Changing the Game: The Parent's Guide to Raising Happy, High Performing Athletes, and Giving Youth Sports Back to our Kids

Conventional wisdom holds that youth sports are a positive experience for our children. Unfortunately, 70% of kids drop out of organized athletics by the age of 13. Most of these children quit because our youth sports culture has taken the ‘play’ out of ‘play ball.’ A shift in values, the rise of expensive youth sports models, and the myth of abundant athletic scholarships has led parents and coaches to focus on wins instead of enjoyment, and trophies at the expense of development. As a result, every day increasing numbers of children quit playing sports that are no longer enjoyable. Conventional wisdom is wrong.

In Changing the Game, John O’Sullivan draws upon three decades of high level playing and coaching experience to take us behind the scenes of competitive youth sports, and demonstrates how they have changed from being a fun pastime to an ultra competitive, adult centered enterprise that is failing our children. He then teaches parents that the secret to raising happy, high performing children begins by helping them attain a positive mindset, and an enjoyable youth sports environment. By following seven actionable principles of high performance, parents can give their children a competitive edge, while at the same time making youth sports a positive experience for their family, their community, and their country.

“The romance is gone, the fun has disappeared, and children no longer simply ‘play’ sports,” says O’Sullivan. Changing the Game is a call to action to reverse this trend. It will change how you think about youth sports. It will teach you the secrets of high performance. It will help your children to perform better. And it will put the “play” back in “play ball” for all of our young athletes. Are you ready to take action? Are you ready to change the game?

John O’Sullivan is the founder of the Changing the Game Project, and currently coaches for the Portland Timbers Youth Academy of Major League Soccer. For the past two decades he has been a successful soccer coach on the youth, high school and collegiate level. He is a former NCAA Division I soccer player, and played professionally for the Wilmington Hammerheads of the USL. John speaks nationwide to coaches, parents and young athletes about developing athletic excellence and leadership within positive sporting environments. He is a 1994 graduate of Fordham University, and received his Masters Degree from the University of Vermont in 2003. John holds an “A” License from the US Soccer Federation and a National Youth Coaching License from US Youth Soccer.