Did You Know?

Ok, this may not be disturbing to anyone but me, but the way my mind works, I was totally disgusted by what I saw on aol.com yesterday regarding an advertisement for people struggling to make money in this current recession. What the article stated was "Need Money? 10 Part-Time Jobs That Pay" and the picture shown was a little league baseball coach with the caption "Teeball coaches make up to $14/hr."

I was floored by the fact that they were advertising for people to just sign up for coaching positions and it reminded me that this actually was possible in our country. I'm positive by this point you realize I am not a fan of people who coach without necessary training of any kind. Unfortunately, these untrained individuals are also usually coaching at the youngest levels of sport, a.k.a. the most tender time in an athelte's career. I think it only takes one negative experience at these ages to turn a kid away from the sport and maybe sports altogether which is very saddening.

Did You Know? More than half of children who participate in sport before age 12 do not continue after age 12.

I think this is a huge challenge we need to combat as youth sport advocates and I also believe paying unexperienced coaches is the answer. We need to establish/adopt a universal system proven to educate and evaluate sport coaches. The Canadian Coaching Association is much farther ahead in terms of coach education and uses a performance based approach to evaluate coaches, not a knowledge based approach that many associations in the United States are using. For example, you have to demonstrate effective coaching techniques to become certified, not just pass a written test that often times has nothing to do with coaching anyway.

I became a Level 3 Hockey coach by attending 3 seminars, for three days. Nobody with USA Hockey knows if I can actually teach or coach a group of hockey players, but I did sit and listen for a few hours and then pass the test.... I think the statistic above is proving that this is an ineffective system of coach education, we are the ones who can change things.