Did you know only 1 in 5 youth coaches are properly trained in motivational techniques and only 1 and 3 are properly trained in skills and tactics? The big reason for this fact is the myth that volunteers can’t or don’t want to be trained. In this episode, Tom Farrey, of The Aspen Institute’s Project Play, discusses how untrained coaches lead to the decline in youth sport participation, how vital this participation is to the viability of our communities, and some simple opportunities to get more trained coaches. Listen in to hear more from Tom.

Bio
Tom Farrey leads the Sports & Society Program, whose mission is to convene leaders, facilitate dialogue and inspire solutions that help sport serve the public interest. With the support of the Aspen Institute, he founded the program in 2011 and in April 2013 launched Project Play, a multi-year, multi-stage effort that provides the thought leadership for sport to build healthy communities, starting with universal access to an early positive experience in sports.
Farrey is also a veteran journalist whose work has been recognized as among the nation’’s best and most innovative. With ESPN, his television stories have won the 2014 Alfred I. duPont/Columbia University Award, 2013 Edward R. Murrow Award, two Emmy Awards. His reports have appeared on Outside the Lines, SportsCenter, E:60, ABC’s World News Tonight, Good Morning America and This Week with George Stephanopolous. He was the first ESPN reporter to conceptualize and deliver cross-platform enterprise reports, and two years before that, in 1996, he joined the editorial team that built the website that later became ESPN.com.
At both the Aspen Institute and ESPN, he has explored the connections between sport and the largest themes in society – education, globalization, technology, race, and ethics, among others. He is seen as a thought leader on topics including youth and college sports. He is author of Game On: The All-American Race to Make Champions of Our Children (2008, ESPN Books), an investigation of modern youth sports used as a text on many college campuses.

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Show Notes
5:15 How Project Play was born
9:30 Can sport be managed from the top down
13:45 50% of parents on a soccer sideline feel the emotion of anger
22:00 Is there a community that is “getting it right” in youth sports
25:45 Project Play in your community: Baltimore as a model for increasing sport participation
36:45 The missed opportunity to get more coaches in youth sport

Get in Touch
Website: www.projectplay.us
Twitter: @AspenInstSports @TomFarrey
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