John O’Sulivan is the Founder and CEO of the Changing the Game Project and Author of the #1 best selling youth sports book on Amazon, Changing The Game. His book is a parents guide to raising happy, high performing athletes and giving youth sports back to our kids. John played college soccer at Fordham University and then played professionally before becoming a division-one soccer coach at the University of Vermont. John has also broken a total of 24 bones in his body so he obviously had some great advice for the injured athletes in this episode! (Taken from Changing the Game Project's website) The mission of the Changing the Game Project is to ensure that we return youth sports to our children, and put the ‘play’ back in ‘play ball.’ They want to provide the most influential adults in our children’s lives – their parents and coaches – with the information and resources they need to make sports a healthy, positive, and rewarding experience for their children, and their whole family. Parenting and coaching young athletes is an art, not a science, and the information you find on their website can help you navigate the maze of youth sports, and put a smile on your young athlete’s face, whether he or she is 6 or 16 years old. Their website is your one stop shopping for the latest and greatest information, research, and best practices regarding high performance, motivation, long term athletic development, fitness, nutrition, college recruiting, and more. There you will find resources, training, videos, and books that can help you become the best parent or coach a kid could ever ask for. It will help ensure that you do your part to make youth sports a wonderfully positive part of your child’s physical, social, and cognitive education. Below you will find John's TEDx talk on Changing the game in youth sports. John is an expert on the environment in youth sports and offers great insight into how we can fix it in this episode. This is a must-listen for parents, coaches and adminstrators of young athletes. Notes on Episode 83: Trigger moments that made John want to change the game: As an organizational director, while looking for resources to educate and help parents and coaches, information was lacking on how to communicate, motivate and inspire kids. Watching his six-year-old daughter play soccer, on the next fiel
