Professionalism In Youth Sports

One of the most unfortunate parts of working in youth sports: the lack of professionalism. If you think about who coaches and leads players through their youth sports careers, it’s usually those with a win at all costs attitude. In the world of youth sports, it should be filled with people who always think, “what’s it the best interest of the child?” This might mean, throwing your team’s record or championship count out the window and focus on the one thing that should be most important – development. If the question “…what’s in the best interest of the child?” is asked before each and every decision, than youth sports organizations, programs, and teams will never be wrong in their decision making process. Making sure decisions are made on the players behalf is what breeds:

• Professionalism
• Development
• Progress
• Positive Culture
• Community
• Respect

Unfortunately, greed and selfish motives drives the decision making process for many youth sports organizations. As Club Director for 4-years at FLG lacrosse, one of the most refreshing experiences happened this past month. Mike Winkoff (CEO of FLG and my dad) and I met Dana Cavalea, Founder and Owner of ML Strength. ML Strength is a first class training environment for youth, collegiate, professional, and recreations activities. ML’s slogan is short and sweet, “Train Like a Pro.” What was most impressive about ML Strength is the professionalism they bring to the youth sports market. Dana Caveala worked as the Head Trainer for the NY Yankees for 12 years. He trained professionals like Derek Jeter and Andy Pettit. These guys are some of the greatest athletes in the world. Dana’s experience working in a professional environment, with first class athletes has helped him shape the ML Strength locations into being places to truly Train Like a Pro. Most importantly, his experience working in the major league is the reason his team can actually train youth athletes like professional ones. Not only does ML Strength train youth athletes like professionals, but they operate their business like professionals. ML is organized, responsive, and gets results. They use data to track progress of each athlete that walks through their door. They go thru an evaluation process that gives athletes a foundation to work on. Athletes focus on their weaknesses or insufficiencies from the start. Overall, it’s great to see a company with professional experience enter the youth sports space right here on Long Island. A big thanks to Dana and ML Strength for taking the time to evaluate our FLG Select Players. We look forward to introducing more and more youth lacrosse players to your first class training facilities. Learn more about ML Strength at MLstrengtb.com