The Positive Coaching Alliance (PCA) has highlighted yet another poll of youth athletes to help coaches understand the motivation of youth athletes and their desire to play sports. I have included some excerpts below for your information and conversation. Enjoy.
The most surprising things result from PCA workshops. For example, a unique study of youth athletes as reported in this article by Mark Hyman in The New York Times. Peter Barston — the 15-year-old subject of the article, who has polled hundreds of Darien, CT youth athletes to learn their motivations for playing — exemplifies the ethos of a Triple-Impact CompetitorTM, intent on improving self, teammates and sport as a whole.
Barston decided to conduct his poll when his father returned home from a PCA workshop led by Eric Eisendrath and shared with his family the “100-Point” exercise that PCA uses to spur discussion between sports parents and their youth athletes.
To conduct his poll on why youth athletes play sports, Barston handed out this survey to fourth-through-eighth-grade players in groups of 10-20, with no coaches or parents present. Before handing out pencils, he made sure the players understood the 11 choices listed as reasons to play sports.
“You have 100 points to spend amongst these 11 reasons,” Barston told the players. ”If you don’t care about a reason, give it zero points. If you care about a reason, give it some points. The more you care about a reason, the more points you should give it. Please make sure your total points add up to 100. This survey is anonymous. No names. When you are done just drop it in this box and I am taking them home from here.”
Hyman — the author of Until It Hurts, a book about the troubled state of youth sports in America – shares results of Barston’s study that are not shocking: “fun” was the most common reason cited for playing sports. More eye-opening is this additional note that Hyman wrote just for PCA Connector and Youth Sports Spotlight blog readers:
“Parents make most of the decisions about their children’s sports lives. You rarely hear about kids having a real voice. That’s what I found intriguing about Peter’s project. The question he put to young athletes in Darien — ‘Why do you play sports?’ — is simple. Yet the answers already have proved very powerful. One quote from Peter that didn’t make it into the article sticks with me. I asked Peter how kids in Darien had reacted to being part of his survey. Peter said: “A lot of them said: ‘Thank you, it’s good to be asked.’ “
Positive Coaching Alliance
