Youth Sports New York - SUNY Youth Sports Institute - Coach Training and Certification Program

Announcing the First Statewide Training Network
for non-School Youth Coaches & Parents

Building a Culture of Activity for New York's Children and Communities

The story of youth sports in America has entered a new chapter. For most youngsters, it’s no longer home to neighborhood games that teach life lessons through active, energetic self-governed play. With family management, safety, and skill development as its driving force, youth sport is too frequently a controlled form of adult-driven organized play. It speaks of player development, training, achievement, winnowing out the weak and specialization- words that sound like work, not play.

Yet the games children play and their physical engagement in those games, are important components of a healthy life. Magnified by a global ‘sportsmanship’ crisis and the health-challenges of childhood obesity and diabetes closer to home, the youth sports model that replaced player-organized games is under increasing scrutiny.

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Rival Schools, Rival Sports and the Consoling Power of High School Athletes

by Tim Donovan
Copyright 2010 SUNY Youth Sports Institute
August 12, 2010

High school baseball and men's lacrosse are seen as rival sports. They share the same season, compete for the same athletes, the same fans, same spotlight. Yet this spring Suffern baseball and Rye lacrosse, rival New York suburban schools separated by thirty miles and the Hudson River, were joined through a small act of grace. One high school team understood the suffering visited upon their opponents - and sought to console them.

In late March 2010 Suffern High School baseball players, Vincent Crotty and Christopher Konkowski were on their way to practice on a rainy Tuesday when their car was in an accident with a garbage truck. The seniors died that day. Best friends and future teammates at SUNY Institute of Technology in Utica, the loss of Crotty and Konkowski was life-changing for the tight-knit Rockland County community.

On May 6th, barely a shadow after the accident, Rye High School was scheduled to travel to Suffern High School for a Varsity boy's lacrosse game. One parent in the Rye lacrosse community read about the tragedy and contacted the Rye Coach and Athletic Director. They had an idea on how the Rye lacrosse team could both honor the two Suffern baseball players and at the same time and console their Suffern opponents on losing their friends and classmates.

Before the game, without fanfare and in a silent demonstration of solidarity with the Suffern school community, the Rye lacrosse team placed Suffern Blue stickers on each Rye player's red, white and black helmet. The numbers 7 and 19 were the baseball uniform numbers of Suffern's Vincent Crotty and Christopher Konkowski.

The Section One lacrosse official for that game Brian McKeever, retired NYFD, has seen a lifetime of loss and grace. Brian was moved by these young men. Rivals on one level, they delivered solace and humanity on a higher plane. This silent gesture summoned the power of young people in sport. On that day it had the power to bridge one river, two schools and two rival sports. As they honored the lives of two bright young athletes, they brought honor to us all.

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Sports-Related Concussions on the Rise in Kids

Study Shows Hockey and Football Lead Youth Sports in Number of Concussions

By Salynn Boyles
WebMD Health News

Aug. 30, 2010 -- The number of young children treated in hospital ERs for concussions they got while playing on sports teams has doubled in just a decade, a new study shows.

While the concussion rate is higher among high-school-age athletes, researchers say the rate among younger athletes is both significant and rising.

The study represents the first attempt to document the national incidence of sports-related concussions among children in elementary and middle school.

When We Name Our Kids After Athletes

By DAN SHANOFF, New York Times

"Timothy Tebow Shanoff." It has a nice ring to it, doesn't it?

In the lead-up to the birth of my son last week, baby names were on the brain -- and on the table.

Sports fans are willing to do a lot of irrational things -- scream helplessly at the TV, play dress-up in player jerseys, or worse, dress down to bare chest and spray paint, even in freezing weather. But perhaps nothing hits closer to home than sports' influence on children's names.

It's not like my wife and I were actually going to name our kid after Tim Tebow, our favorite athlete. That would be as ludicrous as naming your kid after, say, Brett Favre. (As Eric Mangini did -- Zach Brett Mangini.)

Weighty Issue

A fitness center injury lawsuit illustrates the importance of a proper risk management plan.

By John T. Wolohan, AthleticBusiness.com

As any administrator or employee involved in the sports and recreation industry will acknowledge, one of the most important tasks is to control or limit an organization's exposure to financial risk -- either through insurance or by taking corrective actions that mitigate risk. While there are many ways to reduce an organization's exposure, one of the best is to develop a risk management plan.

In developing an effective risk management plan -- which can include everything from the frequency and type of maintenance required on equipment to proper emergency procedures and training for personnel -- it is essential that sports and recreation administrators try to identify any and all risks that may be associated with an activity. As a result, one of the first steps is to conduct a risk audit, during which administrators walk around the facility and inspect for potential dangers. Inspection of all equipment for wear and tear is important, since the facility is liable for any injuries suffered on defective or broken equipment that it knows, or should have known, poses a danger to users.

It is not enough, however, to conduct only a single or annual audit. For a risk management plan to be effective, it is essential that the plan incorporate a regular, systematic inspection program that includes a written record of the inspection, including who conducted the audit, the date, any defects found, and any remedies taken to correct them.

Contact Sport

A rash of batted-ball injuries has renewed debate over the performance of baseball and softball equipment.

By Paul Steinbach, AthleticBusiness.com
April 29, 2010

News this spring of injuries to baseball and softball pitchers from batted balls has been coming at us like a screaming line drive -- forcing some sports administrators to try, again, to get a handle on the issue of bat performance and player safety.

On April 24, Chris Jakubauskas of the Pittsburgh Pirates was hit in the head behind his right ear, landing him in the hospital and on the 15-day disabled list with a head bruise and concussion. Earlier in the month, two college pitchers were tagged: Vanderbilt freshman Corey Williams had his right kneecap split in half by a line drive April 3 and was out for the season following surgery; and on April 1, Arizona's Kurt Heyer was hit in the head and briefly hospitalized.

These incidents followed an even more injury-ridden March. During spring training, Marc Rzepczynski of the Toronto Blue Jays suffered a broken finger that cost him six weeks of the season beginning March 30, and the New York Yankees' Damaso Marte was hit in the lower back and removed from a game March 17.

Study: Required Coaching Training Does Not Lead to Attrition

Non-school youth athletics could not survive without volunteers. Every year recreation and youth sports directors are faced with the challenge of filling volunteer positions with knowledgeable, effective personnel. Many have voiced concerns about overtaxing their volunteers' valuable time with mandatory training/certification in adolescent development, youth coaching, safety and health, sport psychology, etc. A recent study conducted by the SUNY Youth Sports Institute (Spring 2010) suggests these concerns are unfounded.

While forty percent (40.5%) of the study's participants explained that their choice of not mandating some form of coaching certification is based upon a fear of losing coaches, less than three percent (2.5%) actually had a coach leave due to a mandatory training requirement. The results of the study suggest that the primary reason coaches vacate their volunteer roles is that their children "graduate" from the program.

Read the findings

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Young will have to change names to escape 'cyber past' warns Google's Eric Schmidt

The private lives of young people are now so well documented on the internet that many will have to change their names on reaching adulthood, Google's CEO has claimed.

By Murray Wardrop, Telegraph.co.uk
Published: 7:00AM BST 18 Aug 2010

Eric Schmidt suggested that young people should be entitled to change their identity to escape their misspent youth, which is now recorded in excruciating detail on social networking sites such as Facebook.

"I don't believe society understands what happens when everything is available, knowable and recorded by everyone all the time," Mr Schmidt told the Wall Street Journal.

In an interview Mr Schmidt said he believed that every young person will one day be allowed to change their name to distance themselves from embarrasssing photographs and material stored on their friends' social media sites.

The 55-year-old also predicted that in the future, Google will know so much about its users that the search engine will be able to help them plan their lives.

CIF reaches agreement on metal bats

State's governing body of high school sports is adopting new safety standards and assemblyman is expected to withdraw his bill that would have imposed a one-year moratorium on non-wood bats.

August 10, 2010|Eric Sondheimer - Los Angeles Times

The California Interscholastic Federation has reached agreement with Assemblyman Jared Huffman (D-San Rafael) on new safety standards for metal bats, which is expected to result in Huffman withdrawing his bill, AB 7, that would have imposed a one-year moratorium on non-wood bats for high school baseball games next season.

Huffman said he will hold a news conference Wednesday in Sacramento with Marie Ishida, the CIF's executive director.

On Friday, during a conference call, the executive committee of the CIF passed a requirement that aluminum bats used for 2011 must meet the new BBCOR performance standards if the bats are commercially available by Jan. 1.

BBCOR gauges the trampoline effect of a ball coming off a bat instead of simply the speed of the ball after it's hit, and the new standard is aimed at decreasing bat performance by 10% to 15%, making the game safer.

Parents: Don't cross the line when pushing your child to excel

Hope A. Smith - Editorial Columnist, CANCERSTINX@AOL.COM
Published: August 13, 2010

"Bad News Bears," the original little league comedy starring Walter Matthau, was on TV last night. I hadn't seen it in years, so I tuned in to the last 20 minutes.

It inspired me to think about youth sports, after I watched the scene where the opposing team's coach hit his child, the pitcher, for making a bad pitch. I was laughing at the movie until I saw that scene, about which I'd forgotten.

There are far too many instances when parents pressure their children into playing sports or participating in some other extracurricular activity. Particularly in sports, where the competition is fierce, there are occurrences whereby parents' anger spins out of control. Some parents believe their child is the next Michael Jordan, or the next

Bret Favre. They seem to forget that, as the old saying goes, "It's just a game."
All one has to do is search YouTube for a plethora of parents behaving badly at youth sporting events.

There are parents cussing a blue streak at each other on the bleachers. There's a father attacking a referee. And there are mothers pulling out each other's hair.

Study Examines Differences in Male, Female ACL Injuries

A new study appearing in this month's issue of the British Journal of Sports Medicine adds to the growing body of research noting differences in injury rates and severity of ACL injuries among males and females. This particular study, involving researchers from Washington University School of Medicine and the Santa Monica (Calif.) Orthopaedic and Sports Medicine Research Foundation, found that male soccer players are more likely to sustain ACL injuries in their dominant kicking legs, while females are more likely to suffer ACL injuries in their supporting legs.

As with past research, these findings confirm that female athletes are far more susceptible to ACL injury. In fact, females are as much as six times more likely to tear their ACLs, and every year one out of every 10 women participating in intercollegiate athletics (and one in 100 female high school athletes) suffers an ACL injury.

Elmira Small Fry Football & Cheerleading	Aug 21
Groton Youth Football & Cheerleading	Aug 18
Jamaica Bulldogs Youth Football and Cheer	Aug 6
Marlboro Youth Football and Cheerleading	Jul 31
Mid-Hudson Pop Warner Football and Cheerleading Conference	Aug 14 Aug 21 Aug 28
Town of Moreau	Aug 17 Aug 18
New Hartford Pop Warner Football	Jul 28
Rosedale Little League	Sept 9
Watertown Cyclones Pop Warner Football and Cheer	Jul 28
Westchester Youth Football League	Aug 25
Broome Community College	Aug 10 Sept 15 Oct 14 Nov 18
Dutchess Community College	Jul 29 Aug 5
Finger Lakes Community College	Jul 29 Oct 27
Hudson Valley Community College	Aug 10 Sept 15 Oct 21 Nov 18
Mohawk Valley Community College	Jul 28 Sept 30 Oct 26
Onondaga Community College	Sept 15 Oct 19 Nov 18 Feb 24, 2011
Suffolk County Community College	Aug 3
Ulster County Community College	Sept 11 Oct 30
Westchester Community College	Aug 5 Aug 19

Announcing the First Statewide Training Networkfor non-School Youth Coaches & Parents

State's governing body of high school sports is adopting new safety standards and assemblyman is expected to withdraw his bill that would have imposed a one-year moratorium on non-wood bats.

Announcing the First Statewide Training Network
for non-School Youth Coaches & Parents