NBC Nightly News- Kids Now

Tonight on NBC Nightly News was a segment entitled 'Kids Now'. The story was about sports performance centers and training young athletes.

Specifically, how trainers are now being put in charge of a future college scholarship for athletes as early as age nine.

According to the staff at CATZ, the featured performance center, training these youth will give them an extra edge. It will give them the tools so that they can be successful and get into the school of their choice. (By the way, I am not sure this is good marketing as every athlete will not experience this.)

On a different note, a child psychologist was interviewed and his viewpoint is that we have created an environment that is all win or lose. He asks, at what price is winning everything or better yet for developing character? (I am finishing up an article on this and will post it here this week)

Here are my personal thoughts on the story:

• Our country is definitely all about winning. So much so that traveling youth competitive teams are as early as age 8! If we continue down this path we will ruin these young athlete's lives both on and off of the field. (more on this soon)
• The athletes shown were in definite need of fundamental movement skill training. But hey just about every kid in this country looks like that as well.
• One clip is shown of a high school male athlete attempting a lateral jump over a four foot high cushioned wall. He got over it but wow was it ugly. Not really sure how doing that will help him perform better.
• It's encouraging to hear a few personal stories of athletes being committed enough to train more than once per week. It is this kind of persistance that will give them the best CHANCE to get to the top

I am not very familiar with the CATZ center except for what I saw on tv tonight. But that is not the point of this post.

However, I am very familiar with other facilities and national training companies. There are many out there which are excellent and are truly impacting these young athlete's lives including Jason Beauparlant's facility in Mass., John Beyle's company in North Carolina, and Roger White's new facility in Detroit. (probably because each of these guys has a physical education background at two of them are PE teachers)

One particular facility that I know for sure 'gets it' is the Center for Athletic Performance founded by my good friend Scott Moody.

Yes it is about improving performance for young athletes, but he is taking it to a whole new level and making it more about developing the athlete as a whole person as well. In addition, he has formed a group that is creating an age based curriculum grounded in practical experience and research at his facility.

How is his facility doing this? The best advice I can give you is to checkout his website at http://www.capprogram.com/.

Oh ya by the way, if you did not see the program, here is the link:

http://video.msn.com/video.aspx?mkt=en-US&brand=msnbc&vid=25e58331-2fb5-4a97-95f5-1027799f8da0