Lee Taft, known to most simply as “The Speed Guy”, is highly respected as one of the top athletic movement specialists in the world. In the last 30 years he has devoted the majority of his time training multi-directional speed to all ages and abilities. He has spent much of this time teaching his multi-directional speed methods to top performance coaches and fitness professionals all over the world. Lee has also dedicated countless hours mentoring up and coming sports performance trainers, many who have gone into the profession and made a big impact themselves.
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Rob Anderson
Okay, so it’s great to welcome Lee Taft back to the LTD network tonight for a discussion that we’ve titled reimagining youth sport. If anyone’s been following Les, over the past few weeks, he’s really posted a lot of thought provoking messages around youth sport, the challenges and problems that there are with the current model and possible solutions and better ways that this can be structured. So I’m really looking forward to this discussion. Lee, thank you. Join us.
Lee Taft
Thank you, you know, I was really excited when you introduced me to doing this with you and the topic and all and it’s just, it’s true, it’s too important to ignore. And I think the more noise we can make, we can make those who really want to listen, that they’ll they’ll maybe change their minds a little bit.
Rob Anderson
Yeah, even if it just inspires some parents to take action and do something a little bit different, even if it’s just for a small group of kids. And to me, it’s a positive investment of our time of an evening to, to have this discussion. So exactly. I think the I think the best place for us to start is we’ll start with the question, what are the problems that you see with the current model of youth sport?
Lee Taft
Yeah, yeah. And that’s a, that’s a great place to start. Because there are so many directions we can go. And I’m sure we will, as we go through our talk today. So the current model right now, basically, especially here in the States, is very much oriented around kind of this elite model. So if you pay to play, we can make you elite. And we can do that many different ways we can put you in these high end tournaments, we can get you to travel out of state, we can get you maybe sponsored by some of the top shoe companies, all these different things get put into the parents and these young kids minds. And here’s the funny thing, James, we’re not just talking about, you know, 1617 year old kids, we’re talking about eight 910 year old kids that are being sold this dream. And I just literally last week or two weeks ago, just saw I saw that exact thing happening at a local basketball tournament with these little kids are being screamed at during games by by parents that are the coach and have no idea of what they’re talking about, or how to work with young kids. So the model right now is built around. Can we get you a scholarship? Can we get you to the professional level? Can we you know, make you become a highly recruitable athlete. And we’ve forgotten about just sampling and exposure to the sport, let the kid grow themselves into the sport. And we’ll know if they want to go further. You’ll just see it, they’ll they’ll start to develop a passion for it. And the model right now is set up where actually discourages that with young kids. And the message that I want parents, especially because parents are the ones that have the final control. I don’t care who the coach is, they don’t have control over that kid. If the parent says no, they’re not going to do it. So the parents have to understand, there’s too many things that can go wrong. For it for those scholarships are those top dreams to happen, when we know that probably 1% of these kids are going to get a scholarship 1% and all these parents that have kids that really don’t have a heck of a lot of athleticism are paying 567 $1,000 a season for their kids are playing your sport. And the kids aren’t even haven’t even gone through puberty yet. They haven’t even figured out if they want to do it. So that’s the main problem I’m seeing plus, you know, a bunch of other things. Yeah.
Rob Anderson
I think with the parents as well, in my experience, particularly probably in a little bit of an older age group than what we’re talking about there in terms of eight, nine and 10 year olds, but you also have that as they get older, the parents are almost a high performance manager without being equipped with the skills to manage that or the knowledge to manage that. And they I’ve seen kids with talent get pulled from pillar to post to play on this team and that team and in the end is the undoing of them because they break under the training load or, you know, they they have multiple injuries that they struggle to get back from and they miss huge periods of their development. Is that something you see as well? This model in the US?
Lee Taft
Yes, there is absolutely huge receipt parents. Here they’ll call it daddy home. Okay, and it could be a mom that’s doing a big holiday every ball, the dad gets mad because their child’s not getting playing time. So they go start their own team. And then they get kids, and then it becomes this, it just becomes this parent driven competitive model. Because if you ask most young kids they want to play, most parents want to win, right there. They’re overly competitive. And they want, you know, they don’t want to be they don’t want to look bad, like they can’t coach and they can’t do this. So they’ll do things that are against development, like proper development. And I always like to call it James. I like to call it the greater good of youth sports, most parents, they don’t have the knowledge nor the brat background and no other experience, to understand what the greater good means. And so they fall short in delivering a developmentally sound programme, not just for skill development, and tactical learning and in competing, but for social development, for problem solving, for being a good teammate, for understanding what I lost in a win really means in the grand scheme of things it because you, you could play an unbelievable game, and still get B or play a terrible game and still win. And if our mindset is wrong, we’re looking at the winning loss versus saying that the kids have fun. Did they lose because they were tired. And they you know, they played five games this weekend, and they’re just tired. So parents don’t understand the greater good. And therefore they fall short of actually mentoring or coaching these kids the right way. Yeah, sure.
Rob Anderson
I think you mentioned some really important points there in terms of that holistic development beyond technical tactical, beyond the physical, the you know, that the social psychological development that can come from useful is fantastic. Yeah, how if there’s a parent that listens back to this? How do they go about fostering an environment that develops some of those things? What does that environment look like to you? Yeah, yeah.
Lee Taft
So so first of all, the one thing you want it allow with the younger kids, especially, especially, you know, pre pubescent kids, or even up until 1415 years old, or as old as they want really, is don’t take away the number of sports they want to play that will organically happen all of a sudden, you know, when they get older schedules will just start to conflict, and they’re going to have to decide, well, do I want to do I want to play soccer, or do I want to play lacrosse, you know, as we win, the younger, they might be able to do both. So allow sampling to be a major, major part of their development. Because of all the all the ancillary things that come with it, there’s so many positive things to sampling different sports, you know, number one, playing for different coaches getting a different style playing, getting different friends and learning different rules, different pace of play, just developed so many good things. But the other thing is, is make sure whether it’s, it’s actually planned out on a calendar or whatever. But when they were young, get them in sports that may last you know, two months to three months, and then switch to the next sport and let them play that one and then do it again. And, you know, depending on depending on how long the year is, they might be able to play five sports because they could play an early fall. And then kind of a fall winter sport, maybe like a swimming or something like that. And then maybe a basketball or wrestling and then, you know, maybe they want to play a softball or lacrosse or tennis or soccer. And then maybe they want to play like a flag football here in the States is real big or ultimate frisbee, you know, so give them the opportunity to sample and the best piece of advice I can get. Now, if you’re a parent that has been asked to volunteer as a coach, go ahead and learn how to coach and do that. But if not, your best, most important job is to be the chauffeur that gets them to the activity, and then brings them back and then just tells them how much they love watching them play and how fun it looked like out there and let the kid start the conversation. Because if they say like James, if I were your your child, and I said Dad, you saw me play what how come I wasn’t catching the ball. Right? And you said, Well, you know, Lee, I think you got to keep your eye on the ball look like a couple times turned your head like you’re afraid. If you keep your eye on it, then maybe we can practice in the backyard if you want. Now all of a sudden you become an ally rather than an enemy. But if you’re barking at them and instructing them when they don’t want it now you’re the enemy and that’s when it all starts to fall apart.
Rob Anderson
Yeah, I think that’s one of the things I really struggle with it. You know, youth sport fixtures that I’ve been at over the past decade or so as a PE teacher, particularly back in England, some of the ferociousness of the feedback from parents on the sideline or coaches of specific teams, and it’s just, and then they wonder why that the kid doesn’t want to play. Or the kid doesn’t want to come back and represent the school and they’ve got dwindling numbers, by the time they get back get to 15 or 16. It’s like, it’s no surprise when that’s the environment created by the adults really, is it? Yeah, yeah. No,
Lee Taft
no, no. And, you know, if you and I could talk about strength and conditioning, we would talk quite a bit about controlling intensity and volume and density and, and how much exposure and rest and all this well, sports is the same way. And the psychology of sports is even more so like that. So if, if a young, eight 910 1112 year old is constantly getting a high volume of criticism, that becomes extremely fatiguing, but it’s a mental fatigue, it’s an emotional fatigue. And then all of a sudden, they start to say, I just don’t want to do it anymore. I just can’t. And here’s the problem. If you and I were friends, and you said, you know, let us think you can’t play, I’d say James, you stink, you can’t play we, you know, we’d go back and forth and banter. And then we would go hang out the rest of the day, right? Because we’re peers, we’re friends. Yeah. But when your mom or your dad does it, the people you respect the most, and you try to honour their their wishes and their thoughts. That’s a heavy load on a kid, okay. And then, if they become disrespectful, that’s a red flag right there. It’s like why all of a sudden, are they like the scared dog, you’re back and forth. And that bites back at you. That’s not that’s a really dangerous dynamics going on. And so you’re putting that child in the position of having to, you know, protect themselves and fight back against those they love. But the other part is when the parents are getting on the kid about doing certain things a certain way. But the coach is actually supporting the kid doing it the way they’re doing it. Now, the child’s stuck in between and you talk about pressure, that’s a lot of pressure, because they don’t want to disappoint their parents. And they certainly don’t want to be, you know, called out by the coach for not doing what they asked. So now the parents have put the kid in a in a position, they just can’t win. And then they the best way for them. I’m not gonna play anymore. Now, I don’t have to deal with that. So that’s a shame. Yeah. withdraw completely.
Rob Anderson
Yeah, yeah. And just going back a couple of steps you mentioned, like playing two or three months worth of sport and then rotating. And you mentioned quite a few different sports within there. You know, you had some individual sports, you had sports that were more throwing and catching bass, some that were striking and fielding based? Would you have a purposeful rotation around those activities at those younger age groups to develop all of those skills? Would that be your thinking and approach that they can mention
Lee Taft
later? Yeah, I definitely because I like you as an phys ed background, and we try to expose the students to you know, all the different skill sets, right, we want them to be able to throw and catch and field and kick in, and trap and control and all that stuff. And so when you put athletes and so let’s take let’s take a sport, like maybe field hockey, and a sport like tennis, okay, they’re both implement driven, but their rules are completely different, the way they strike and swing and move to strike the ball and hit the ball or defend a way different, but they’re still working on a similar patterning. Now if we go soccer and lacrosse, very similar spatial awareness and, and separation of teammates and defending in a way but very different in how we attempt to score and because of the skill set, and then we start going to sports like basketball and maybe like a team handball or football, American football, where now it’s very much hand eye coordination and, and manipulation of the body while still controlling the ball to stay within the rules. So when you do that for a child, what you do is you bolster their overall ability to be able to manage their bodies make quick decisions, but use their hands, their body and their feet. To make plays, and even though each sport has differences, the similarities greatly overwhelmed the fact that they have differences, right? Just the fact that I’ve got to be able to work yet. And then we can start going into sports like swimming, badminton racquet ball for things that’s more individual based to an extent, and but still starting to develop some of that upper body and that shoulder control that mean that we may want the young kids to develop. Yeah, so I think it’s a fantastic seamless approach.
Rob Anderson
Yeah, I think I had just reflecting on some of my own experiences with sport and I ended up playing rugby to a fairly good level, within like the National leagues and in in the UK, but not top level three or four tiers down. But there was I didn’t pick up rugby until I was 15. Really, like, that was when I really wanted to play the game, like you said, I was, I was playing loads of different sports, football, soccer, I was skiing, I was playing basketball in my back garden. And actually, like when it came to rugby, that it was like a, an amalgamation of many things that I’ve done over the years, it was that the handling skills that I’d learned in basketball, I could throw around the back passes, because I’d been doing them in basketball, I could kick the ball well, because I’d done soccer for for years. But one of the things which I’ve found in that sport, particularly a contact based sport that stood me in great stead was judo. Judo. And it was like this awareness of people’s body pressure on you in contact and being able to find weaknesses in in those contact situations. So it was a really interesting point for me where all these skills had kind of come together. I very much had a youth sport background where I was exposed to many things. I was lucky that my parents gave me lots of opportunities to do that. So yes, it’s interesting how it all comes together. Eventually. I don’t know about you, I’ve definitely seen I’ve seen the other side as well with with working with youth sports, and even you know, among my friends, those people that were specialised in only did one sport. You know that. What, what have you seen on that side? In terms of the kids that go through that? What do you think is the negative? The real negatives of that? Sport? specialisation?
Lee Taft
Right? Yeah. So and I’ve seen it as well, I’ve seen it and many I was long time ago when I had my speed academies back and even the earlier 90s I had like figure skaters gymnast that specialised I’ve had, I’ve had motocross athletes that specialised from a young age. And that’s all they did, is they just did that kind of extreme sport, but it was more motocross. So the here’s, here’s the thing, we know, anything you do, if you do it repeatedly, over and over, you will become better at that. That’s, that’s, that’s the given we know that. Okay, but when we start talking about development, and, and the short span of a young person’s mind where yeah, that’s all they want to do when they’re nine years old. But when they’re nine and a half, they don’t want to do it anymore. They want it, you know, six months can be like that for kitten switches. So the negative of the sports specialisation, okay, so now we start looking at the limited exposure to different movements, as we’ve already covered, okay, that that helps athletes even in their chosen sport. So if I want to be a figure skater, but I ended up even playing hockey, or I play like I do, I pick up a martial arts as an activity, even if it’s not as an organised sport. But I do martial arts a few times a week, and I learn pressure control, like you said, and then movement, that’s fantastic for them. I had a big gymnastics background, my dad was very big in phys ed. And so I learned a lot of that, and that helped me in all my sports. So we have that they, if they specialise, they miss those opportunities. They increase the risk of certain types of injuries just because the pattern keeps being repeated over and over and over. And it’s happening at Young, vital stages, when tissues and joints and bones and everything are still developing. And then of course, we have the mental part, the mental burnout, the social part of it, if you’re with the same kids, all the way out for 6789 years, you kind of miss the social diversity of being with different people and being coached differently. So there’s a list of things that we could go through, but that’s the problem when you specialise is it just doesn’t Give the physical, the emotional, the social in the cooperative development tools that young kids need to be a actually a better athlete in their chosen sport than if they just specialise. I truly believe that.
Rob Anderson
And what about once they get past the period where they are a sports person? What about the active life beyond it? What? Yeah, that that, for me is something which, you know, I see. I’ve seen people who then struggle to pick up other activities outside of their main sport, I know guys that are still still playing rugby into their 40s. They’ve got their bodies are destroyed. But it’s like they could have picked up you could have picked up golf club through your 60s and 70s. But yeah, I think I think that’s one of the things that I see is like the longer term impact, like how they can, can they maintain an active lifestyle, when that sport is gone, you know, when it when, when it isn’t physically possible to do some of these sports. I think that’s another another thing like I always think in the pathways that I’ve worked in, I want these kids to have a real broad set of movement skills that enable them to pick up any activity that they want, at any stage, they could transfer into another sport at 18. And even if they don’t make it to elite, they can go and enjoy it because they have all the movement skills attached to agility and change of direction. And they can they can just do those things. And it’s interesting you say that gymnasts because one of the things I saw working in the school in the UK was we had three or four gymnasts that were very, very good gymnasts competed on a national level, did very well representing the School in their clubs. But it was really interesting. Like, we used to play generic ball skill games, just make 10 passes and keep the ball between your team. And these girls really struggled with it. And then they really began to withdraw from that activity. And if it wasn’t something that they were good at, they didn’t want to be involved. And they were talking about 1213 year old girls. And I said to them, like, look, this is something we want to help you develop because this is going to help you when maybe you stop gymnastics at 1617 or 18. But you could go and pick up a netball, you could go and pick up football something else. And I think we have to have that like you say that wide, the wide lens that sometimes the kids and the parents don’t have to try and encourage that. And even if it’s just picking up, you know, integrating a different set of skills to the sport, like you know, football, you play football, or soccer in the UK. But you can Soccer Soccer in America is good. You do some you do some warm up activities with the ball in your hands, or you get chance to play goalkeeper or something like that. I think they’re important little things that are easy, easy to implement, but potentially very impactful. Down the line.
Lee Taft
Oh 100%. And that’s that’s the thing. So I was very fortunate. I played four sports in high school. And then I played two sports in college. And to this day, I can still play sports. Like I played in tournaments for badminton, I played racquetball. I skied, like you did, I played all ball sports, I learned very well how to play volleyball. And it was simply because when I was little, we did all those things. We just got exposure to it. And you you start to understand things like pace, and touch, and feel and and tracking. And all these little things that get developed. As you said, if you play a sport, if you were only a wrestler, only a gymnast. You know sports have that you don’t understand what it means to lead someone with a pass to push the ball out in front of them, whether it be you know, a football kick or a you know, basketball pass or an American football pass, throw in front to a spot you think they’re gonna go. Those are skills that kids don’t get exposed to if they only play one sport that doesn’t have that particular skill set involved in it. And now as a dad, or as a mom, I can teach my kids pretty much any sport simply because I’ve had such a great sampling experience when I was a kid. And to me, going back to your question of, you know, once you’re an adult, you know, how does it affect you? I think that’s the saddest part. When you have a mom or a dad that can’t even and play catch with their kid, because they can’t catch and they don’t even know how to throw, and what their little kids do. They watch, they mimic. And they they watch your modelling. And if you don’t know how to throw Well, well, they’re probably not going to learn it unless they get a coach that teaches them. So I think that’s part of it is we have to make sure take care of ourselves as we age, make sure we sample a lot, and we have a better body because of it. But also, at some point, you’re going to be your child’s first coach, whether you want to be or not, when they’re three, four years old, they don’t they’re not on a team, but they want to learn how to swing a plastic bat and hit a ball off a tee. You’re the one that’s gonna have to show him how to hold it, and then how to swing?
Rob Anderson
Yeah, for sure. So another question we’re moving on. We’ve talked about the problems of the current model. And I know this is an area that we touched on when we were discussing this beforehand. But what is the impact of the current model on families, their finances? And time commitment?
Lee Taft
Yeah, yeah. So James, this question could could very well be the most important question at all, when we start talking about family dynamics. Youth Sports, has changed how families interact with one another, how they allocate their income, who chooses to go and who chooses to stay if you have multiple kids. So we now are starting to see and there’s there’s some research out there that says about 77% of families are readjusting their income so that they can afford to pay for youth sports. To me, that’s sad. That’s very, very sad. It’s not that, as parents, we want to give a child a chance to be involved, what we have to understand is you’re teaching them a really dangerous lesson, that the only way you can have fun and be involved in achieve is to throw a lot of money at it. And that’s not that should not be the case with young kids wants to get up into high school. And they’re, you know, maybe they want to go play at North Carolina, you know, and they want to go to the North Carolina summer camp. So they’re around that coaching, seven, it cost $500. Okay, I’m fine with that. That’s, that’s a very directed object. But this is with an older kid. But with younger kids, we’re seeing financial distress, we’re seeing husbands and wives spending the weekends and nights away from each other for months on end, because some of these travel things like every weekend for three, four or five months. And so you got mom and dad’s in different states in different, you know, bedrooms, and all these all these months. The other part that is extremely sad to me is, is I spoke with a gentleman who actually wrote an article that was one of the most highly read articles on your sports. And he had email sent to him. And he said, he had grandparents saying, we no longer have access to our grandchildren. Because Sunday’s used to be our day, they came over for family dinner, and we hung out and you know, and the games and stuff with them. That doesn’t happen anymore. Because the kids are choosing and then if the grandparents try to go to these events, it’s too long, they can’t sit there all the time, the noise bothers them, not to mention the expense of it. And if they don’t go, they don’t get to see their kids, if they do go, it’s just a very stressful time. So when we start looking at all of those issues, we start realising the families are actually being kind of pulled apart by the youth sports. When, when moms and dads are saying, well, yeah, but that’s the sacrifice we’re willing to make for a kid. Well, if you understand the skill set, you want your child to have the opportunity to become better at the sport, the potential to get a scholarship can be gained a much better, more healthy, organic way, and probably even better than what you’re currently doing because of the high level of fatigue and breakdown. If they would just realise that, then they could actually have their family life back. And that to me, is just as important as anything else. You know, make sure the families are away from each other during this critical time. Yeah.
Rob Anderson
Yeah, some really, really good points there. And so I think, you know, this dream of pro sport or, you know, families, particularly in the US chasing scholarships and those kinds of things. What could they, what could they be doing to achieve that goal without this crazy investment? And what what would that what things would you be doing now? No, I think your your daughter’s played college basketball, if I’m if I’m wrong. Yep. They have it looks from what I’ve seen you share over the years, it looks like they had a great time playing sport. And I know they did a lot of stuff with you in terms of physical development. What things could other parents be doing to help the kids get there that don’t involve all of the crazy travel ball scenario and money and time away?