WILLIAMSTOWN, Mass. -- USA Hockey has created a philosophy not only for the better of the youth in its own sport, but for the youth in sports across the map --- from soccer to basketball and lacrosse to football.

 

The core of the philosophy: Understanding age appropriate training and development and maintaining patience through those years as a parent and a coach.

 

Wednesday evening, the "Developing Young Athletes-Myth and Reality" discussion was held at the Williams College by Roger Grillo, a longtime hockey coach.  He coached at Brown University for 12 years before joining USA Hockey in 2009 to serve as its regional manager for the American Development Model, the focus of his presentation.

 

"A good coach creates the environment that dictates the right habit, the right skills, in a fun passionate, entertaining manner," Grillo said. "It's a game, you trick them into working hard, you trick them into working the right way, that's the art of coaching."

 

In today's society, year round participation in a single sport is what is seen in most parents eyes as the road to success, whether that means going on to be a collegiate athlete or even receiving the full scholarship to play a Division I sport. 

 

But the ADM has the philosophy that the youth shouldn't focus on just one sport, but many.

 

Grillo explained that the problem with specializing in one sport at the youth level is it not only burns out the athlete mentally, but physically the same muscles are constantly being worked over and over. That increases the risk of injuries at a relatively young age.

 

Participating in multiple sports is developmentally better for the youth, he said.

 

In the discussion, it was brought up that parents have the perspective that specializing their kid as a one sport athlete at a young age will benefit them in the long run, but Grillo had an answer to that concern.

 

"There is nothing wrong with wanting it to be the dream, but there's a right way and a wrong way to get it and how they are doing it today is wrong," he said.

 

Grillo offered a PowerPoint presentation mapping out age-appropriate participation and training levels.

 

"The competitive model has taken over the training model," Grillo said, and the ADM seeks to put the emphasis back where it belongs.

 

At ages 5-9 athletes should be develop individually; the team model that is portrayed in high school and college cannot be pressed on them. At this level, Grillo said the practice-to-game ratio should be 3-to-1. It's not about playing games, it's about learning the skills and developing the athlete.

 

He said that the passion and the energy that the youth have at ages 5-9 is what you want to see in athletes when they peak between ages 14-16. That is the age appropriate time to make the decision to focus on being a one-sport athlete and where competition plays a bigger role.

 

At the end of Grillo's discussion he played a short clip that expressed the method of practicing and experiencing failure. He went on to explain that athletes at a young age must experience failure in order to improve. And no coach at any level should expect an athlete to be perfect.

 

"Something that really sticks out to me in that video," Grillo said. "Is when it says, 'Find me a coach who criticizes you for trying something and failing because he's no longer a coach, he's a critic.' "

 

The ADM is taking steps to changing the philosophy of youth sports; a philosophy proponents hope will better the future of young athletes across the United States.