[Applause] good morning my name is Vince manares and I'm a project manager with the Aspen Institute Sport and Society program I lead our coaching and school sports portfolios we're we're excited to be here uh we've been having conversations about this for a really long time and definitely since we've been back in Austin uh excited to share our panel with you and and to talk about how you Sports can help solve the Mental Health crisis uh before I introduce our amazing group of Youth Sports leader
s um I want to acknowledge the million coaches challenge which is what's brought us together we're all Partners in uh a commitment to train 1 million coaches in Youth Development including mental health uh this initiative exists through the the amazing support of the Susan cran exchange and we're really uh thankful for Kevin and havland and the work that they're doing in this space uh before I sort of set the scene for this conversation we are going to have I do want to ask the audience uh and a
nd you can do this by a round of applause because I can't actually see you uh through the lights um to get a sense for where you are in this space so please you know Round of Applause if you played Sports as a young person uh Round of Applause if you still play sports today Round of Applause if you're coaching Sports and Round of Applause if you are sort of an administrator or work in a role that is involved in supporting Youth Sports okay all right we're okay um so let's sort of set this scene
for today's conversation and I'd like to do that by sort of giving a a few contextual bits first you know 38 million kids play you Sports it's a lot of kids it's a lot of young people and and we see that uh as an amazing opportunity to support the health and well-being of young people today you know to sort of think about what that means sort of in context one chance to move your body right you got you got an opportunity to engage in moderate to physical uh vigorous physical activity two you kno
w physical and psychological safety a chance to be around people who care about you and are going to look after you three you know skill building not just technical tactical skills of the sport personal social emotional psychological skills and for connection meaningful relationships with adults with peers and with other important people in your life outside of the home that should not be taken for granted un fortunately we operate in a space where it's not guaranteed just because you're in spor
t and to be frank you're not even guaranteed to play sport because access Still Remains a big issue for many millions of young people around the country when we think about the work of delivering on this opportunity for Youth Sports we have to start with the adults and particular coaches we are here because we really believe in the role of coaches in fostering these positive environments for young people as as an interesting sort of bit of data for those of you data folks um Ohio State researche
rs at Ohio State University who are Partners in this project as well uh conducted a national survey 10,000 coaches completed the survey and you can find it it's the national coach survey uh you know wide swath of sports context you know youth recreation school you know 10,000 coaches completed the survey and we asked them the researchers asked them a number of really important questions about motivation about training about confidence and you know a couple things you would expect you know what m
otivates coaches they you know over 80% of coaches said that they were motivated by developing youth in their Community by their love of teaching the sport uh which suggests that coaches are oriented towards that when we ask them what their most confident behaviors are things that you'd sort of would expect teaching skills you know the technical skills of the game fostering sportsmanship but when you ask ask them what their least confident behaviors are you start landing on things that feel very
timely in the modern moment you think about uh the lack of confidence in helping youth navigate social media lack of confidence in referring uh young people to unmet needs support for unmet needs lack of confidence uh in being able to uh support performance anxiety uh and very much a lack of confidence in understanding mental health supports and so this creates a bit of a problem for us right which is that coaches want to help young people there's a lot of young people who want to play sport th
ere's a huge opportunity here but are we actually positioning our coaches well to be able to deliver on this opportunity and to their credit the coaches in the survey also gave us an important piece they said they want training they said they wanted to have more support for among other things mental health performance psychology and performance anxiety uh referring young people to resources in their Community it's a nice segue cuz now we get to ask our amazing Team all about it so uh I have the
privilege and honor of introducing um our three panelists starting with Hannah Olen who is the director of the University of Washington uh leadership and Athletics program uh Megan Bartlet who is the founder of uh the Center for Healing and Justice and Sport and Doug UT who is the executive director of the Ohio State High School Athletic Association uh we'll start with you Hannah give the audience a little bit more background on the work that your program does particularly the training that you'
re the the commitment that you have and your interest and belief in Youth Sports uh and why you think Sports is important for mental health sure thanks for having us today nice to see you all out there um our Center is founded on this idea that there's a really intense power in sport um that can be harnessed for good for Youth Development for transformation of individuals communities um and that power kind of those outcomes that we seek doesn't happen automatically and we have to work hard to cr
eate intentional spaces if young people and groups are going to reap the benefits of what sport has to offer and so our work centers on that space um we know that young people careed deeply like sport is a context that matters really really deeply to a lot of young people um perhaps more so than you know what happens to them out on the field or the court is more important to them than what happens to them in their math classroom for example um no disrespect to any Math teachers that might be out
there um but because it matters so much to them what happens in that environment and what happens in that context is so crucial and is so important and the messaging that they receive about themselves and their capabilities um is huge in that space and so we spend a lot of time in our office thinking about um how we can prepare the leaders the caring adults in the room to create spaces where kids can Thrive and um if they become good athletes along the way great uh but trying to gather some of
those skills um is really really important we work with a lot of school-based coaches as well and there's a huge opportunity particularly for school-based coaches because they see athletes so frequently and so you can get a really as we have conversations about wellness and mental health um coaches are really well suited to be able to check in with young people on a regular basis and see them every day at practice understand what their Baseline is what they look like on an average day um and be
able to know when something's going on um for for better for worse and so um we spend a lot of time thinking about how to prepare coaches for that do you want us to go into specific training we're waiting on that next great Megan yeah thanks um hey everybody it's really nice to be here uh as Vince said I work on the team at the Center for Healing and Justice through sport um and we are you know our sharp point is figuring out how to give similar to what Hannah said how to give coaches the tools
they need um to be able to serve young people in the best way possible um we started this work because um I think what what we sometimes forget to to name is that coaches are really undertrained as a general rule um most coaches receive no training um and the training that they do receive is often not around sort of positive Youth Development social and emotional learning posit supporting positive mental health of athletes and sometimes I'm you know working with large systems like the Los Angele
s parks and recx system for example and realizing that there are thousands and thousands of young people being served by an adult who has had maybe some training and maybe not and that is when you think about the context of most adults who work with young people and the training we expect the behavior we expect the the sort of way that we expect them to be with young people um it's sort of shocking how little we we sort of mandate from from coaches and so we're trying to change that Dynamic we'r
e trying to upend the idea that coaches don't deserve to be invested in um and that so that we can really understand to Hannah's point the real power they have to be a positive influence in young people's lives and that that doesn't just happen by accident I think in sport sometimes we think sport is inherently good it is certainly not inherently good there are plenty of people who've had bad experiences in sport and then end up not coming back end up missing out on the opportunity to leverage t
hat that um experience for for good so we're really focused on how do we help coaches do that how do we help coaches create spaces where young people can be truly and authentically themselves and get the support they need in order to thrive uh we have a little bit of a a unique focus on um uh neurobiology of uh human interactions neurobiology of of um stress and Trauma and how coaches can leverage the sport experience to be um a healing centered experience for young people um and so I think that
you know that's deeply tied to how we support young people's mental health um too many young people have experienced too many hard things in their lives and so how do we make sport a place where we're intentionally creating something that does the opposite thanks Megan Doug wow that's really good both of you you know we we uh at the Ohio High School Athletic Association you know we have a nearly uh 70,000 coaches you know Ohio 350,000 athletes we're the third largest state Association in the co
untry behind California and Texas excuse me and um so think about this important fact that of those 70,000 coaches uh nearly 70% of them are lay coaches don't have a teaching background uh good folks doctors Engineers Farmers uh folks who pour concrete all day uh that come in and and and Coach our our our student athletes uh without any kind of training at all and and my background uh from school I was a teacher coach uh athletic director High School principal a 20-year superintendent in Ohio an
d we're just so dog on happy that somebody wants to coach e8th grade track we throw in the keys and we move on and so there wasn't a whole lot of training uh for that and so and particularly coming out of co uh which it doesn't matter what state you are you're coming out of Co where kids kids in Ohio were isolated for 2 and a half 3 months from their peers and you know I was a superintendent at the time that we had to put up uh tape around our playgrounds to keep students off of our playgrounds
they weren't allowed on our our properties and those kind of things and so in June when the governor opened that garage door uh our students were coming back onto our campuses and with uh a lot of angst and and a lot of issues that existed before Co but that was kind of a shot in the arm uh so to speak for the the mental Wellness uh piece of this and so we are very fortunate in Ohio to team up with life Sports at Ohio State University which is a team of fantastic folks uh who who do wonderful th
ings uh to create a coach Beyond Initiative for us coach beyond the X's and O's and with the good Folks at uh with Susan's group and few of them are sitting here in the front row the support of that group uh We've created uh a lot of training uh and really started with our member schools and our coaches and our our administrators on what are they dealing with out there in our schools and and to create a program uh to you know help our coaches help their students and you know what we found too is
you know as we get into this it's helping our coaches help each other help themselves uh that training it didn't exist uh which which we think will lead into uh the retention of our coaches uh you know in a lot of sports and and so you know you know we're finding we're finding that you know as our you know and our coaches found out really quick just what our teachers find out and our our classroom and and I I would mention this the number one thing I dealt with the last four or five years I was
a school superintendent was staff members saying uh Mr you what am I supposed to do with this and they would point at a child or something that way and so you know I'm one that believes that uh you know coaching and teaching uh you know coaching is an extension of the school day and and so again with that that doctor or lawyer or mom or dad who coach our kids need that support and so uh you know that's what we're really excited about our coach Beyond initiative yeah it's worth sort of reflectin
g for a moment about the the impact of sport during Co you know and and particularly for young people there there's been a lot of work that's come out of sort of postco um you know experience and and we know that in in some context sport was the thing that held kids together um that it was a coach who was you know creating an opportunity to stay connected even if we couldn't come to training uh even if it was a zoom call with the team or it was hey stay on top of your academic schoolwork or thin
gs of that nature sport can provide this sort of foundation for a set of uh life experiences but again it doesn't happen automatically and I think it's worth transitioning now to sort of asking ourselves what what is it actually that we want coaches to be able to do and to be prepared to do and and there's different ways of thinking about that you know as an example the the national coach survey which I think is again an amazing resource I would encourage you to look at it ask coaches about cert
ain communities who you know how confident were you in your ability to support a specific community and only 35% felt prepared to support for example Eating Disorders uh only uh 48% felt prepared to to work with mental health um outcomes only 57% with ADHD uh only 42% with trauma in the home environment this is real stuff right so we we really need if we if we want to prop up coaching and Sports in this way we got to help the coaches so we'll kind of walk back through again Hannah what does your
training do what are you specifically looking at um in terms of what the center is doing and and maybe talk about the partnership with with w yeah so um we are partnered with the State Association in Washington the WIA and we are trying to pass an amendment to their handbook so kind of a policy angle to require a baseline training and foundation for coaches across the state um so while that policy piece is happening and we're trying to work that through the system we wanted to spend some time t
hinking about like what what do coaches need specifically and um the field of coaching education is relatively new and if you allow me to nerd out a little bit as a good academic does um if you compare it to broader Fields like sports science or psychology that has had really solid research taking place like throughout the 1900s good coaching education re research didn't really start till like 2010 so it's a baby and we're still trying to learn what it is that coaches need and I think that's an
important piece of this so we had like that nugget of what the research and the field tells us what we need and what we really wanted to do was be responsive in Washington to what coaches were telling us that they were needing and what athletes were saying that we were needing um the athlete voice is missing so much and like so frequently when we create coaching education um and at the end of the day like we're trying to create an experience for young people so incorporating their voices is incr
edibly important and we originally set out thinking that the plan was to create a social emotional learning course and after talking to athletic directors and coaches and kids across the state what we learned is that they really needed something even more foundational than that in terms of Youth Development principles and we landed in this place of thinking about how can coaches create environments that are physically and emotionally safe for kids and one that is grounded on relationships and co
nnection um and what does that look like in a healthy sport environment um we have we may have time to talk about that a little bit about um what we do and don't tolerate in sports settings um which is problematic as as a whole in this space but our training is seeking to provide some really foundational nuggets for folks um almost along this line of like first Do no harm because we do a lot of harm in sports with untrained coaches and so giving coaches just these really Baseline tools about how
do you create up like how do you create a setting in a culture that a young person can walk in as themselves and be honored um and a second course that we're working on developing in tand with it is because it's for High School coaches is around adolescent development so what do we know about brains bodies and social characteristics of kids and how do we Center those needs and make them our top priority um and be responsive to them and really push this angle of it's our responsibility as a coac
h to do that um it's not uh you know shouting in the in the lawn like kids these days um kids are kids and and they have specific spefic needs and it's our responsibility to be responsive to those so that's our our general approach and um we'll know here in about a month or so if our if the policy piece has passed so light your candles cross your fingers whatever you do in your life um to send good Juju my way I would appreciate that um because we're really hoping that um it can make a really ni
ce impact for all the school-based folks across the state amazing Megan yeah I Hannah did a great job summarizing sort of uh we have a very aligned core philosophy about coaching um about the need for good coaches about the need for what sport experiences should look like um and I would say what what I think makes some of what we do unique is that we layer this this piece of Neuroscience on the top of it um and that is both because Neuroscience helps us show the value of this but also because to
Hannah's point um a lot of a lot of existing behaviors in youth sport are not great and sometimes it's really hard for people to admit that they're not great um so we coach The Way We Were coached just like we parent The Way We Were parented and teach the way we were taught and if we don't see if we don't see examples of the other thing it's really easy us for us to say Well it worked for me look how great I'm doing number one are you doing that great and number two um you know there that worke
d for you and you are one person coaching a group of people who are not one person right you are host you are coaching a whole host of young people who have their own differentiated needs and as a coach it's our responsibility to be responsive to those individual needs so this idea of one siiz fits-all coaching or my way or the highway coaching is really the do is the harmful stuff that we're trying to undo um and so what we've found is that by talking to coaches about um relationships through t
he lens of the brain through the lens of Neuroscience makes it a little bit less soft right you tell a Coach who um has a certain way of doing things that to prioritize relationships and they're like yeah yeah yeah I do that and you look at their behavior and you're like do you um or you know oh God here comes that Kumbaya lady again um and they think that that that asking them to do those things is actually taking away their ability to win or to meet the standards um that they're held to in ord
er to keep their job in some cases or or do whatever it is they see as part of of their ultimate goals and so we find that if we can frame what we do through the lens of what Neuroscience tells us all humans need um then we're better able to get people to to listen um get people to see this as both something that they are some things they are already doing and can add to but also that this is real important sort of scientific work um that has real power right one of the things that I think coach
is um because we don't invest in them and this because so many of them are not trained they don't feel they don't understand the potential power they can have and when you really unpack that for a coach when you really show them how what they do matters um it changes the the sort of formula for how they show up um so we have a very similar approach um to or philosophy to um what Hannah described and also Al try and um help under help coaches feel empowered by the science that says what they're
doing matters thanks Megan Doug talk about what's happening in Ohio you know you guys are working with the life Sports uh Folks at Ohio State uh what What's the what's the training situation there for coaches yeah sure again I love that in that third spot here with these ladies much what they said so our coach Beyond initiative uh was devel by interactions with our coaches and administrators and our student athletes in Ohio and that's the beauty of it is that through face Toof face or surveys an
d and a little bit of research with our folks um we've been able to develop this and and and get out around Ohio physically get out around Ohio and do these trainings and and it's really powerful when these student athletes are saying we have some school districts that might say from 3:30 to 4:30 our student athletes are going to be end this room with our coaches along with our folks from our coach Beyond group leading some trainings and listening to students and uh that's where it really grows
as just listening to students but we're we're very fortunate in Ohio and you won't find me as executive director uh or a former superintendent saying this very much we're fortunate that we passed a bill to deal with this a lot of times from our association we don't like people Downtown Columbus getting in our business uh writing laws that they don't really know about but through our coaches who had communicated with some of our representatives and our Representatives uh got us involved in this u
h uh our our state government passed a bill uh last summer Senate Bill 82 that requires training for mental health in Ohio and and when you think about it you know we were able to talk to our member schools let's get on the Forefront of this let's help write the language and incorporate because in Ohio right now it's required did you have concussion training first aid training uh the CPR the coach the the uh initial course to become a coach and a lot of times that 70% of people uh you know when
you tell them hey you want to coach eighth grade track oh absolutely and then you tell them what all the training they have to do uh sometimes they say I'm not doing all that uh and and uh and so we are able to incorporate our our mental Wellness training into our trainings that already exist and and so and we're working on the frequency of these trainings it really should be every year and so we've been very fortunate in Ohio to have lawmakers who understood the need for that training uh but al
so allowed us to shape it and allowed us to incorporate it in already existing trainings because again that was one of the reasons when you found somebody to coach track and I'm guilty of this I think Hannah mentioned 2010 you can tell by the color of my hair I probably coached uh way before uh 2010 and you know sometimes I think about this all of my PD as a coach uh was focused on X's and O's uh not one bit of Wellness uh for the athletes and and and I wish I could go back and be that young 22-
year-old again that was in a classroom in coaching and focused a little bit more on on that Wellness of my athletes and and that and I I know I I I always like to share this little story I know I'll be quick Vin do it do it uh but but I saw this about two years ago I've grandchildren playing sports and playing volleyball and I was out of school on a Saturday and and it was a try match for eighth grade try match for seventh so there's six teams there and and two different gyms and and in Ohio it
was a beautiful fall day and and in between games we all went outside and there was about 60 adults out there and all the players and that will before before long uh the six police officers had a a guy on the front of his Cruiser right out in front there and cuffed him put him in the cruiser I watched a little girl run by balling and somebody said that's her father and can you imagine being 13 years old and having your father get cuffed in front of your peers in front of their parents and runnin
g in the building and it hit me uh that a 22 I raised my hand and admit guilt to this a 22-year-old Doug you would look at my assistant coach and say how we supposed to win with that going on and that's secondary but my mind went to I wonder if that little girl cuz I saw was a little girl coaching young little girl coaching that team I wonder if she's equipped to deal with this and how they would handle this situation and that's a lot of things that we have to talk about in in a training of that
because you know our coaches in Ohio the response we're getting back from our coaches right now about our training is I Now understand that my my team is healthy mentally healthy that those wins will come I've got to take care of that first before we segue into sort of some of our broader conversations I want to ask you a question that I didn't have planned um but I think uh is in line with where we're at um what is this is a a very pragmatic like quick question what is one coaching behavior th
at you would you know really sort of support or promote that coaches do that would help young people as it relates to their mental health right like what is one sort of specific piece and it could be part of your training or could just be something you believe like and I'll give you an example Joe moua who is the head coach of the Boston Celtics I just heard about this I think maybe last month tries to spend one minute with every player on the team at every training just one even just one minute
just checking in how are you doing where you at today like it yeah it's an little extra thing but it can go a long way what would you say and and open to the floor who wants wants to take that first just keep it systematic here um the use of routines is huge for young people um it it reduces wondering and anxiety in general and it's it's so great not only for like mental health and emotional safety but also for skill development and so there's a ton of um a ton of ways to incorporate routines i
n a way that is not boring um but is fresh and exciting and gives athletes choice and voice in what they're doing and allows you to check in so I think that's one thing that I would push for sure I like that yeah for me it's helping athletes focus on and sort of understand their own regulation and sort of when they feel themselves getting overly worked up when they feel like things are starting to get out of control and how to reset themselves in those um in those circumstances I think normalizi
ng that everybody gets disregulated is really important and you get disregulated at different by different things on different days and in different circumstances and part of what sport is really good at is helping us get the right doses of stress to become resilient to that disregulation and so if we're you know coming off of a bad school day if we're coming off something that happened in the community if when we arrive in sport in the sport space first we have to understand that kids cannot le
ave it at the door that is not a thing you cannot turn your brain off and say all of a sudden I'm just fine for for um for basketball practice for to you know jump in the pool um unless we teach them skills that help them regulate those emotions help them transition from uh sort of where they're at to the environment that they need to be in sport is also really beautiful at helping us get regulated um and if we can really amplify the use of these sort of positive skill building movement-based in
terventions it's so much more about young people taking control over that versus adults spending their entire practice worried about compliance and who's behaving the way they're supposed to behave as opposed to young people saying oh I'm feeling a little bit disregulated I'm going to go you know take my lacrosse stick and throw the ball against the wall for a little bit use that patterned repetitive rhythmic activity to reset my brain and then come back to practice before I blow my top yeah lov
e that I I think Megan I think you hit on real good point kids can't leave it at the door and you you think about my common theme of of lay coaches and and I'm a freshman basketball coach so I get 7:00 practice I'm not at the school all day I have no idea went what went on and you know I know this I would tell you about uh this in my coaching days I could tell my kids attitudes every day we walked in but over time I've really really think about this and I think what a coach can do because it's v
ery impactful when you put new teachers on you put 40 new teachers on a couple school buses and drive out through your uh school district and your neighborhoods and show them that that porch That's fallen in and you know where you're kids come from and I think about coaches this way uh do you know your student athletes uh Beyond how what their skill level is a dribbling or shooting a basketball in terms of uh who do they live with uh what's the history of why they ended up there because you know
this and I'm sure Ohio is not alone in this we have more grandparents raising their their their kids than ever before we have more basketball coach told me a few years ago Doug I always have kids that uh come from single parent homes but I got two two athletes on my team this year that don't have a home and they're just staying with you know another so how well do you know your athletes in their background and because I I firmly believe this you can't just help the students uh student or a stud
ent athlete you have to help that student or student athlete and their families to really make an impact in their life wait Vince can I just modify what I was going to say um so I take it back don't help kids with regulation know you you should do that but you can't do that unless you build the skill for yourself right a disregulated adult can't regulate a disregulated child and so first build those skills for yourselves and then help young people build them for them yeah that's amazing um and I
think three you start to sort of connect these dots around in investment in kids understanding of self developing consistent interventions whether they part of everyday uh your everyday practice um it's also a nice segue because I think you know the a people in the audience be like okay Vin's great you know like Sport's amazing uh coaches should be trained you know they should be doing these things but if I'm an administrator or I'm I'm I'm someone sort of starting to think about like what do s
o what do we do you know like what what do we do what can we do what needs to change uh in order to sort of Advance certainly sort of Youth Sports as a space that enables supports you know certainly the coaches in particular to do this kind of work cuz it doesn't happen naturally and I remember being you know 22 years old and starting my coaching journey and you know I I sucked at a lot of stuff I was not very good at some things I was good at some other things um and so I I guess it's sort of a
n open question to the group and and and start where you want to start with it but you know is it about policy is this is this a can we policy our way into more coaches trained is this about culture and the need for cult CES that are more um supportive of coaches is it about funding an investment um and investing more into the supports and material resources that coaches need is it about Coach pay you know there's a lot of directions that that we can go um who wants to get us started on somethin
g that that you feel is sort of an important part of this sort of system conversation about how to improve Sport and coaching I'll start off this one so all right Joe all right dou yep there's there's no question in my mind uh I've seen this year in and year out you know we would always say and and and maybe you do the same thing your school our our culture and our feel on how the school year gets started is usually by your athletic teams and and as your football team 4 and0 or those type of thi
ngs and uh but but more importantly is what kind of culture do you create at your events uh at night for your because your community does not get to see your teachers teach math in English and science your community gets to see they come in at sporting events and so uh that's that's where I think if you create a culture and and how do you treat people and how your student athletes behave how's your community behave you know we were sharing something last night that we have an initiative on on ou
r Behavior at our sporting events in Ohio right now uh and and our our schools are really locked into this where they're sharing ideas of positive things and and one that I really like and use an example is uh you know if you go to a sporting event and that announcer starts an out you play the national anthem and they announce this this and this and I look around and nobody's listening throw the microphone to a student in your doesn't have to be a student athlete bring them out of the student se
ction and let that student uh read a statement about expected behavior and those type of things at at sporting events it gets dead silent and coming from the from the students it's their game and here's their expectations uh that way and so so I really think that sport can really help your culture not just from 7:30 to 3: in your building but can help help your culture and how your community sees your schools and how your community supports your schools and so how are the behavior of the student
s how are the behavior of your coaches uh how are how are how are the behavior of this is one that really gets me I get emails uh sometimes I just shake my head at this at ads who are yelling at officials uh standing underneath the basket and you know those kind of things that's a culture that your community sees and and that expectation there and so uh you know nothing gets behind we're right in the middle of ta the tail end of our tournaments in Ohio where we have wrestling this weekend of Sta
te girls and state boys the two following weekends and and the communities that support those teams through that uh they're more apt to support your math and and science programs and everything else you do if that culture is created a positive culture uh that that puts uh you know your student athletes in front of that others yeah I think um I think there's a the a piece of this is the narrative shift around uh mental health in general and how Mental Health Care is focused on Intervention only a
nd almost only intervention in crisis um and that we're not as focused on prevention obviously and we're not focused on um interventions Beyond just sort of traditional clinical interventions um so I think thinking about how do we sort of democratize mental health care to more adults to more contexts to more um culturally responsive practices so that we're actually proactively promoting positive mental health and my opinion about if we were able to sort of shift that narrative is that Sport and
coaches should absolutely be at the center of it because the sport environment is uniquely suited to help young people heal from overwhelming stress or trauma and there are too many young people who are experiencing overwhelming stress and Trauma and even if you aren't these practices the idea of um focusing on safe environments where young people can show up as themselves focusing on the value of physical activity and moving your body body focusing on the experience of being able to sort of um
be stressed and come back to a baseline sort of manageable challenges that happen in sport those are the things that make us mentally well and so it is both a healing opportunity and an opportunity to promote thriving that is different than 50 minutes of you know therapeutic intervention knowing that we don't have enough enough therapists to do 50 minutes of therapeutic intervention with young people and so much of what's affecting young people is sort of somatic and embodied and needs a somatic
and embodied intervention Hannah yeah I think um excuse me coaching as a whole is like a really um under professionalized excuse me coaching as a whole that's okay sound less like Kermit um coaching as a whole is a lot less professionalized like as a whole in general and so what we're expecting of coaches just kind of has to change in an investment as just an investment into the space in general um I think there's an expectation that we have for teachers and there's an expectation that we have
for caregivers and Recreation leaders that just isn't there for coaches and so if we can think about both investment and then connection to policy change um and because the question right now is like who holds the hammer right there's there's no government oversight there's often like not Regional oversight that pushes us to do this and so we're a culture of volunteerism often in you Sport and so there's this really healthy tension of we're asking people who are either volunteering are really un
dercompensated to then also engage in this whole line of preparation in order to work with young people and that's a really tough um you know it's a really tough tension I'm a parent of two kiddos and I coach a lot of their teams and I'm one of the first ones to roll my eyes when they ask me to go do another coach training um and but it's needed right if we want to prepare um folks for that so I think there's some some consideration both of how to professionalize the field um I think also as we
dial in specifically around mental health and we think about mental health there has to be just a shift on how we think about what appropriate sport environments look like like just try to imagine another setting where we can put a grown adult in front of a young person and them scream in their face and it's fine in you know for for the outcome right so that they can win a game or they can move forward like we don't let that happen anywhere else but we that has been the norm in sports for a real
ly long time is tolerating toxic Behavior abusive behaviors and there're those really strong examples but then there's also a ton of gray area in sport and it starts at a very very young age um you you learn to tolerate and that's how you get to the next level right is to tolerate these negative behaviors and that's the messages that we're told is to you know as Megan mentioned earlier like shut up and play um and I think there has to be a really significant shift in what we're doing and I think
there's an opportunity here particularly for leaders caregivers um parents of trying to provide them like what should they what should you be looking for in coaching and a youth sports program um and a lot of folks don't know that because it's an apprentice model of like we coach as we were coached as was mentioned before and like doing unto others what was done unto us so I think there's a lot of systemic um pieces and then some really tangible pieces around investment and policy that could he
lp us move the needle and and I think it's um I I love and agree with uh everything that's being said here I think it's an it's also probably worth highlighting that the the approach and model or sort of lack of a model that we have in the US is not the norm internationally there are countries around the world who do have systemic institutionalized investment in coaching both as a profession but also even among support for volunteers and you know I lived in New Zealand for eight years and the cl
ub that I worked at we had a university literally down the street that had a bachelor's a master's and a PhD programming coaching you could get a degree in sports coaching and you can get a meaningful job in Youth Sports with a degree in sports coaching either as a community adviser or as a coach development officer a why what prevents us from from doing that and being in that space it's a lack of coordinated uh you know uh oversight and structures State local and I would argue Federal level and
I would encourage folks to read the commission's report which just came out passing the torch which looks at some of the systemic flaws in our Sports system but I'll come back to you dug on this last bit before we open for questions which is I also think about the decline of teacher coaches and I I I think about the decline of teachers who are extremely well positioned to be Sports coaches and have historically been Sports coaches in schools you know they have degrees that are founded on many o
f these areas uh whether it be instructional instruction but particularly Child Development um and related competencies why don't we have more sport U teacher coaches what's happened to the teacher coach yeah I I I think about this a lot when I was in high school uh you know football basketball baseball player uh you know uh my head coaches taught me the assistants taught me uh they were in the lunchroom uh interacting with the players all day long and you know that shift really changed have a l
ot of things uh reasons why I know as an administrator I I know the pressure I would get from parents uh on some of these coaches and it just wasn't at the varsity level uh it was at the seventh grade level for crying out loud that parents should start diving in uh to uh coaches for winning and losing those type of things but I really believe in Ohio the number one thing that changed that was uh State Testing uh and your evaluation in your classroom was uh impacted by your testing results and an
d then the Flux Of behaviors that started uh appearing in our classrooms that really put a lot of Demand on a teacher that said now I can't coach seventh grade basketball anymore because my test scores determine whether I have my job or not and so uh you know that that really had a lot of impact on that teacher um who wanted to coach and just say and we're not just talking about the Varsity Sports you know we're talking about seventh grade or eighth grade and is just just because of the pressure
that comes through all of a sudden I'm a really good teacher and I've seen it happen all of a sudden I'm a really good teacher but the board president's neighbor's son didn't get a play and so that that pressure now comes from the board president to me uh back into uh the teachers now I'm a former coach so I was able as a superintendent just to back that board president off and say hey your jobs to hire a superintendent and a treasur I'll take care of the rest and and go from there uh and but y
ou know a lot of Administrators feel that pressure on that comes with that and I think that's that it's that community and parent pressure that's HT I think we'll pause there and invite the audience to ask any questions we'd love to hear your thoughts and uh what's what's picked to your curiosity I think you need to walk up to the mic good after good afternoon everybody javet Wallace uh currently researcher scholar sportting at Duke University I have a question about you can't see me uh I have a
question about mental health and the growth of let me pull up my question I wrote it down um the influx of newer sporty and the shiting landscape at the inner Scholastic level with all the you know basketball acmy that are popping up um and they don't have the typical Governor structure of like a State athletic association like Ohio and some of these coaches are spending a lot of time with these athletes because they don't have like this 20 hour rule a week um sometimes students are staying wit
h coaches or staying in very close proximity the coaches and some and coaches are to win and there's not often a break that kids get from coaches and I've seen it turn out negative I'm wondering what do you all suggest um we could do to address this new landscape in Scholastics sport with the amount of time that coaches are spending with students in as their mental health is concerned if they even have chances to Break um from the coaches that they spend so much time with thank you who who wants
to jump in yeah yeah when we say Do no harm we're talking about that right um so I think the this is the problem with the sport system being so um diffuse right there's no there's nobody up here saying this you know both Ohio and Washington are talking about school-based coaches there are a lot of coaches who are not school-based right and even in these two cases there's it's still hard to mandate something for those coaches where there's a clear you know sort of accountability structure hypoth
etical accountability structure um and these are two states of 50 and two states that are sort of on the Forefront of this we're already not doing a good job when there are accountability structures and when there aren't it's just the wild west right and so from my perspective we are setting sport up to fail and by first of all not you know sort of capitalizing on what it could and should be and really um exploiting it for what I would in many cases is financial um you know for financial reasons
and or coaches who are sort of looking for some Glory that they didn't have previously in their experience I would add I think there's an interesting identity piece to this and um one of the hats that I wear is teaching at the University of Washington and I work with a lot of division one student athletes who have been told from really young ages that their only value in our world is their athlete identity um and so I think that some care can go into if you're looking for like a tangible strate
gy I think helping these young people see who they are and valuing themselves and some holistic care and wellness around their identity outside of their sport particularly if they're at an academy um that that's their job you know in a lot of ways is is to be that athlete and so I think that there's an identity piece of that of um trying to show some holistic care and helping them see the different Avenues and it's like okay the goal is to go to the league great and right and how do we take take
care of you and um and connecting that message of like performance and holistic wellness and identity and and I I think too nil's starting to become a part of that for us as challenge in Ohio because we lost a really good athlete uh this year basketball player that went to another State and Academy that allows nil uh deals we do not in Ohio our amateurism laws are are uh little ahead of the game because we had a guy maybe you've heard of him LeBron James we had a guy named LeBron James play in
Ohio 23 years ago out of out of akan Ohio that our a lot of our things were put in for LeBron but back I I can't let that little logo go I'll have to tell you oh as you sit down man uh thank you other questions Alan Hendrickson um I was just curious what advice would you give coaches about balancing parent expectations versus and what's best for the overall athlete student athlete I can share one thing that we use in um I think parent education is huge I think it's a frontier that's been untappe
d um because parents I say this as a parent I think parents get villainized of often of the you know the big bad influence that's coming in at the end of the day like we usually all want the same thing for our kids right we want them to have a positive experience get better at their sport um gain some of the skills Etc and one of the things that we talk about is this like caregiver to coach Bridge with the athlete in the middle um and understanding that there are some things that the coaches are
responsible for and conversations can happen when well-being is compromised physical and emotional well-being is compromised on either side um and that that's a great time for dialogue to be happening should parents be having say around X's and O's you know the the offense that you're using Etc like absolutely not like that's the coach's Lane and so as you think about this bridge with the student in the middle and um doing that I think just setting setting a very Baseline and this has worked re
ally well in my coaching of if there's anything that you think is compromising the wellness of your athlete let us absolutely talk about that like wellness around your athlete otherwise I'm pretty competent and I got it right I got it around here so I think it's a it's a really simple one but it's been really effective um particularly at both like high school and like recreational levels I would just add to that uh that you know don't be afraid to communicate with your parents and and obviously
in Ohio it's you're required to have a pre-season uh parent meeting I have four children Went to went to those kind of like like over here roll my eyes I was the superintendent at the school that had to go to these meetings and uh you know every time but but really it's that communication and I sit here and think I know it's on on a small scale but I chur I coach a church league first and second grade basketball team and and I just love it and I'm over communicating with those parents and grandp
arents every Wednesday night that we have practice and uh not tonight I won't be because they'll be practicing but and every Saturday morning just to establishing you know for I know it's a different level and you said X's and O's but for my first and second grade team I control it enough that everybody gets to bring the ball down the court and I I've got a couple kids that that can really Scoot and play and it frustrates them but I want their parents and grandparents to know hey this is what we
're gonna everybody's going to bring the ball down the court and we're going to pass it and everybody's going to get a chance to shoot and score and and your child could go down and score every single time I know that and I've mentioned that to a few of them but this is about getting everybody involved at this you know at this level that way and then the important thing is who has snacks Saturday morning because the kids are really like that we just got the sort of less than five minute warning
so um we'll we'll we'll we'll I'd like to sort of end on some calls to action uh from each of you what's what's your what's your sort of one thing that you'd like to leave the audience with about how we can either improve Youth Sports in this direction improve coaching what's one thing you want the audience to take home as I I mentioned before I wish I'd go back to being that 22-year-old that start coaching but I certainly as a school administrator uh you know would tell people I I tell coaches
all the time I don't care how many games you win the community does I want you to give our student athletes a chance to get better and I want you to take care of them and I want you to get to know them and take care of them uh and I want a coaching shirt I had all kind of coaching shirts uh back then but really uh as a superintendent am I having those discussions with our principal and our ad and our coaches uh just sitting around talking about the well-being of our of our student athletes and r
eally spending time on that because I don't think and I admit I didn't do that enough I certainly would now if I went back in as school superintendent uh I'm not going to do that by the way but I would certainly spend a lot of time uh with our coaches and our athletic director and our principal talking about our culture and the well-being of our student athletes I think mine is is related to what Doug said I think I been thinking a lot about the sports system and sort of what needs to go back in
to it and to me it comes down to we're all responsible for sort of putting love back into what shouldn't be a Loveless system right I think all of I think most people will agree that sort of at the core value of sport is the opportunity to be in it with people that you care about that care about you that um and and and in a that's different than you get from other experiences with other people and so for me it's like if you're a parent are you looking for it are you making sure that your kid's h
aving a experience that where love shows up if you're a um coach how are you infusing it if you're an athlete how are you demanding it I love that Joy is one of my coaching core value so think a lot about like how you bring joy into experiences um one thing that I've been thinking a lot about which I get I suppose is a call to action is the in coach training um because we're trying to sort out the system of all of this there's a lot of oneandone right like you take the training never to be seen
again in your career of coaching um down so you take a 45 minute or an hour long training and that's it and so either challenging yourself if you are a coach of like what is the feedback loop for yourself if you take one gem from a training or like one big takeaway how in your coaching are you going to continue to come back to that and say like this season I'm really working on incorporating more student voice and giving athletes more choice and autonomy great so how are you going to check in an
d like create that feedback loop um if you're in the room and you're in charge thinking about like what are the systems for that feedback loop and like check-ins if you're asking your coaches to go through training awesome outstanding keep it up um and how do you continue to have like check in about the content that was covered um and how they're how they're receiving that and utilizing that even if it's a a small piece of it so I think it's it's again like a a larger picture um as we're thinkin
g about the fabric but I think that like those touch points that people get back to the content is really important yeah I I'll wrap up uh this has been an important conversation that I hope folks can continue and and that would be sort of mine let's let's keep having this conversation I think this conversation doesn't happen enough where we talk about coaching in a sort of more macro way where where are our coaches how are they doing uh how can we keep getting better what is our coaching cultur
e what do we know about where our coaches are at and uh if you haven't already million coach.org I also would recommend uh you know checking out the national standards for sports coaches by shape America and the quality coaching framework by the usopc there are resources out there you should also check out a few of these folks um they've got some amazing resources on offer and I know um there's a lot of training available out there for you so thanks a lot for joining today I know you have Choice
over where you spend your time uh we hope you enjoyed it and and enjoy the rest of your conference thank [Applause] [Music] you that
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