Championing Character Book - INTRODUCTION
It was a bright, sunny afternoon in Sarasota, Florida. It seemed like the perfect conditions for a young eight-year-old boy named Cash to enjoy playing baseball with his friends.
There was one huge problem. Cash was standing out in right field. About 15 feet away from Cash stood an intense man leaning against the fence outside of the field of play. He was screaming out orders with the same passion that an army officer would command soldiers in an intense war. It was Cash’s dad. There was actually a team coach standing on the right-field line to instruct the outfielders. Nevertheless, Cash’s dad, a spectator, seemed to think that an extra voice would be helpful.
A weak fly ball was hit to right field. Cash got in position. The ball sailed over his glove. Error. Cash’s dad went nuts. He kicked the fence multiple times. He started walking around in circles, swearing at his kid’s mishap. He then screamed out everything his son did wrong to lead to the error. Poor Cash sadly looked at his dad and explained that he had lost the ball in the sun. “Don’t you ever talk back to me,” the father screamed. “I will come out there and kick the s*** out of you.”
I observed this whole situation play out with great sadness for Cash. I wanted to approach Cash’s dad and politely explain that his antics were abusive and detrimental to the well-being of his son. If I pursued such a conversation, there is a chance I wouldn’t be typing out these words to you. Cash’s dad was in no mood for an impromptu behavior chat during the intensity of a youth baseball game.
I assume that the overwhelming majority of you reading this book are horrified by this father's actions. Many of you have likely witnessed similar behavior. Poor parent conduct can be seen at youth sporting events from the youngest ages to the varsity sports level.
Here is the problem. We think that only parents like Cash’s father are the issue with youth sports. However, so many of us across the entire youth sports spectrum are guilty of other detrimental behaviors, such as:
coaching your own kids from the stands
screaming at game officials for a bad call
antagonizing the opposing team’s fans
acting passive-aggressively toward coaches who aren’t playing your kid the way you think they should
living vicariously through your own kid’s athletic performance
rolling your eyes at the kid who isn’t so skilled and makes lots of mistakes
thinking subconsciously that your social media posts about your kid’s achievements are bringing you significance
being all-consumed with your kid’s sporting activities
having warped and unrealistic views that your kid is on track for scholarships to top colleges and maybe even fame and fortune as a professional
viewing success strictly through the lens of stats and the scoreboard
All of us parents, myself included, must realize we are part of the problem and adjust our actions accordingly. (I will use the term “parents” throughout this book, but this also includes guardians, grandparents, and other primary caretakers).
The stakes are high
Why do you want your kid to play youth sports? Ideally, we should all see the value of sports as a means to character development. Think about this: three in 10,000 high school senior basketball players eventually get drafted to the NBA. That is 0.03 percent. It is similar for most major professional sports. But there is a 100 percent chance your kid will have an opportunity to lead in the future. Maybe it is a leader of a company. Or perhaps a leader of a family. Every person needs to exercise self-leadership: the ability to lead oneself to achieve personal and professional goals.
My brother Mark Anselmo manages a large team in the mortgage industry. He does a fair amount of hiring. One question he pops into job interviews is if the candidate played organized sports growing up. Why? He’s curious about how they have handled tough times, their competitive spirit, and how they approached goal setting. You know, all those skills you pick up in a youth sports setting.
Sports can serve as a critical outlet to keep kids off the street and out of trouble. Kids spend countless hours playing video games, often alone and in isolation. One can only wonder about the role this plays in childhood obesity and depression.
Sports can foster deep bonds and connections. Many professional players refer to their random teammates who come from different backgrounds as brothers or sisters. There is a unique sense of community that is possible through sports.
David Brooks, in his wonderful book How to Know a Person, tells the story of how he regularly plays basketball with a group of adults. These guys have never had a deep conversation, yet they’d lay down their lives for one another because of the bonds that were formed through playing sports. People are more fully human when they are at play, according to Brooks.1 It is interesting that for the most part, when people play sports, nobody really cares about your economic status and political views, among other issues.
I gleaned many life skills from playing sports as a kid that have helped me as a husband, father, communications professional, author, and member of my various communities. If you played sports growing up and had a positive experience, you probably can resonate with this.
Upon graduating college, I worked for many years in the sports industry for two different international federations – the International Baseball Federation in Switzerland and FIBA (basketball) Europe in Germany. I couldn’t speak a word of French when I first moved to Switzerland as a 23-year-old. Yet when I went to the park to play basketball, I suddenly made friends, even though there were significant language barriers.
I am a father to two sons – 12 and 9 years of age at the time of this writing – who have been active in youth sports since they were four years old. It has been a joy to coach many of their youth basketball teams. I appreciate how sports have created terrific friendships, both for the kids as well as for myself with other parents. At the ripe age of 47, I still actively play basketball in an adult league. This keeps me in shape and improves my quality of life.
Currently, I am a communications consultant in Sarasota. As I face work challenges, I still can hear my JV basketball coach from ninth grade. “Don’t cut corners running laps and don’t cut corners in life,” he would implore. I don’t remember our win/loss record from that year, but I have literally kept these words in mind when I have encountered difficult circumstances. Maybe you can relate to this?
I have seen sports provide kids with meaning and significance. Growing up, a buddy named Pete was struggling in middle school. He got into trouble and wasn’t keeping up academically. He eventually went out for the basketball team and over time became a top player. The confidence this gave him carried over into other areas. Soon, he was excelling spiritually, academically, and socially.
NBA legend Kobe Bryant once said: “Sports are such a great teacher. I think of everything they’ve taught me: camaraderie, humility, how to resolve differences.”2
Tennis star Billie Jean King once said: “Sports teaches you character, it teaches you to play by the rules, it teaches you to know what it feels like to win and lose – it teaches you about life.” 3
On the business side, Ellen Pullman, former chair and CEO of Dupont, said: “Team sports really teach you how to collaborate across a broad spectrum of personalities or individual talents, and learn how to get the most out of what you have.” 4
Unfortunately, many kids won’t reap such benefits. About 70 percent of kids stop playing sports by age 13 because they’re not fun anymore, according to the National Alliance for Youth Sports. 5 Some of these kids are facing difficult circumstances like my friend Pete. They won’t experience the transformation that can be provided.
What’s behind this decline, you ask? Unfortunately, we as parents need to look in the mirror. We are a big part of the problem. Fights among parents at youth sport competitions break out way too often. These spectacles are captured in videos that go viral on social media. In my six years of being involved in youth sports through my kids, I can share with you many examples of bizarre and awful behavior. You probably can too.
Some 50% of parents and coaches believe that sportsmanship has worsened in youth sports since they participated as children, according to a Liberty Mutual survey. Only 12% feel it has improved. 6
A 2020 National Association of Sports Officials survey found that 57% of officials feel that sportsmanship is getting worse. Those respondents indicated that parents are the ones who cause the most problems. 7
Different youth sports leagues and school programs typically have mission statements that focus on:
learning life skills
creating strong communities
building a healthy spirit, body, and mind
Unfortunately, these messages are barely heard by kids. They are drowned out by the noise of many parents whose sole priority is to see their kid win and succeed as the star of the team.
The CHAMP playbook
In 2022, I wrote a book called Reframing Career Success: Picture Your Significance at Work from a Christian Perspective. Endorsed by Baylor men’s basketball coach Scott Drew, the book’s premise is that many of us get our identity from our careers instead of God and this sets us up for disappointment. Fast-forward to 2023 and it hit me: Parents in youth sports have the most warped views of success and significance. Maybe this is due to the nature of our kid’s experiencing competition in front of other parents. Or perhaps it triggers memories from our own youth sports experiences – good and bad. Whatever the cause, this skewed perspective has led to an unhealthy environment.
I have spent many hours researching and conducting interviews with notable coaches and players. I wanted to know their advice for parents. The key takeaways are summarized in the chapters of this “parents’ playbook.”
Many coaches have a playbook for our kids’ activities. It prepares them to deal with different scenarios. Parents also need a playbook that provides strategies and tactics to handle different situations we encounter in our kids’ youth sports activities.
The aim of this playbook is to prevent us from getting caught up in the moment with a negative reaction and instead bring the right approach to the game, with an emphasis on our kids’ long-term character development. The advice is applicable whether you have a young kid playing sports for the first time or are nurturing a teenager playing in high school.
The CHAMP acronym comprises the first five chapters in this short playbook:
C: Conduct – Play 1
We have to change our conduct. There is the obvious, like not cussing out other parents. There are also subtle changes we can make in our actions that can make a big difference, like cheering for our kids thoughtfully and carefully.
H: Humility – Play 2
Humility can help change the youth sports environment. Such humility would impact how we engage with our kids, who then model the behavior themselves, both in youth sports as well as in their future careers and relationships as adults.
A: Affirm – Play 3
When I asked former MLB first baseman Sid Bream to share advice for parents, he said our job is to affirm and love them. There are various ways we can deliberately show love and affirmation to our kids in a youth sports setting.
M: Mindset – Play 4
This play will help you define success in a youth sports setting. We will also cover how to nurture a growth mindset and grit in our kids.
P: Perspective – Play 5
Our identities are not tied to our kids’ performance in youth sports. We need to view our kids’ performance in sports through the bigger picture of our respective faith traditions. I share what this means for me as a Christian. My goal is to provide you with ideas on how you can connect your beliefs (regardless of religion/worldview) to support your kid.
This playbook concludes with a final pep talk for you.
Disclaimer: I am quite competitive. We should always set our goals on doing our best and to win. But it is far more important, especially in a youth sports setting, that we value lifelong character development over victories and statistics. Such results are usually forgotten in a few short days. Positive character development in our kids lasts a lifetime.
This book doesn’t focus directly on achieving top athletic performance. There are other books out there dedicated to this. But when positive character traits are developed and a kid pursues a sport out of their own free will and passion – not because they are pressured and forced into it – they are more likely to excel.
Consider Norway’s successful approach. Despite its small population of five million, Norway has emerged as a top medal winner in the Winter Olympics in recent years thanks in large part to a Player Bill of Rights that bans national championships before the age of 14 and prohibits the online posting of youth sports scores.
“The point is not winning a game at 6 or 7 years old – the goal is development,” said Tom Farrey, executive director of the Aspen Institute’s Sports and Society program. “So this sends the message to parents and coaches to keep things in perspective.” 8
I am not advocating for this Norway model per se. But this example shows that emphasizing development doesn’t mean scoreboard results suffer. Actually it can be quite the contrary.
Let’s actively redefine success in youth sports, foster positive experiences, and ultimately contribute to the well-being of the young athletes we are privileged to support and guide. It is more than just words and platitudes. Concrete action is required.
Now that we have set the stage for revising our game plan, it’s time to dive into the nuances of each play so we can truly nurture CHAMPs for life.
READ NEXT CHAPTER - PLAY #1, C - CONDUCT
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1 Brooks, David. How to Know a Person: The Art of Seeing Others Deeply and Being Deeply Seen, Penguin Audio: New York, 2023, Audiobook.
2 “Building a Legacy: A Perspective on the Life of Kobe Bryant,” Red Hawk Coaching, Accessed January 2, 2024. https://www.redhawkcoaching.com/blog/building%20a%20legacy-a-perspective-on-the-life-of-kobe-bryant.
3 "Billie Jean King Quotes," BrainyQuote, accessed January 5, 2024. https://www.brainyquote.com/quotes/billie_jean_king_364072.
4 “Where will you find your next leader?” EY Americas, September 23, 2020.
https://www.ey.com/en_us/athlete-programs/why-female-athletes-should-be-your-next-leader.
5 “Reasons Kids Drop Out of Youth Sports,” Jersey Watch, accessed February 1, 2024. https://www.jerseywatch.com/blog/reasons-kids-drop-out-of-youth-sports#:~:text=on%20the%20field.-,Reason%20%231%20%2D%20Sports%20Are%20No%20Longer%20Fun,t%20find%20it%20fun%20anymore.
6 “New Survey Identifies Decline of Sportsmanship in Youth Sports According to Parents and Coaches,” Liberty Mutual Survey, June 2, 2014.
https://www.libertymutualgroup.com/about-lm/news/articles/new-survey-identifies-decline-sportsmanship-youth-sports-according-parents-and-coaches.
7 Orr, Thomas. “National Referee Shortage,” Sport Policy Center, January 19, 2023.
https://www.sportpolicycenter.com/news/2023/1/19/national-referee-shortage.
8 Thompson, Derek. "Why Youth Sports in America Are in Decline," The Ringer, May 23, 2023.https://www.theringer.com/2023/5/23/23725236/why-youth-sports-america-are-in-decline.