California’s Vista Murrieta High School will be sending senior standout safety Su’a Cravens to USC for the 2014 season. As one of the top 3 defensive back recruits for the class of 2013 Cravens was named the top player in the state of California. He was named by USA Today the 2012 top defensive player in the country and was regarded as the top safety recruit for the class of 2013. As a senior at Vista Murrieta, Craven recorded 97 tackles, 5 sacks, 4 deflections, 3 interceptions, and 3 blocked punts. On the offensive side of the ball he recorded 227 rushing yards with 6 touchdowns and 404 receiving yards and 8 touchdowns. Winito Athletics wishes Su’a Cravens the best in his collegiate career at USC!

Vista Murrieta’s recently launched website powered by Winito Athletics will benefit the rest of their team in the recruiting process as well. You can see their site here www.VMHSFootball.com and if you want your team’s website to be just as successful be sure to sign up with Winito Athletics at www.winitoathletics.com .  It’s just $75/year per team so what are you waiting for?

Louisiana’s Port Allen High School will be sending senior quarterback and linebacker, Darian Claiborne, to Texas A&M this coming season to play weak side linebacker. Claiborne, Port Allen High School class of 2013, recorded 1,338 passing yards with 11 touchdowns and 919 rushing yards with 7 touchdowns this year. On the other side of the ball he recorded 59 tackles and 3 interceptions his senior year. You can check out his player page with Winito Athletics here. As a junior he garnered 1^st Team All-District, 1^st Team All-Metro, District MVP, 1^st Team All-State (Louisiana) Sportswriters, and 1^st Team All-State Coaches ballot accolades.  We wish Darian and the Aggies the best in their pursuit of a national championship next year.

Another Winito athlete, quarterback Damion Terry of Cathedral Prep School in Erie Pennsylvania will be taking his talents to Michigan State next season. Terry earned Parade All-American honors his senior year at Cathedral Prep. In his senior campaign, Terry led his team to the Pennsylvania State Championship, throwing for 3,599 yards with 50 touchdowns, and rushing for 700 yards and 12 touchdowns.

Delton Williams, also of Cathedral Prep School will be joining his quarterback Damion Terry at Michigan State next season. Williams, who will be playing safety next season for the Spartans rushed for 697 yards and 13 touchdowns as a running back and added 838 receiving yards with 11 touchdowns in his senior campaign at Cathedral Prep.

If you are interested in highlighting your team’s achievements and giving your student-athletes something to show for when their playing days are over then you need to get a website powered by Winito Athletics.  You can have a website like Port Allen Football and Cathedral Prep Football for $75/year per team.  You can find out more at http://www.WinitoAthletics.com

It’s very easy to become a fan of a Winito Athletics website.  A fan, player, parent, or alumni can go to their favorite team and select “Become A Fan” under the team logo and they can also select the “Fans” tab and select the big green bottom that says “Become A Fan.”  This will prompt them sign up in the Winito database and they will have to enter their name, email, phone number etc.

Once a person has requested to become a fan, the coach and administrators of the site will receive an email to approve the fan.  As soon as a person is approved as a fan, they will receive an email 24 hours before each game, every time game scores are entered into the system and any time and administrator of the site sends out a group text/email.

To receive text messages as a player the coach or admin has to add the player to the roster with an email address. Once this is finished a player should visit your team page and “Become a Fan” under the team logo. When he/she does this they will be asked to either create a new account with Winito or sign in with a pre-existing account. It is important that the players sign up with the same email that the admin registered them with. While creating the account you will have the option to put your mobile number in and service provider. If you add your phone number you will receive a text every time the admin or coach sends an email. If you do not provide a cell phone number you will just receive an email.

When you think of team captains, a few names may come to mind: Michael Jordan, Ray Lewis and Peyton Manning. One thing that these three great athletes all have in common is they are all starters, and have been at the top of their game for a while. As a high school or varsity college athlete, it is often believed that the captain is the stud of the team; the one who can put the team on their back and win the game. While this is often true not all captains are starters.

When I was a freshman in high school and we were preparing to choose our lacrosse captains, our head coach handed everyone an article (link below) and told us to take 5 minutes to read it. John Fernandez, a West Point lacrosse graduate, lost both of his legs in the Iraq War. While this may have kept most people off the lacrosse field, it did not hinder him. Five years later Fernandez took the field in the Heroes Cup lacrosse game. This remarkable feat did not surprise his teammates and former coach. As a senior captain for the Black Knights, Fernandez was never a starter. What earned him his captaincy was his undeniable love for the game. He was never the quickest player or best athlete but his teammates knew his passion could inspire them even if he wasn’t on the field for the opening whistle.

Very often when high school athletes choose their captains, it’s the best player. This being said, a captain has heart, leadership, and cares about the team more than him/herself. Next time you are picking your team captains be sure keep John Fernandez in mind!

http://www.nytimes.com/2008/04/23/sports/othersports/23vecsey.html?em&ex=1209096000&en=7a985775ca8bd0d7&ei=5087%0A&_r=0

Smoking and drinking are never healthy for the human body, and certainly don’t aid athletic performance, but their effects on youth athletes can have grave effects on their bodies. Here’s a list of consequences that will result in varying degrees when deciding to drink and smoke as an athlete:

Drinking:

• Slower reaction time
• Loss in hand-eye coordination
• Shortened attention span for 48 hours after drinking
• Losing quality sleep time
• Increased difficulty learning new plays
• Increased body fat

Smoking:

• Shortness of breath
• Decrease in stamina
• Inadequate oxygen supply to muscles
• Increased dizziness and susceptibility to fainting
• More injury prone due to lack of oxygen

These are only a few of the short-term effects that a athlete will experience as an abuser of these substances. Alcohol abuse can lead to brain complications down the road, and smoking abuse can lead to heart complications and blood clots. For children, these substances will not only lead to unhealthy lifestyles, but will hinder their natural growth. All children should be urged to avoid these substances in order to enable healthier lifestyles and more successful athletic careers.

Coaches provide the main source of leadership on youth sports teams from the earliest ages through high school, but as kids grow older, some of the leadership is sprung onto a few select players on a team, referred to as “team captains.” As kids grow up and become more independent, it becomes more difficult for coaches to recognize any personal issues hampering individual players. As a result, many coaches choose to have a few captains on the team that can report back to the coaches if any issues arise among the other players. When selecting captains, the ideal scenario is to choose ones that are not only leaders on the field, but are also responsible and respectable off the field. There are two ways you can go about selecting captains for your team.

1. Designation: As the coach, if you believe you know the players on your team well enough, then it is a good idea to elect your own captains for the team. Most likely, the players that you select will feel honored with the responsibility you have bestowed upon them, and will feel it their duty to fulfill their new leadership roles.
2. Election: Oftentimes, coaches leave it up to the players of the team to anonymously vote for whom they feel should be captains. This strategy can work very well, considering the players likely know each other very well and would be able to make stronger evaluations about whom would be the best leaders. However, this can be an issue if a player that is elected is not a very skilled player. It is difficult to be one of the main leaders of the team from the bench, so keep in mind that you may experience this issue if you decide to take this route.

Neither method is clearly better than the other; the decision is truly up to you. If you feel that you know who would make the best captains, then make the decision yourself. If not, let the team decide. But remember that at the end of the day, the selection of captains can make a big influence on the season ahead. Captains are needed to pick up the team when its down, calm down the team when it gets cocky, and communicate team and player issues with the coaches. These are vital tasks that need to be carried out for any high school sports team, so do your best to choose your captains wisely.

Let us know what you think and if you prefer one method over another.

For all those youth parents out there, you know you all get just as nervous as your kids when they suit up for tryouts. The kids that are on the fence for making the team will likely experience one of two feelings after the end of tryouts: euphoria or devastation. This is especially true with kids that have been playing specific sports their entire lives. I can still remember the feeling I got when I read the basketball team list my sophomore year, and couldn’t find my name. I found myself fighting off tears because I had just been cut from the sport I played for nine years. I had worked so hard for so long, only to be told that I wasn’t good enough. However, I still maintain that getting cut from the basketball team that year was one of the greatest things that ever happened to me.

Getting cut from a sport you love is a terrible feeling, but usually the feeling is short lived. Like any other obstacle that comes in life, kids learn to get over their shortcomings, and move on to other activities. In my case, I was afforded the opportunity to play more soccer, join more school clubs, and get more involved in my church youth group. Similarly, all kids will find ways to fill their free time and hopefully find their true passions.

The primary concern in having your child cut from a sports team is not the temporary pain they will have, but rather how they handle the extra time on their hands. It is important as a parent to urge your kid to find more activities, such as picking up a new sport or joining school clubs that support their interests. In unfortunate cases, some children have gotten bored from the extra time on their hands, so they pick up bad habits like smoking and drinking to fill the time voids. However, if they find a new activity that they are passionate about and truly love doing, they will get over being cut from their sports team very quickly and will be better off in the long run.

Many parents have claimed that sports teams, especially in high school, should not cut players, and let them play anyways. The problem with this is that many kids are unwilling to waste their time at practices for no playing time in games, and coaches don’t need the headache. A coach cannot effectively run his or her team if players that don’t deserve to be on the team in the first place are knocking on his door every day asking for more playing time. I would urge parents to take the experience of their child getting cut in stride, allowing them to learn from the experience. It’s not that they need to toughen up, but sometimes, kids need to move on from unsuccessful endeavors and find what they love and what they’re good at in life.

This post will help you teach your children valuable life lessons through youth sports rather than protecting them from the challenges they will surely face.

1. Stay out of their ears: The coach’s job is to coach, the player’s job is to play, and your job is to watch. Every parent should cheer on their kids, but don’t coach them from the sideline, yelling advice to them as they try to focus. Let them learn how to handle situations on their own. If they get into a tussle with another player, don’t scream anything to them. You can always talk to your son or daughter after the game if you think they misbehaved in any way.
2. Get them to practice: No matter what age they are, all kids have urges at certain times to skip out on practice in order to do something they deem to be more important or more fun at the time. Though this will likely anger them, don’t let them skip a practice unless they have a valid excuse. This will teach them that it is important to honor commitments and be a team player. If your child gets used to getting their way with skipping out on practices from an early age, they will try to take advantage of the maneuver as often as they can.

These are two of the most common acts that parents fail to carry out effectively. However, getting into these habits from an early age will behoove your children greatly not only in their athletic futures, but their futures in general.

Contrary to popular belief, the simple act of running in the rain does not make you more prone to illness.  After working out in the rain, you should make sure you take off all your wet clothes as soon as possible and replace them with dry clothes, because warm, wet conditions promote the growth of bacteria and fungi that lead to disease.

If you think you’ve been exposed to an illness, you can prevent the impact of a full-blown cold by increasing your fluid intake. The rain naturally makes you feel sick to a certain extent, so working out in the midst of a cold will only make matters worse.   Next time you think you may get caught in the middle of a storm during your next run or pickup basketball game, keep in mind that the rain will not make you sick, but how you handle yourself and your clothes afterwards can.

There are many types of roles that can oversee a youth sports team and help young players develop, but one that often gets overlooked is the presence of a high school-aged assistant coach. There is no doubt that an adult can do a great job coaching a youth sports team all by themselves, but oftentimes, high school athletes can help rub their knowledge and expertise off onto younger players while also being able to relate to them easier, as they are closer in age to young players than adult coaches.

If you are the coach of a team and you know a high school athlete, whether he or she is your child or not, and has some free time on his or her hands, perhaps they would be interested in serving as an assistant coach. Many older kids would love to spend some time around younger kids playing the sport they love and helping kids grow into more skilled and mature players. They can help assist you in running practices by setting up and carrying out drills, taking equipment to practice and speaking with young athletes that would feel more comfortable conversing with an older kid rather than an adult.

When I was in high school, I helped my old soccer trainer coach his U9 boys soccer team, and though they were just a bunch of munchkins that sometimes were more interested in the dandelions on the field than the ball, they seemed to love having me around to teach them the game. My primary role was to set up drills and make sure the kids were doing them correctly, but I also talked with them during breaks in practice almost as if I was their big brother. My trainer always did a great job, but I think having me around only benefitted the kids that much more.  Not only did they enjoy having me around, I loved the experience too. It felt nice knowing that I had helped a group of younger kids learn the game.

I highly suggest that you look into finding a high school-aged assistant coach for your youth sports team if you think it would be appropriate. You will likely find that it will greatly benefit not only your team, but the high school athlete as well!