1/ Can we please invite teens to the table to “reimagine” youth sports? Their ideas are incredible... they just lived the last 12 yrs+ yrs there. E.g why can’t they have “bring a friend to practice” days (esp U12 yrs) to try to encourage new people to the sport?
2/ “why can’t we have more kids on a team than usual and rotate us through games and tournaments so if there’s a conflict we can be in our school play, attend that wedding, go on a huge class trip, or take a week vacation.”
3/ “Why can’t we have ‘try our sport festivals’ especially <U14 and invite our friends and help them possibly learn a new sport and sign up the next season.”
4/ “why can’t we have shorter club seasons... Like 4 month seasons? Sept-Dec., Jan.-Apr., May-Aug? Then we can try more sports and have different coaches and teammates quicker.”
5/ “why can’t we tell or write to you how we felt about our coaches? Our parents are the ones who do. We know who are good for us and who treat us right.”
6/ “why can’t we register for a club and know that we have a place somewhere and can’t get cut. Like whatever level, then at least we will know we don’t have to wait to get cut and then go all over trying to find another team at the last minute.”
4/ “why can’t we have shorter seasons so we can try more sports younger than 13? Sept-Dec, Jan-Apr, May-Aug. We would also get to meet more teammates and have different coaches.”
5/ “why can’t we register for a club and know that we belong and have a place there? Like even if we’re cut we will have a team there for sure, so we don’t have to race around looking for a new team at the last minute when we’re cut.”
6/ “why don’t we have clubs that offer a few sports packages instead of only one sport... like hockey, soccer, lacrosse, so we can try a bunch one year.”
7/ “why don’t we have people helping our coaches. I don’t mean the practices, I mean like how to talk to us.”
8/ “why can’t some of our games against other teams be 3-on-3, or 4-on-4. They don’t have to be full court/ice, but we love playing that and would be cool to play other teams that way, not just our team in practice.”
9/ “why can’t they invite us, or just the captains or something to their board meetings. Then we can learn what they have to do, and add our viewpoints sometimes.” Wow... just wow.
10/ “why is it only games that we see other teams? It would be so fun and different to practice with other teams once in awhile during the season.” 🤯 of course it would.... they’re teenagers.
