Win at All Costs – Going Away?

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Win at All Costs – Going Away?

Posted by Mike Saif on August 30th, 2010

An article by guest blogger, Andy Barney. Barney is the president of Legends Soccer Club and Happy feet and is the coach behind the two best-selling DVDs, Legendary 1v1 Moves and TRAINING Legendary 1v1 Moves.

In the next few decades I believe that competitive youth sports will ditch its “win at all costs” ethos. This will be replaced by methods with love at the core of all teaching and player interaction.

The youth sports paradigm has been gradually changing and trending towards fairness, respect and equitable treatment of children. Positive progress has been slow but we are incrementally changing and adopting youth soccer coaching methods that enhance similar values to those of loving families. It is good for siblings and teammates to compete intensely if the process is the crucial area of focus. This is where honorable, skillful, caring, supportive development is as important as battling, competing and improvising to learn and grow.

Rather than developing a tribal mentality where the outcome, e.g. victory, justifies the means; we need to foster a family approach where the journey and personal growth, as opposed to the weekly victory, is paramount.

In great family cultures the leaders (mothers and fathers) serve their children by providing them experiences and opportunities to maximize and optimize their potential. This loving, kind, caring and supportive, but challenging and demanding role, is the one that will be most beneficial for players.

This may be controversial in competitive sport but shouldn’t the central components of family love be extended to teams? If we do so children enjoy a fairer, more ethical, respectful, optimizing and maximizing experience.

The love and fairness at the center of the Legends approach has made it possible to develop intensely competitive and successful players who have been fully able to transfer their talents into a fulfilled life.

Our primary purpose is to develop every one of our players into a brave, creative leader. Our individual creative individual approach focuses on equal playing time, diverse creative development and the ability to play many different roles, (including those of the quick creative passer and intense aggressive defender). We have proven that our creative risk philosophy develops exceptional players and lifetime leaders.

It may be counter intuitive in a competitive sport but the central component of what we do is love.