Develop Athletes for the LONG TERM

Author

Tim Cortazzo
February 27, 2025

This is the most important newsletter I’ll ever send. I hope you enjoy and I hope it inspires you to keep fighting the fight!

LTAD. Long-Term Athletic Development. It’s one of the big “buzz terms” being thrown around in the sports community right now. A lot of people talk about it, some try to implement it, not enough people understand it… This is pretty evident if you are paying attention to the current Youth Sports model.

I think the biggest problem in Youth Sports is the pressure of “Keeping up with the Joneses.” It’s a constant race to make your kid the best compared to other kids in the area RIGHT NOW.. “If Johnny is playing for this team, then my kid needs to be on that team.” “If Jessica is doing this training, then my kid needs that training.” Everyone is racing, but no one is on the right track! It’s a race to a finish line that isn’t there.

Under Armour recently started a “Middle School All-American Game” for football… MIDDLE SCHOOL!!! The top 100 kids in the country. Pretty much a game filled with kids who hit puberty first. The reality is, no one cares about how good your kid is at 12 years old. The chances that a kid plays a college sport is less than 10%. The chances that a kid plays Division 1 is less than 1%. The chances that a kid plays professionally is less than 0.1%.

Long-Term Athletic Development is a PROCESS based on PROGRESS. It’s about mastering square 1 before proceeding to square 2. It’s about falling in love with the sport, fitness, team work, and most importantly… falling in love with the process of working hard to make yourself better. Coaches need to aim to equip athletes for when it matters most for their sport and equip athletes with tools for the rest of their lives.

WHERE SHOULD I START?

One of my favorite quotes comes from Naval Ravikant: “Knowledge is a skyscraper. You can take a shortcut with a fragile foundation of memorization… Or build slowly upon a steel frame of understanding.” The same idea applies for developing athletes. You can rush and throw the kitchen sink at them. OR. You can focus on laying a solid foundation. And then continue to add to the foundation as more and more skills are acquired as the athlete matures.

Here is how I would create the ultimate foundation for a youth athlete focusing on the following:

  • Fundamental Movement Skills (crawling, skipping, galloping, running, jumping, climbing) I would use multi-directional patterns. Go forwards, backwards, side to side, and at different angles.

  • Fundamental Eye-Hand/Foot Coordination Skills (catching, kicking, throwing, hitting a ball with a bat/racquet) I would focus on working with both dominant & non-dominant side.

  • Balance (start with something as simple as standing on 1 leg for time)

  • Spatial Awareness (Any “chase” or “tag” type of game)

  • FUN (this one is self-explanatory and the most important… make it enjoyable)

Develop skills at the playground and the trampoline park. Skip and gallop from activity to activity. Play Tag. Climb. Jump onto and off of things. Learn to do handstands against a wall, do somersaults and rolls, learn to ride a bike, learn to ride a scooter, hang from the monkey bars and eventually climb across. The playground and trampoline park are the ultimate foundation builder for young athletes. The opportunities are endless.

Try different sports, but they do not have to be with a team. Sports like gymnastics & soccer would be 2 I would focus on to get started. Gymnastics is incredible for body awareness, body manipulation, balance, and coordination. Soccer provides one of the only easily accessible sports that uses a predominately coordinated activity with the feet. Both are no brainers for all kids. Baseball, Tennis, & Golf are all great for eye-hand coordination and rotation. ALL OF THESE SPORTS CAN BE DONE IN THE BACKYARD ON YOUR OWN. You don’t need an expert coach and you don’t need organized competition. Just go play with your kid. Let them explore movement and figure it out. It does NOT need to look beautiful. I promise their skills will improve without direct coaching.

IT’S NOT ABOUT YOU…

Burnout is a real thing… Steve Magness just shared a “How to Save Youth Sports” Manifesto last week that inspired my post for today. Here is the link if you’d like to read it… I think Steve is great. And his manifesto is worth reading.

In this manifesto, he cited that 70%… SEVENTY PERCENT… SE. VEN. TY. PER. CENT. drop out of Youth Sports by the age of 13… Guys… We are not doing a good enough job as parents & coaches. It’s unacceptable that we can’t work together to change this. Reason for the burnout? “Athletes have become terrified of failure and feel immense pressure.” “Loss of joy & fun.” “Excessive focus on winning.” “Comparison… I wasn’t as good as other people my age.”

Stop with the post-game lectures… Stop with the negative screaming and yelling from the stands… Stop placing your kids into toxic programs with toxic coaches…

Imagine being 12 again, going 0 for 4 with 2 strikeouts, losing the game to kids you have to see in school the next day, results posted on the internet, and then you have to hear not only the coach’s lecture but now the parent’s lecture about how you need to swing the bat more… Sounds like a damn nightmare.

Our parents took us to Mr. Mikes Pizza and Ralph’s Ice Cream after every single game. And we played pool, threw darts, played Hoop Jones on the “MegaTouch” Screen, and all felt pretty great in the world.

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People keep asking me about “courses” … Honestly, I have nothing to sell right this second but I am working on it. The first 2 programs I am releasing are guides to improving the 40 Yard Dash and 60 Yard Dash. They will be available within the next couple weeks and I can’t wait to share them. So until then, enjoy FREE stuff!

The world of Sports Performance can be overwhelming. My goal is to help change that with REAL, PRACTICAL, APPLICABLE, SIMPLE training solutions to help athletes run faster, jump higher, get stronger, and be an absolute menace in their sport.

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