The American Development Model

The American Development Model (ADM), what is it? Where does it come from? Is it a model that we should consider using with our youth athletes in the United States? In 2016, a report was issued entitled “Rebuilding Athletes in America” which focused on the ADM. The report states that the ADM is a concentrated effort between the United States Olympic Committee (USOC) and its National Governing Bodies (NGB) to apply long-term athletic development principles in a way that resonates with the culture of sports in the United States. The numbers relating to youth sports in America are discouraging:

· As many as 70% of children discontinue playing organized sports by the age of 13;

· At least 50% of athletic injuries are related to overuse;

· Between 3% and 11% of all high school athletes compete at the college level;

· Only 1% of high school athletes receive any athletic scholarships; and,

· Between only .03 and .5% of high school athletes reach the professional sports level.

Long-term athletic development standards are utilized to promote substantial physical activity, participation in sport, and Olympic and Paralympic success. Now while the ADM has been developed by the USOC and is geared towards developing Olympic athletes, I see no reason why the concepts that I’m about to discuss cannot be used by local youth sports organizations to improve our youth’s sporting experience.

I have been writing that youth sports can be a “laboratory” to teach our youth how to handle success and failure and to develop the leaders of tomorrow; however, we seem to have lost our way when it comes to youth sports in the United States. The benefits of youth sports are:

· Leadership;

· Fun;

· Self-esteem;

· Teamwork;

· Physical activity; and,

· Peer socialization.

However, somewhere along the way, most youth sports programs in the United States have devolved into “win at all costs” entities where competition and playing for championships starts as young as five and six years old, and teaching the skills of the game are forgotten while some children are weeded out a young age due to “not being good enough”. My question is how do we know that a child may not be “good enough” if you don’t give them a chance to develop, both physically and mentally, during their formative years? For all we know we could be pushing out the next Michael Jordan or Mike Trout, just because some unqualified coach has decided that he/she wants to “win” over developing youth athletes.

The ADM report states that too many kids are burned out, dropping out, or being priced out youth sports. Some of the numbers are as follows:

· The youth sports dropout rate is at an all-time high with 1/3 of the kids in America dropping out of sports between the ages of six and 12;

· Untrained and unqualified coaches that are training our youth are causing this drop out. Twenty-six percent of all youth athletes quit a sport under the age of 12 due to poor coaching;

· Our current American system is “professionalizing” athletes too young. For example, cutting kids at 10 or 12 years old is hurting the pool of athletes and specialization is being taken to extremes;

· The “adultification” of youth sports is overregulating and pricing out our future.

I have been writing about all of this for a few weeks now. Children dropping out of youth sports at younger and younger ages, untrained coaches coaching our children and driving them out of youth sports due to their lack of knowledge in the sport they are coaching and, the need to win being emphasized over the need to teach and train our children. As for the professionalization and adultification of youth sports, we are forgetting that youth sports are for our YOUTH, and not the adults that run the league. The way youth sports are currently being run in the United States many recreation leagues, where most of our children start their youth sporting journey, are being decimated by “travel” and “elite” teams that are starting children on the road to competition at younger and younger ages and pulling children out of the recreation leagues. The 2016 report, referenced earlier, states that today’s children could be the first generation to live shorter, less healthy lives than their parents due to obesity and other related diseases. I feel that if the local recreational leagues continue to be decimated then children who just want to “play for fun” (yes, there are children who still just play youth sports for fun and to be with their friends) and just to get some exercise will no longer exist.

The ADM is broken into five stages and next week I will break down the stages further; however, these are the stages that will be discussed. The stages are as follows:

· Stage one – Discover, Learn and Play, ages 0 to 12

· Stage two – Develop and Challenge, ages 10 to 16

· Stage three – Train and Compete, ages 13 to 19

· Stage four – Excel for High Performance and Participate and Succeed, ages 15 and up;

· Stage five – Thrive and Mentor, ages for life.

Now, without breaking each stage down (which I will do next week) you can see that the early stages, up to 12 years old, children should be learning a sport (or multiple sports) without any competition. Competition doesn’t start until the child reaches the ages of 10 through 16 years old, after years of learning a sport and developing the skills necessary to play a particular sport or sports. And at the top end, Stage Five, the Thrive and Mentor stage, the goal is to have a child, who has grown up and developed in youth sports, come back and coach/mentor the next generation of young athletes. If you saw my blog from last week, this is very similar to the Norwegian Model that I discussed in which training is done early in a child’s life and competition starts as the child gets older and develops both physically and mentally.

As the adults in the room, I feel that we need to change the mindset when it comes to our children and youth sports and my feeling is the American Development Model is the direction that we should be taking youth sports. Next week I will delve deeper into each of the five stages and discuss how the American Development Model has been used and working for USA Youth Hockey.