How Participation Trophies Are Making Our Kids Soft

The question is: What kind of communication have you had with college coaches?

By: Josh Levine

Author | Coach | Trainer | Entrepreneur

Josh Levine is not affiliated with LPL Financial

The dark side of youth and high school sports occurs in the shadows. The root cause is “elitism” – the marketing of nine-year-old players as “all stars”, the parental boasting of their player’s “talent”, and the social validation (online, at school, and home) youth receive for being successful athletes. All of these factors can harm youth and high school athletes, while probably making it tougher for them to succeed in their sport, in the classroom, and beyond.

Marriage affects your ability to build wealth, plan for retirement, plan your estate, and capitalize on tax and insurance-related benefits.

Will Lacey was just a baby when doctors diagnosed a rare form of cancer and told his family there was only one end. Nobody then could imagine the journey ahead, from hospital rooms to board rooms, research labs to government offices, a furious race between hope and death.

In the spring of 1991, my favorite football coach at my high school was fired. Not from teaching social studies, or history or, heck, even coaching the girls basketball team. He was still good enough for that.

Just football. That’s it.

Earlier that fall, he’d gone through an awful season. One win. Eight losses. Lost some close games his young team should have won. He started a majority of underclassmen, only three seniors were on the team.

By: Thomas Mingone

Published July 22 2016, 2:14pm EDT in Financial-Planning.com

Since the U.S. Supreme Court constitutionalized same-sex marriages last year, there are now approximately 491,000 same-sex marriages in the U.S.; 123,000 marriages more than prior to the ruling.

(Bloomberg News)

During any presidential election, you can expect a barrage of promises from the yard sign endorsements, bumper stickers, stump speeches, and media headlines. All pledge to improve the economy, provide better education for all, and preserve the environment. This year has repeated that routine, and certainly hasn’t lacked in drama. Oftentimes, when the big issues of the campaign are revealed — with the slogans, speeches, and promises leading the conversation — an unbiased source can help sort out rhetoric from reality.

FAYETTEVILLE, Ark.

Harrison Heffley played nearly every sport that caught his interest during junior high and high school, from his dominant trade of baseball to basketball, football and even golf.

Over the years, the senior from nearby Rogers has seen and felt pressure from coaches for athletes to take part in year-round, single-sport training just to earn playing time at the varsity level. He has watched friends and opponents train outside school and hit the road with their travel teams, chewing up weekends for months at a time. The hard-throwing left-handed pitcher wasn't immune from this kind of effort, either, scheduling baseball workouts each week while playing other sports and often throwing late into the night at his school's indoor facility.

22 Things You'll Never Regret Doing As A Sports Parent

1. Going to all your kids’ games. Or at least most of them, if you can.

2. Telling your children you are proud of them, whether they win or lose. Do this before they even play, after they play and as often as possible when it has nothing to do with sports.

3. Saying yes to playing with them. Even when you’re tired or have other “important” things to do, you will always be glad you took the time to play catch, shoot hoops or throw the football around, and remember to keep it fun!