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Check out “The Boy Who Learned to Fly”, the animated story of Usain Bolt

July 25, 2016 By Mike Leave a Comment

The 2016 Olympics in Rio have been riddled with issues and problems. From zika to questionable facilities to Russia’s doping scandal you wonder if they should have just taken this year off and tried again in 2020.

But it’s still the Olympics and of course there are still stories to be excited about. One big one is the return of Usain Bolt, the world’s fastest man. 29 year old Bolt has had a dissapointing year due to injuries, but he says he’s back better than ever. This summer Bolt is vying to become the first athlete ever to win gold in the 100, 200 and 400 relay in 3 straight Olympic games.

To get folks excited for Bolt’s efforts in the games, Gatorade created a fun and creative 7-minute animated short that takes us through the story of the world’s fastest man.

Fun idea by Gatorade and fun video to watch with the kids to get them excited for the 2016 Olympics.

Check out The Boy Who Learned to Fly.

Filed Under: Media, Youth Sports Tagged With: olympics, usain bolt

5 fatherhood and leadership lessons learned from top NCAA Football coaches

July 24, 2016 By Mike Leave a Comment

Screen Shot 2016-07-24 at 9.57.11 AM

(L-R) Charles Strong, Chad Morris, David Bailiff and Kevin Sumlin. Photo from the @CalRipkenSrFdn Twitter feed

Last week I had the honor of attending a luncheon here in Dallas for the Cal Ripken Sr. Foundation. I wasn’t familiar with the organization but as soon as I learned more about their work I realized their mission is something that I very much want to get more involved with.

The Cal Ripken Sr. Foundation is run by MLB Hall of Famer Cal Ripken Jr. and named after his late great dad, manager and lifelong teacher Cal Ripken Sr. The Foundation aims to help underserved kids through sports. Some of their activities:

  • Building multi-sport facilities in communities that need them
  • Training police officers in communities coaching skills so that law enforcement and kids can try and come together through sports and achieving shared goals – this aspect of their program is so important in today’s divisive environment.
  • Equipping and empowering student athletes through training, workshops and tools

The fundraising lunch in Dallas highlighted the Foundation’s Uncommon Athlete program. Uncommon Athlete is a leadership curriculum for student athletes to help them maximize their potential as people and citizens to ultimately use their influencer to drive change.

The main event of the luncheon was a panel discussion with four of America’s most accomplished NCAA Football coaches. The panel was hosted by Dallas TV and radio personality, Newy Scruggs. The coaches on the panel:

  • Charlie Strong, Head Coach at the University of Texas
  • Kevin Sumlin, Head Coach at Texas A&M
  • David Bailiff, Head Coach Rice University
  • Chad Morris, Head Coach at SMU

Big name guys.

The hour long discussion was wildly educational, really funny and most of all, inspirational. Hearing from guys that have dedicated their lives to coaching and molding young athletes made we want to step my game all the way up in the ways I approach leadership and fatherhood.

The coaches blessed us with countless gems during the panel discussion and I wanted to share a few that have stuck with me since listening in on these great guys share their thoughts.

1. Use Time Wisely

One of the moments of comic relief came when Newy asked the coaches what TV shows they watch during their down time. He started with Coach Strong who just shook his head. He could not name one TV show that he watches regularly. It was a a hilarious moment, highlighting how much of a no-nonsense guy Coach Strong is. But as Newy went down the line and asked the other coaches the same question, he got the same answers.

It became a powerful moment. These guys are some of the busiest people in the world and during the season they are fully engaged on their players and winning football games. Anything outside of that is a distraction. It made me think a lot about how I spend my time and what it takes to reach success. Without saying it explicitly, the coaches taught a valuable lesson on not letting outside distractions leak into the process of accomplishing goals.

2. Your Word is Everything

Rice coach David Bailiff talked about a commitment that he honored to running back Luke Turner. Turner was a star Texas high school player who broke his leg his senior year. At that point no other school had offered Turner a D1 scholarship, but Rice stood with their commitment and belief in Turner. Bailiff kept his word to the young man and it changed Turner’s life. Check out Turner’s emotional acknowledgement of Coach Bailiff’s support below:

3. Family First

While the coaches are in charge of the young men on their teams, they are also fathers. A couple things stood out to me in their approach to busy schedules and being fathers. Each of the coaches talked very specifically about not missing their kids games and events. If they had a long night of film and game planning ahead of them, often they would take a break, go to their kids’ games and then go back to the football facility late at night to finish any prep.

SMU coach Chad Morris mentioned that often times the two most influential men in a kid’s life is a coach and a dad. So, when he’s communicating with his kids, he’s got his dad hat firmly on. No post game analysis. That’s what coaches are for. He’s there after games to be dad first.

4. Publicly Reward Hard Work

It was awesome to see the coaches light up when asked about the ability to reward walk-on players with scholarships. Across the board the coaches had such admiration for the young men who walked on to the football team — paying their own way through college — and giving the same, in many cases, more effort than their teammates.

SMU coach, Chad Morris famously captured the emotions of this act when he turned a prank into a public celebration of hard work paying off:

These public acts also build hope for the other walk-on players, showing them what’s possible if they stay focused and work hard.

5. Be Active in the Community

This was the whole spirit of the panel. This was not a paid event for these coaches. They were there to represent their passion for kids and their belief that sports is a great way to build kids into people that can help change the world.

In 2016 it feels like an imperative to reset and refocus on making sure we’re investing in developing active, inclusive and empathetic kids. The coaches’ discussion really reignited that passion in me to get involved locally to create a better world globally.

Big thanks to my friend Kevin Smith, Sports Business professor at TCU for the invite!

 

Filed Under: Tips for Dads, Youth Sports Tagged With: cal ripken foundation, college football, leadership

“Do you know that you can fly?” – A powerful video from Nike and Girl Effect

July 23, 2016 By Mike Leave a Comment

Raising 4 daughters is easily the most challenging, humbling, enlightening and fulfilling process that I engage in daily. Each day that I see my daughters interact with each other and their community I am taken aback but just how amazing and powerful they are. If anyone’s set to change the world for the better, it’s young girls.

But as a global society we’re often not helping to bring love and light to that potential.

Girl Effect is an organization backed by the Nike Foundation to help create meaningful impact in girls’ lives across the globe.

Their mission: “To change the world for girls, so that girls can change the world.”

Girl Effect recently released a video called Invisible Barriers that asks the question: “Do you know that you can fly?”

It’s a powerful 2 minutes of animated video that I encourage you to watch with your girls.

Filed Under: Tips for Dads Tagged With: girl power, nike

SI Play mobile app walkthrough video shows exciting youth sports features for parents

July 23, 2016 By Mike Leave a Comment

Sports Illustrated and Time Inc are one the recent players to enter the youth sports market — helping leagues, coaches, parents and young players better manage their youth sports experience. The folks at SI Play recently dropped a walkthrough video of their new mobile app and there are some cool features for parents to check out. I am particularly excited about the Players Cards and Family Schedule features.

Throughout the season it’s still a pretty clunky activity to take pictures and videos of players and moments and share them with other parents. It will be cool to see these images all contained and contextual within the app and tagged by player.

Also, with multiple kids on multiple teams it will be helpful to see those schedules and games in context of each other to help parents manage drop-offs and pickups a little better.

Excited to see how these features adopted this fall when the seasons really kick off.

Filed Under: Tech, Youth Sports Tagged With: si play

New Survey: Most Americans think kids shouldn’t play tackle football before 14 years old

July 23, 2016 By Mike Leave a Comment

Embed from Getty Images

This summer, The UMass Lowell Center for Public Opinion conducted a poll of 1000 Americans about their attitudes towards youth sports, concussions and CTE. If you’re a parent who has had these discussions with your kids and parents communities, the results of the survey may not surprise you.

The bottom line is that concussions and their impact on Chronic Traumatic Encephalopathy or CTE has reached a high level of public concern.

Parents are worried are about having their kids exposed to head trauma at such an early age. Key results are below:

Most people think tackle football doesn’t make sense for kids under 14

78% of those surveyed surveyed believe it’s inappropriate for kids to play tackle football before age 14
21% of those surveyed feel that it’s OK for kids under 14

Slight gender gap but still pretty consistent thinking

94% of women oppose tackle football before age 10
84% of women oppose it before age 14
72% of men oppose tackle football before age 14

Not just football

60% of respondents believe that it’s not safe for kids to “head” the ball in soccer before high school

From UMASS Lowell prof, Jeffrey Gerson who has studied sports concussions for over a decade:

“This poll confirms a growing public awareness that concussions can result in CTE, a degenerative brain disease, and that CTE is now viewed as a serious public health issue…The poll also confirms that the public believes that one of the greatest threats to athletes is at the youth level. The public’s negative view of tackle football for children under 14 and heading a soccer ball in youth soccer may lead to further changes in these sports that can have a ripple effect on sports for older children, especially at the high school level.”

If you want to dig into the data further, head over to the UMASS Lowell website.

 

Filed Under: Youth Sports Tagged With: concussions, cte

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