ESPN analyst on why he thinks youth sports are ‘completely broken’

If you tune into Dan Orlovsky on ESPN, you’ll get a hot take on what’s going on in college football or the NFL. If you speak to him about kids’ sports, you’re likely to get one, too.

“I think youth sports are completely broken,” he says. “I think the emphasis on ego from the coaches has completely overwhelmed youth sports. I think the emphasis on winning and losing has completely overwhelmed youth sports. I think the lack of commitment to development has completely overwhelmed youth sports. Obviously, there’s a lot of money attached to it nowadays. We have lost sight of why kids play sports.”

To negotiate a world of pay-for-play teams and  “professionalization” from young ages, we need to constantly check in with our athletes, and with ourselves, to make sure we are giving them a positive experience.

It’s especially tough when we take our kids to their games, and they are under constant pressure – from us or elsewhere – to be successful.

Orlovsky, 41, was an elite college football player at Connecticut and an NFL quarterback from 2005 to 2015. Today, he’s all over ESPN as a football analyst.

He’s also a father of four: Daughter Lennon (9) and triplet sons Madden, Hunter and Noah, who will turn 13 later this month.

“The unfortunate card that they got dealt is every game that they go to, there’s expectations,” he tells USA TODAY Sports.

He reaches out for help. He is a spokesman for a fatherhood program called All Pro Dad, which provides feedback and support from a community of fathers through workshops and encouragement. He helps host events, along with other sports celebrities, in which he speaks with dads and their kids.

It’s an interactive experience, like parenting needs to be.

“Probably being a dad for me is not even close to being the most important thing I’ll ever do in my life,” he says. “I don’t think that I was naturally born with elite dad skills.”

Here are four insights for parents of young athletes he has gained from his program and from interacting with other parents.

(Questions and responses are edited for length and clarity.)

1. Our parents give us a model, but we can be intentional about how we approach our kids

Dan Orlovsky Sr. played football at the University of Bridgeport (Connecticut). He drove his son hard through sports.

Young Dan played football, baseball and basketball. Baseball was far and away what he was best at but he quit during his sophomore year at Shelton (Connecticut) High.

He had found a greater love in football, but also a game that became a terribly serious matter in his home. Everyone was happy when Dan played well, but when he didn’t, the opposite was true.

It’s a feeling he wanted to change.

USA TODAY: There’s certain parents that are pretty intense at sports games. Seeing them, has that shaped you at all as a sports dad?

Dan Orlovsky: Oh, for sure. So candidly, I’ve experienced it a little bit as a kid myself. My dad did a lot of amazing stuff for me when it came to sports. My dad taught me a competitiveness and work ethic that is a main reason why I’m here today. But I do recall moments where I wish things were done differently, and so I’ve kind of made the promise to myself where I wasn’t gonna do those things. I was gonna be better and not have those interactions, because I think that started to build a wall that I had between my father and I.

I’ve watched some dads, and some friends of mine, and I’ve tried to have conversations with them, because I know how it ends up. I know how that’s gonna end up for you as a father, and I’ve tried to just share the experience and the wisdom of, “Hey, I know that you’re a super intense dad. You want the very best for your son. I get it. But just let me show you what she’s probably thinking right now when you’re doing that or talking to him that way.”

Coach Steve: Some parents need to rethink how they talk to their child athletes

2. ‘What do you need from me?’ Your sports experience isn’t the same as your kids’ sports experience

Orlovsky and his wife Tiffany started their sons at organized sports at 9 or 10. They weren’t nearly as good as other kids.

“It was harder at first, because they felt inadequate,” he says. “But they’re starting to take off, and that was the whole goal.” 

USA TODAY: That’s so counter to what parents do these days. How have you found that that’s worked out?

Orlovsky: I didn’t want them to feel that dad did it so you have to. What we’ve found out is, I think they’re way more in love with sports now than some of their friends who have been playing for nine, 10 years. I didn’t want the overwhelming burnout to happen because they’ve been playing intense sports since they were 3 or 4 years old. We probably haven’t even started the intense sports and so I think that they’re just starting to fall in love with it, starting to fall in love with the work of it, starting to understand it. And I do think that they have multiple friends that are starting to fall out of love with it, because of the demand of their childhood, I guess.

USA TODAY: How would you describe yourself as a sports dad?

Orlovsky: I ask my kids, ‘What do you want from me to be your best?’ I have no clue. Just because I played this sport doesn’t mean I know how they feel about how they’re playing, or the feelings that they’re having. I know when I’m at a game I cast a shadow. I have no idea what that feels like. I need to know from them, individually, like, ‘Do I need to shut up? Do I need to talk to you about what you’re doing good? Do you want me to fire you up? Do you need less? Do you need more?’ I need them to be able to tell me.

My daughter has said, ‘If I’m not playing the way that you think I can, whistle and, when I look over, take your finger and kind of like make the circle motion. (But) you only get to do it one time in a game.’ My boys don’t want to hear me, so I just sit there and, occasionally I’ll be very positive, like “Yo, good job.” I’ll do a whistle with a thumbs up, but I’m pretty intense when it comes to how much I enjoy it but I am not on those sidelines yelling and screaming and whatnot. After the game, I try to find the positives.

3. ‘What was your favorite part of the game?’ We can’t expect each kid’s sports experience to be the same, either

Most of the work as a sports parent comes between games and practices. We learn to foster emotions, nudge and encourage.  

But we also can empower our kids to help figure things out, which can benefit us, too.

“I have one kid who’s not into sports,” Orlovsky says. “And he’s made me an exponentially better father than I could ever imagine, because he’s forced me to get interested in the things that I’m not naturally interested in.”

USA TODAY: One of the things you’ve probably learned as a sports dad is that every kid’s experience is different, right?

Orlovsky: Yeah, big time. My daughter is a superstar athlete, and she’s got every box that you could ever imagine needing to be checked for sports. But what I’ve learned in spending time with other sport dads is with her (is that) I want to constantly encourage her, but not to the point where she thinks that, ‘Oh my gosh, sports is the only thing that matters, and the only way my dad will love me or I’m so much better than everybody.’ And then I have a son who’s unbelievably talented, has no self-confidence, and he’s had a coach at football that’s completely destroyed his confidence. I gotta talk to him differently than I have to talk to her. And then I have a son who’s talented, not overly competitive, and he’s not overly confident. But he doesn’t have severe doubt as the other one.

USA TODAY: What have you learned to say to your son who has lost his confidence?

Orlovsky: Talk to yourself rather than listen to yourself. Some of the All Pro Dad stuff is how I talk to him in the car after a game, because he might go to a game and have a touchdown catch, an interception and three tackles, and the coach will yell at him because he breathed the wrong way, so he focuses on that one moment and he thinks the whole game’s bad. So, “Hey, what was the part of the game that was the most fun for you?” So trying to rewire his mindset of what his experience was or trying to find a play instead of focusing on the result. I constantly say, “I don’t care what you did in the game, I care how you did it.” So having a touchdown catch is great. That’s for you. I liked how you blocked for your teammate better. I liked how when coach called timeout, you jogged to the sideline and then back onto the field.

I don’t engage the coach. I take every moment as a learning moment for him. You don’t control the coach. You control how do you go to practice, how hard you practice, where you are in the line, how you are with your teammates. Do you take advantage of every opportunity? I’m a big believer in you got to go earn what you get.

Coach Steve: How do I deal with a bad coach? Here are three steps

4. ‘Winning and losing is for the kids. It’s not for the adults and parents’

We have all gotten things wrong as parents.

“How much time you got?” Orlovsky said when I asked him what he has.

It’s stuff we’ve all done: Getting impatient, yelling a little too much, having unrealistic expectations for our kids and saying things that we regret.

“All of those things that are making me a human being,” he says.

He has learned that a misstep here or there won’t erase all the good things we have done. Our kids’ sports experience, with its ups and downs, can work the same way.

USA TODAY: Has it been hard to convey the message to your kids about failure and losing, which obviously are very important lessons in sports?

Orlovsky: Of course. I think the generation of kids nowadays, it’s hard no matter who your parents are, because their life is immediate. It’s not their fault. It’s just the world that they’re growing up in. Sports doesn’t work like that. Very little is immediate. I don’t want to say we embrace losing; we chase success. My daughter’s playing basketball, you shoot, there’s one of two things that are going to happen. I think this is a Coach K thing. You’re not a perfect person, so you’re gonna miss. So who cares? Shoot.

My sons are playing lacrosse. Guess what, guys: You’re gonna to get whupped. I hate to tell it to you. And when you’re playing football, you’re gonna get embarrassed at times. I don’t want them ever to be fearful of mistakes. I will not be disappointed if you get embarrassed, but I will if you don’t try.

USA TODAY: What are your observations about youth sports as a whole and where do you see it going?

Orlovsky: I think what parents and coaches have done with youth sports, and I’m not saying this is for all of them − I obviously haven’t observed all of them − I think it’s broken. Kids should be playing youth sports to be running around outside with their friends, and then it grows into learning what it’s like to be on a team, and then it grows into learning what it means to be physically tough, and learning what it means to be mentally tough, and then learning what hard work is, and then learning what commitment is, and learning what it takes to win rather than winning, and all the steps along the way.

Boys should walk off the football field feeling like a superhero because they’ve done something that’s hard. Not because they’ve won or lost. Winning and losing is for the kids. It’s not for the adults and the parents. I think youth sports and the overwhelming social attachment of parents, we’ve eroded a lot of the reason why we should have them.

Steve Borelli, aka Coach Steve, has been an editor and writer with USA TODAY since 1999. He spent 10 years coaching his two sons’ baseball and basketball teams. He and his wife, Colleen, are now sports parents for two high schoolers. His column is posted weekly. For his past columns, click here.