Free Play

Free Play: A Decade of Writings on Youth Sports is a collection of 70 columns and 6 blogs written around themes of play, learning, and the complexity of athlete, child, skill, and talent development for the parents of young athletes between 2007 and 2016. The book is not entirely about play, but play and related concepts, such as creativity, flow, intrinsic motivation, and physical activity, influence each column.
The book is organized around 11 themes: Nature vs. nurture, talent identification, play and physical activity, motivation, early specialization, injuries, long term athlete development, the coach's role, the parent's role, learning, and athletic genius. Included are stories about our evolutionary need for play, using autonomy to enhance intrinsic motivation, changing technique to develop skills, the characteristics of great coaches, and reasons for children's sports participation. The columns discuss many popular science topics of the last decade: Deliberate practice, grit, mindset, and the 10,000-hour rule among them.
Athlete, child, skill, and talent development are related, complex, and multifactorial. There are few absolutes, as every child and every situation differ. The themes are decidedly long-term; there are no short cuts or recipes to success. Many are cautionary tales about the wrong behaviors leading to unintended or unwanted outcomes. When should parents intervene in a bad situation? How should we react to mistakes? How can we embrace the natural learning process? What is success within youth sports?
The columns depict changes in my life, as I coached in 3 states and 2 countries, and my thinking, as I started and completed my doctorate. I coached basketball and volleyball, high school and professional, boys and girls. I refereed youth, high school, college, and adult soccer. I taught university coaching, sports pedagogy, and motor learning courses. I founded the Playmakers Basketball Development League. My experiences provided a unique view into youth sports and talent development, as I worked on both spectrums and inside and out of the system.

We underestimate play's developmental importance. Structured adult-directed experiences have replaced child-directed free play over the last two decades. We replaced the very thing that motivates participation, ignites passion, and improves learning. More free play is not the only answer, but children need and have a right to play.