Sports apparel for the youth has become a very attractive market. It seems that such sports apparel sets, especially those being worn by a number of famous sports personalities, are becoming ever more popular for more and more teenagers. Every teenager nowadays must have that popular sports jersey or jacket to wear with him when he goes to school. A teenager feels he would look cool wearing that baseball cap that features his favorite team.

With this surge of popularity, there are even a number of sports apparel designers who are trying to make sports wear even more fashionable and not just as a functional garment aim to provide comfort and sometimes enhance performance. More and more sports apparel are being designed without the dull and boring designs.

When choosing the right type of sports apparel for the youth, one should not merely focus on comfort or feel of the fabric. Teenagers are now more selective in what they wear so it is also important to be able to know the designs as well as the more popular brands and styles that appeal to them.

Only once you have an idea on what sports apparel appeals to the youth can you then concentrating on focusing on what types would be more comfortable. As a general rule of looking for comfortable sports wear, try choosing sports apparel that are made out of cotton. Cotton has proven to be an excellent fabric for sports wear because of its many wonderful properties. For one, they absorb moisture well. But today there are also more advanced technology applied to the manufacture of newer fabrics that can perform better than ordinary cotton apparel.

There are now several sports apparel choices for the youth available that are made from fabrics that are also used on professional sports apparel. These garments are made to achieve better performance through better fit and comfort as well as attractive enough to be more popular with the stylish youth.

Fashion and function are seamlessly combined in order to provide excellent apparel for the youth to use in sports as well as for fashion. For function, such garments are made with fabrics that allow sweat and bodily moisture to stay on the outer layer of the garment to maintain the feeling of dryness. Such sports apparel are made of fabrics with better breathability that helps make perspiration to evaporate faster, making the wearer feel all the more comfortable.

By: Low Jeremy

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Youth Football coaches can learn lessons from good and poor coaches in every sport.

This Spring I finally had enough time to let my oldest play baseball again after a 3 year absence. I could only coach part time because of the Football Clinics I do and other obligations, so without any research we joined the local “B” team that plays about a 16 game schedule. The coach has been in the organization for 5-6 years and is known locally as a “baseball” person. I agreed to be the part-time “hitting” coach.

I knew there was a problem at the first practice, as the kids warmed up “coach” was providing zero instruction. The first “drill” at the first practice was lining all 14 players up at third base to take grounders. Never mind that the kids had yet to be instructed how to get into a proper stance, how to approach a grounder, proper glove placement or proper throwing mechanics. This age 10-12 group had 4 players that had never played mind you, they were green rookies. “Coach” went straight from hitting grounders to putting players in positions and hitting infield.

As you may have guessed this was not his only fault, his batting practice would have consisted of 1 player batting and 13 shagging balls. His organizational skills, practice flow and teaching skills are poor and poor is being far too kind. No player was being held accountable to any type of standard because no standard was set.

As a first time assistant with this team, I bit my lip and followed along. The first game saw not one of the players got into a proper stance, no one hustled out to the field, players played out of position, players questioned balls and strikes and the first baseman
(coaches son) made 4 errors because of poor basic fundamental catching skills. The game was a total disaster, the team lost 22-2. Coach blamed it on the other team having all “6th graders”, typical of how “blamers” try and deflect attention from their poor coaching skills.

I blame myself for this quandry, I should have gone out and watched this team practice last year or at least asked the coach about his practice philosphhies. Had I ever attended one of his practices, it would have been obvious in the first 5 minutes, that his teams are poorly coached and not a good choice for us. While I do not claim to be an expert baseball coach, I head coached baseball in Omaha for 3 years before we moved, that Omaha league is considered by most to be the best Little League in the State and often has State Championship teams. By following to a “T” what Coach Olsen put together in his baseball coaching clinics, studying a few youth baseball coaching books and tapes and studying how the best teams in the area practiced, my teams didn’t lose a game in the 3 years I coached.

My guess is there are well meaning guys just like this coaching youth football in a similar fashion. The movements are not broken down and taught properly, the kids are rushed into playing before the basics are perfected, and time is being wasted. In baseball, my teams did lots of base drills without gloves or balls to perfect basic movements before we ever put the gloves on or took a live ground ball. We did lots of “gator” to bucket drills before we ever added the throw to the drill. Before we added the throw we worked “fit and freeze” drills to perfect the proper throwing mechanics. This “baseball” twilight zone we landed on has done none of that.

I graciously shared my baseball coaching DVDs with “coach” before the season started and he claimed to be appreciative and watched them. Well he either didn’t watch them or someone dubbed in a Bad News Bears movie on my DVDs because not one concept from the DVDs has been used.

I’m not going to create a stir with this coach, it’s my fault for not doing the research. Either do the research or head coach the team will be the lesson I learned from this wasted season.

I’ve coached youth sports for 15 years and heard lots of horror stories of poor youth coaching, but never seen it up this close. I feel for the guys stuck in those spots. Now I can say I’ve walked a little in your shoes and it feels like I have a sand burr in one shoe and a sharp pebble in the other.

I might add that this is not the talk of a disgruntled parent, “Coach” had my son as an infielder when he is probably the 10th best fielder on the team. My son is a very smart and coachable kid, but is no infielder. I suggested to “coach” to have my son play in the outfield and not to start, as I felt he was not one of the best 9 players.

For more free youth football coaching tips please stop by: Coaching Youth Football

Republishing allowed if resource links are kept intact, copyright 2007 Cisar Management

By: Dave Cisar

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