Engage Sports Blog Youth Sports Matters

Youth baseball is losing young players and some feel that it is because youth baseball is too boring for today's kids. Nationally youth baseball participation has declined 4.3% from 2009 to 2014, according to a tracking study by the Sports & Fitness Industry Association (SIFA).  Contrasted with tackle football, which has declined a whopping 17.9% over the same period, baseball's decline looks comparably shallow. Football with its concussion and injury issues is perhaps more understandable, but baseball? Our national pastime?  Why would youth baseball show such a decline?  Is the pace of play and nature of the game turning kids off?  

Is your sports website optimized for mobile?

Better yet, is it responsive? Given the growth of the mobile web, responsive web design is a best practice that helps you provide users with an optimal experience, regardless of whether they are browsing your site on a smartphone, tablet, or desktop.

Today's headlines are filled with instances of youth sports coaches, board members and volunteers, committing crimes. The charges include sexual misconduct with players and parents, financial theft, equipment theft, battery and other crimes.  Many youth sports organizations are turning to background checks to prevent criminal behavior before it happens.  This post reveals the results of a nationwide survey of over 1,400 youth sports leaders and the degree to which background checks are being implemented, on which personnel and their perceived level of effectiveness.  

Seeking help in creating a youth sports league or tournament schedule? You are not alone. Creating a game schedule that works for everyone’s needs is often a very difficult task. League scheduling is made more complex by conditions such field availability, time limitations, field lighting, blackout dates, division balance, rest requirements and much more. While you may feel like punting the schedule process to someone else, here are 8 sports schedule development tips that will help you keep your sanity and produce a great schedule.

Youth sports association, leagues and municipal recreation programs are struggling to recover form record breaking floods that hit the Midwest in December.  Heavy rains that soaked the region for days causing rivers, creeks and drainage systems to flood. Youth sports organizations with outdoor sports programs rely on flat open ground for fields and that ground is often found in flood plain areas.  While ideal for playing fields, such geographic placement is a double edge sword; the ground is cheap as business and homes typically avoid it, but the low-lying ground is prone to frequent flooding

The Changing the Game Project has released its Top 5 blog posts of 2015.  Each article is a gem of insight and understanding of youth sports. If you are not familiar with the Changing the Game Project, we encourage you to follow them as they are probably the best youth sports improvement program in the country. We had the opportunity to interview their founder, John O'Sullivan earlier this year and gained first-hand insight how their program got started and key steps that parents, coaches and players can make to "change the game."  

This article will share techniques to improve breathing habits, which will benefit the youth sports and adult athlete alike.  Most athletes are unaware of their breathing patterns, except for when they are ‘sucking air’ at the end of conditioning drills. Periods of fatigue shouldn’t be the only time they pay attention to it.  Athletes and coaches should be aware of proper breathing through all of practice, following these techniques will ensure proper breathing throughout practice and games.

Learn about about the benefits of becoming a referee/umpire and why parents, coaches, guardians and others across the country should encourage teens and young adults to consider becoming a youth sports referee/umpire.  Recent press suggests there is growing shortage of youth sports referees/umpires, so it is vitally important to the future of youth sports that teens and young adults are encouraged to become umpires and referees.

All across America Thanksgiving is celebrated with turkeys, food and footballs. High schools and youth leagues use Thanksgiving and the long weekend to host “turkey bowl” rivalry games which have become community traditions.  Nowhere is this tradition more evident than in the hometown of Engage Sports, where the Kirkwood Pioneers and Webster Groves Statesmen have been kicking off the Turkey Bowl event now for over 100 years.  That’s right, 100 years of high school football competition, with over 80 of those games played on Thanksgiving Day.