May 22

May 22 Update

Additional Parent-Coach Resources

Building off my post from last Friday, I wanted to share some additional resources for parents and parent-coaches in our program. There is a lot of extraneous noise in the sporting world in terms of the role of parents in sport and the role of parent-coaches too. These resources, shared below, are prominent figures in the online community and share some really great information, articles, and other resources for parents looking to provide their children with the best long term development-focused environment possible.

Reformed Sports Parent - @ReformedSParent (Twitter) - Website

First off is the Reformed Sports Parent. This is a group made of industry leaders: academics, coaches, and athletes, all with a focus in helping parents help their children. Their vision is to "restore healthy balance and perspective in youth sports through education and advocacy". They have a large social media presence and pump out some great resources, videos, and interviews on their website for concerned sports parents.

Working with Parents in Sport - @_WWPIS (Twitter) - Website

Second, in a similar vein, is a UK-based outlet: Working with Parents in Sport. They are an advocacy group that works across multiple sports and organizations in the UK (and worldwide) to offer a supporting role in bridging the gap between coaches, parents, and sporting organizations to facilitate the best possible environments for youth sports participants. They offer a variety of written resources (handbooks and manuals), consultation services, an extensive blog highlighting important long term development concepts, and a repository of academic research surrounding long term development.

Deven Morgan - @devenmorgan (Twitter)

Third, more rooted in baseball, is Deven Morgan, the director of youth baseball at Driveline Baseball and prominent "reformed baseball Dad". He is the creator of the Driveline Youth Baseball certification course and constantly shares great parent-coaching resources and perspectives with his followers. He is very open about his background, not having an extensive coaching or playing background. Rather, he is self-made and has acquired his coaching knowledge through common sense, research, and trial-and-error while coaching his kids. His perspective is one that cannot be ignored as his focus is entirely on developmentally-appropriate coaching of youth athletes.

These should provide plenty of weekend reading, or at worst, great long-term social media follows as they are constantly sharing tremendous resources and are pushing the bleeding edge of youth development and parent advocacy.

Yours in baseball,

Coach Lovie
Baseball Development Lead
Sherwood Park Minor Baseball Association
baseballdevelopment@spmba.ca