yes.  Is he an extremely wealthy former athlete with a good defense team that will probably get him off from these charges against him?  Sadly, probably so.

“The Rocket,” as artificial as that name now sounds, will probably remain intact and ride off into the sunset never admitting to cheating the game of baseball.  Unlike one of his former teammates, Alex Rodriguez, Clemens will not admit to any wrongdoing; and unlike Rodriguez and other players who have admitted using (including Andy Pettitte), he will never have the opportunity to be forgiven for his mistakes and poor decisions.  The truth is we all make bad choices in life, and none of us are perfect — but we have witnessed that by coming clean (like Rodriguez and Pettitte did), people do forgive and forget.  What people don’t like, however, is when a person is so obviously guilty yet still stands proudly rather than admitting to his crimes.  That’s exactly the position Clemens has taken, and it’s not only cowardly, but also a terrific missed opportunity for a fresh start and means to help better educate kids about playing right, playing safe, and playing with integrity.

www.drstankovich.com

Play right, play safe, and play with increased mental toughness — learn more at Advanced Human Performance Systems

Sport Success 360 is the premier sport education system on the market today, designed to provide coaches, parents, and student athletes with key information pertaining to today’s commonly experienced problems, issues, and trends in youth and interscholastic sports.  Whether its youth sport burnout, dealing with irate parents, playing time, travel leagues, or the decision around sport specialization vs. sampling, Sport Success 360 delivers professional advice designed to help kids use sports as a vehicle for life success.  Improve the sports safety at your league or school by delivering easy-to-understand tips and advice specific to coaches, student athletes, and parents – providing the “360″ advantage!

Benefits of Sport Success 360

• A 24/7 resource for coaches, student athletes, and parents
• Immediate and practical advice, as well as short videos to help with even deeper insights around today’s psychosocial issues in sports
• A built-in coach exam to test for proficiency
• FREE Sport Success 360 book and audio file downloads
• Finally, a product designed to help with the overall culture of your athletic department or youth sport organization!

Visit Sport Success 360 today and watch the short demo to learn more about individual purchases as well as school/league licensing.  Do your part to help the kids in your league or sport organization have a safe, fun, and meaningful athletic experience – check out Sport Success 360 today!

www.drstankovich.com

I have very exciting news to report – now, for the first time, Sport Success 360 is available to individual users including parents, coaches, and student athletes!  Previously only available to sports leagues, Sport Success 360 is now offered to anyone involved in youth sports wishing to learn more about how to make sports a fun, safe, and meaningful experience.

Benefits of Sport Success 360

• The most comprehensive sport education on the market today, offering professional tips and advice for parents, coaches, and student athletes
• A state-of-the-art interface that allows you to quickly learn about specific topics that are most important to you
• Unique learning system that provides perspectives to issues from multiple views, including coach, athlete, and parent angles (providing the 360 degree learning system)
• Videos to compliment each learning module
• Bonus Sport Success 360 pdf and Sport Success 360 audio program offered FREE with the program (a $25 value!)
• Built-in assessment that certifies users after they complete the Sport Success 360 quiz (great for getting everyone uniformly certified)
• The easiest way to quickly learn everything you need to know about youth sports, including sports burnout, communicating effectively with coaches, quitting, performance supplements, the mental aspects of injuries, hazing, travel leagues, sport specialization, plus much more!

Never be left out of the loop again when it comes to successfully handling the many challenges commonly seen in youth sports today.  Sport Success 360 is designed to help you navigate the sports landscape and prevent problems from occurring, while at the same time equip you with the knowledge needed for kids to maximize their athletic experience.

Easy, convenient, and affordable – that’s Sport Success 360!

while leagues and schools slowly implemnt training, you can stay ahead of the curve

By now you have probably seen those little bottles at the cash register promoting quick, 5-hour energy boosts — and recently you may have noticed the newest addition to the quick-fix energy boost market: Energy Strips.

If you have followed my columns in the past, you already know that I am a big fan of the placebo effect, and regularly talk about how when human changes take place it is the belief about the expected change that serves as the catalyst for the change, and not the protocol, pill, or recommended procedure.  Placebo effects become very powerful when we believe something is going to happen, especially things we really hope to happen (like putting a film strip on your tongue and moments later being magically awakened!).

Similar to the bottled water boom of 10 years ago, where all of a sudden folks were duped into thinking that bottled water when compared to tap water A.) tasted better, and B.) was safer — many people are falling prey to the same paradigm today concerning quick energy (* for the record countless empirical studies have shown bottled water is no safer, nor does it have any better taste, than normal tap water).  Energy strips are convenient, cool, and to the untrained eye a very fast way to make up for the lack of sleep you had last night — but be careful, folks, as great marketing does not make a product (even if it’s LeBron James pitching it).

The reality is that there is no safe, effective solution for making up for the fact that you didn’t get enough rest/sleep.  Similar to how a cup of coffee might give you a quick (albeit limited) “jolt,” at best that’s what you will get from the little bottles and strips of energy sold at the gas station.  If you are vulnerable (typically don’t get enough sleep), and hopeful (would like a quick fix to your sleep problems), then you are a perfect target for these marketing campaigns (even though you are really buying more of a placebo than any legitimate energy booster).

Rather than getting jacked up on drinks and strips, you would be far better served to simply make it a point to get an adequate amount of down-time and sleep into your daily schedule.  And while your first reaction to that comment might be “I’m too busy for rest,” I would challenge you to reconsider that statement and instead look for ways to better manage your daily living.  I don’t doubt you are busy — we are all busy — but my question has to do with how you manage and prioritize your day, and how you do things like delegate, multi-task, and communicate?  In my experience we can all do a better job in those areas, thereby freeing up more time for rest, relaxation, and sleep.  The end result?  No need to spend $3-4 for little bottles of liquid lightning or film strips of energy!

www.drstankovich.com

Mind of Steel is the ultimate sport performance science training program – pick up yours today!

When you think about how much of sport success relies on mental toughness (i.e. confidence, focus, concentration, and resiliency), it only makes sense to dedicate specific training to help enhance and improve mental abilities.  Unfortunately, there are still far too many athletes today caught up in the perceived stigma attached with anything tied to the word “mental,” and as a result they don’t allow themselves to grow and prosper in this area of training.

Instead of thinking about the word “mental,” it might serve athletes better to think of these skills as “cognitive” or “composure” skills.  In fact, when mental skills are taught from an educaitonal vanatge point, athletes almost always tune in as they dont feel threateneed that somebody might find out they are getting “mental” help.So, in the spirit of “cognitive training,” I wanted to quickly remind readers of the ever-expanding performance enhancement line of products currently available at Advanced Human Performance Systems:

• Mind of Steel - a four-part audio series that covers the gamut of sport psychology mental toughness training — the gold standard for serious athletes.
• Ten Tips for Peak Athletic Development - an abbreviated version of Mind of Steel, yet still packed with important sport performance science information for athletes who want to reach their full athletic potential!
• Sport Success 360 - this program goes beyond sport performance training and offers athletes important informaiton eprtaining to the growing number of psychosocial issues and concerns they face.
• Positive Transitions for Student Athletes - if you are an athlete heading into a sport transition – or sport retirement – help plan for your next move by using this invaluable pdf download.
• Mind of Steel (book) – Mind of Steel the book is designed for learners who prefer text over audio — the same great information from the audio series is here!

If you are an athlete and feel your game could be better by expanding your competitive training, please consider some of the products described above.   If you decide to continue doing things the same way, keep the following famous quote in mind:

If you keep on doing what you have always done, you’ll keep on getting what you have always gotten.

www.drstankovich.com

Sport Success 360 is sports leadership training course designed to help youth sport leagues quickly and conveniently prepare youth coaches for the common psychosocial issues, trends, and problems commonly seen in youth sports today.  Packed with state-of-the art learning modules that help coaches not only understand specific issues in youth sports, but also helps by allowing coaches to see how parents and student athletes might deal with the same situation from their unique perspective.When leagues sign up to use Sport Success 360, coaches will gain professioanl advice, insights,a nd tips that can be immediatley put into action on and off the feld.  Some of the topics Sport Success 360 covers includes:

• Youth sport burnout
• Playing time
• Controlling emotions
• Performance supplements
• Hazing
• Handling cuts
• Playing your best
• Sport specialization
• Travel leagues
• Plus much more!!!

In addition to the course, coaches will also receive a FREE pdf copy of Sport Success 360 and Sport Success 360 PLUS audio file!  Move your youth sports league ahead by learning more about how you can get started today!

www.drstankovich.com

The Sport Success 360 online coach training course is now live, and is designed to conveniently help youth sports coaches learn and respond to a variety of on and off-field psychosocial issues and concerns.  The course was designed using the Sport Success 360 sports leadership curriculum, and will help coaches prepare for a variety of issues they are likely to face, including youth sport burnout, playing time, role modeling, performance supplements, hazing, playing time, controlling emotions, communicating with parents, travel leagues, plus much more!

Advantages of Sport Success 360 Coach Education Certification Course:

• A comprehensive training course that uses a unique psychosocial approach to help build positive interpersonal relationships with kids, parents, and coaches.
• Easy to understand tips, insights, warnings, and advice — practical training coaches can use every day for on and off-field success
• Unlike other training courses that are time-intensive and cost-prohibitive, Sport Success 360 can be completed in less time and at an affordable price.
• Leagues can have their entire coaching staff certified easily from the comfort of their homes.
• Can be used as a great compliment to league background checks on coaches.
• Sport Success 360 training course also includes a free download to Sport Success 360 (the book), as well as Sport Success 360 Plus (the advanced audio program).  This means that coaches will be able to reference the educational material not only at the beginning of the season, but throughout their entire coaching career.
• Reduces league exposure and may qualify for league insurance discounts

As youth sports leagues continue to face new and emerging trends, it is important to equip coaches with the skills and knowledge needed to appropriately handle negative and dangerous situations.  Sport Success 360 allows entire leagues to develop a healthy and positive sports culture — leading to healthy and positive experiences for kids.

www.drstankovich.com

I am excited to announce that the popular “Sports Success 360″ book is now available for immediate download! The digital download is available with Sport Success 360 PLUS for only $9.99 for a limited time  (retail $25).

Sport Success 360° is a “hands-on” resource guide for parents, coaches, and student athletes full of tips and insights around today’s psychosocial issues and concerns regularly experienced in youth and interscholastic sports.

Written by Dr. Chris Stankovich, a national expert in the field of sport psychology, Sport Success 360° is light on psychobabble and instead packed with practical advice, tips, and insights that can be immediately applied so that you can maximize the youth athletic experience while at the same time minimize unhealthy and unsafe training procedures.  Learn about sports leadership, role modeling, sports transitions, youth sport burnout, healthy coach-parent relations, playing time, and much, much more!

www.drstankovich.com

It’s hard to believe it’s been 10 years since I spoke to Liz Cho at ABC World News about The Parents Playbook, as well as the contemporary issues and trends commonly experienced in youth sports.  Ironically, other than the fact that I use to have hair, many of the same issues I talked about during this interview pertaining to sports transitions, youth sport burnout, role modeling, boys and girls sports are still around today.

You can pick up your digital download of The Parents Playbook here!

www.drstankovich.com