Better Sports Parents

Steve Kerr says every kid needs free play, multiple sports and coaches who build joy into the work. The five-time NBA champion as a player, four-time champion as Warriors head coach and 2024 Olympic gold medal-winning coach of Team USA shares what he’d tell every sports parent. Steve played for the Bulls and Spurs, worked as a broadcaster and NBA general manager, but calls himself a son, brother,...

What began as a one-off summer camp to expose marginalized youth to hockey has grown into a national program that annually serves over 800 youth in nine cities across Canada. Hockey Education Reaching Out Society (HEROS) provides free hockey programming for at risk children and youth, offering a safe and stable environment for them to grow, connect and succeed. In this episode of What's Working, H...

Jesse Levine was a U.S. junior national champion and University of Florida standout who faced Rafael Nadal, trained with Roger Federer, and later coached tennis stars Madison Keys and Jessica Pegula. He says the best thing parents can do is let kids play, fail and find their own joy. Jesse grew up in Ottawa playing soccer, basketball, baseball and tennis, and didn’t commit to one sport until he wa...

Camille Martens survived fear-based coaching and abuse to become a Canadian champion, Commonwealth Games champion and Olympian in rhythmic gymnastics. But she always knew there was a better way, so she now focuses on helping parents build healthy, loving sport environments. Camille has spent four decades in sport as an athlete, coach and parent. She competed at the World Championships and Olympics...

A remarkable alternative schooling program in East Vancouver is transforming the lives of youth through the sport of running. Streetfront began as an idea nearly 50 years ago, and has blossomed into a program that turns at-risk youth who are struggling with conventional education into high school graduates who run half marathons, full marathons and beyond. In this episode of What's Working, Street...

Hayley Wickenheiser says youth sports have lost the art of play, and parents can help bring it back. The five-time Olympic medalist, emergency physician and mom shares what she'd change for youth hockey and every kid in youth sports. Hayley is a pioneer of women's hockey. She won four Olympic gold medals and one silver, plus 13 medals at the Women's World Hockey Championships (seven gold, six silv...

Geroy Simon is one of the most decorated players in CFL history: three Grey Cup victories, a Most Outstanding Player award, and a place in the Canadian Football Hall of Fame. Since retiring, he's built a front-office career that's taken him from scouting to the CFL front office and now back to where it started: Executive Director of Revenue Share and General Manager at his alma mater, the Universi...

When Tim Adams noticed an abundance of siblings watching their brothers play on an after school soccer team, he started to design a program that would accommodate childcare and physical activities. Nearly 20 years later, that simple idea has become a citywide program called Free Play for Kids that serves more than 5,000 children and their families in greater Edmonton every year. In the opening epi...

James Paxton pitched on some of baseball's biggest stages, battling through injuries to become one of only two Canadian pitchers to ever throw a no-hitter in the big leagues, and the only one to do it on Canadian soil. Earlier this year, he came out of retirement to pitch for Team Canada at the World Baseball Classic. However, these days, most of his innings are as a husband to Katie, a father to...

Manny Malhotra is the Head Coach of the Vancouver Canucks and a central piece in a family that has an incredible amount of perspective and opinion on youth sports. Drafted seventh overall in 1998, Manny played nearly 1,000 NHL games across seven organizations, and built a reputation as one of the league's most respected leaders. His coaching career has seen him move from an NHL assistant to a Cald...

Duff Gibson won a World Championship and Olympic gold in skeleton, a remarkable achievement at the end of a winding athletic path that took him through wrestling, speed skating, and rowing before he ever touched a sled. He also spent 25 years as a Calgary firefighter, and since retiring from competition has built the Community Coach Program (contact duffgibson@icloud.com ) and the multi-sport kids...

Jamie Huscroft played more than 350 NHL games with seven organizations, won a Memorial Cup with the Medicine Hat Tigers, and was drafted in the 9th Round after starting out as, in his own words, the worst player at every level he ever played. Since retiring in 2001 after suffering 13 concussions as a pro, he's spent nearly 25 years building community hockey in the greater Seattle area, where he's...

Ilya Orlov almost quit soccer at 13 due to pressure from well-meaning parents, punishing coaches, and a body that developed later than his peers. On the brink of leaving the game he loved, his father gave him one piece of advice that changed everything: drop down a level. That decision, and the years of reflection since, shaped how Ilya now coaches as head coach of the University of Toronto men's...

Terry McKaig built the most successful post-secondary baseball program in Canada's history at UBC, sending players to the MLB draft year after year. As the father of two active teenagers, he's also very familiar with what the current youth sports environment looks like as a parent not just a coach. In this segment, Terry discusses how he and so many other successful athletes have been cut from a t...

He's spent his career training athletes for the NHL, NFL, Olympics and beyond. And Matt Nichol is telling parents to slow down. Matt has trained some of the best athletes on the planet, but he's clear on one thing: he'd never train a 10-year-old like a pro. So why do so many youth coaches and parents try to do exactly that? In this conversation, Matt and Scott dig into what's actually broken in yo...

Allison McNeill is one of the most accomplished figures in Canadian basketball. As a player, she won multiple provincial and national titles before finishing her collegiate career in the NCAA. As a coach, she took over Simon Fraser University's women's program in 1988 and spent 13 years turning it into a perennial national championship contender. She then took the reins of Canada's women's nationa...

Jason Strudwick played over 600 NHL games across a 17-year pro career with the Islanders, Canucks, Blackhawks, Rangers, and Oilers. Since retiring, he's become a broadcaster, youth hockey coach, and dad to three kids active in sports, giving him a rare view of the youth sports system from every angle. In this episode, Jason gets refreshingly honest: why he tells parents the truth even when they do...

Steve Mesler is an Olympic gold medalist, a former member of the USA Olympic Committee and the co-founder of Classroom Champions. He's also a father navigating today's youth sports landscape and comes face to face with what many consider conventional wisdom with respect to sports parenting. In this segment, Steve challenges a common question he hears in the youth sports ecosystem and advocates for...

Kara Kalin competed at the national level in artistic swimming, coached the sport from club to the Canadian team, and became a clinical counselor and certified EMDR therapist. She then founded Shift Change, a platform for trauma processing in sport and beyond. Kara is also a mother of four children all active in sport, so she has seen the youth sports environment from every angle. And what she see...

Three-time Olympic gold medalist and Canadian Senator Marnie McBean sees many of the problems with youth sports in Canada and she's intent on figuring out what we can do about it. From her international rowing career to raising her 10-year-old daughter Isabel, Marnie has seen sport at every level and has a very current view on what's currently happening in youth sports today. In this segment, Marn...

Adam Bighill made more tackles than all but five players in the history of Canadian football. He won three Grey Cups, was named the CFL's most outstanding defensive player three times, and is a shoe in for the Canadian Football Hall of Fame. But the most revealing thing about Adam's relationship with football can't be found on the stat sheet. Born with a bilateral cleft lip and palate, Adam was bu...

Trevor Linden played 19 seasons in the NHL, captained the Vancouver Canucks to the 1994 Stanley Cup Final, and performed under the most intense pressure imaginable. But as a sports parent to his 8-year-old son? He's about as low-pressure as it gets. In this segment, Trevor discusses the advent of travel tournaments to major markets for teams with very young players, the rising cost of youth sports...

Shannon Winzer has coached volleyball at the highest level on two continents:national teams in Canada and Australia, and now as head coach of the Dallas Pulse in Major League Volleyball. She's also a mother of three kids actively playing youth sports and a volunteer lacrosse coach in her community. That combination gives her a perspective on youth sport that very few people have. What she sees fru...

Kim Gaucher was a member of the Canadian Women's Basketball Team for more than 20 years, captaining the team in multiple Olympic Games. Her prolific NCAA and professional career led her into coaching and eventually her current role as Head of the Players Unit with FIBA, the governing body of international basketball. In this segment, Kim discusses the benefits of kids playing in unstructured envir...

Brian Johns is a three-time Olympian and was a world record holder in the pool. He also thought he knew what youth sport looked like — until he became a parent. What he found when he put his daughters into youth sports was an eye-opener even for someone who has spent decades in sport at every level. Sports operating in silos, parents left to figure everything out alone, nine-year-olds being tiered...