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Gould Returns to Lead Youth Sports Institute

Daniel Gould, Bank of America Excellence Professor in the Department of Exercise and Sport Science at the University of North Carolina Greensboro (UNCG) has accepted a position as Professor of Kinesiology and Director of the Institute for the Study of Youth Sports, effective August of 2004. In accepting this position, Dan returns to his academic roots as from 1977 to 1982 he was an Assistant/Associate Professor in the Institute and Department of Health and Physical Education (forerunner to the Department of Kinesiology).

A specialist in applied sport psychology, Dan has spent the last 25 years teaching graduate and undergraduate courses in sport and exercise psychology and has been heavily involved in graduate education. In 1994 he received UNCG's prestigious all-University Alumni Excellence in Teaching Award. In 2001 he also received the American Psychological Association Division 47 Professional Education and Training Award.

During his career Dan has focused equal attention on research, teaching, and service activities in applied sport psychology. He has consulted extensively with numerous athletes of all age and skill levels across a wide range of sports. Dan has served as a performance enhancement consultant with the U.S. Ski Team, USA Wrestling, US Figure skaters, and numerous Olympic and professional athletes. In addition to consulting directly with athletes, Dan has been heavily involved in coaching education and youth sports having made over 600 clinic presentations. He has also served on the U.S. Olympic coaching development committee for 10 years and co-chaired the sport science and technology committee. Currently, he serves as vice chair of the United States Tennis Association’s sport science committee. Dan also acted as a corporate coach for Wall Street Investment bankers and has conducted leadership training for the UNCG Bryan Business School and major Fortune 500 corporations.

Actively involved in research, Dan has studied the stress-athletic performance relationship, sources of athletic stress burnout in young athletes, athlete motivation, life skills development in young athletes, and sport psychological skills training use and effectiveness. He is currently focused on studying factors influencing performance excellence, youth development through sport, strategies award winning high school football coaches use to develop life skills in their players, and the role parents play in tennis success and failure. He has over 100 scholarly publications and over 50 applied sport psychology research dissemination-service publications. Two research-based children's sports texts have been co-edited by Dan and he served as one of the founding coeditors of The Sport Psychologist. Finally, he has made over 150 regional, national and international scholarly presentations. He has been invited to 18 countries to present his research.

Dan has co-authored two books, Foundations of Sport and Exercise Psychology (with Bob Weinberg) and Understanding Psychological Preparation for Sport: Theory and Practice of Elite Performers (with Lew Hardy and Graham Jones). He is especially proud of the 20 masters thesis and 19 doctoral students that he has had the opportunity to advise and have gone on to pursue careers in sport psychology and coaching education.

Dan is a certified consultant and active fellow in Association for the Advancement of Applied Sport Psychology (AAASP). He was also honored to serve as President of AAASP. Other notable distinctions include being named USA Wrestling person of the year for his sport science work, the first Australian sport psychology scholar, and his inclusion on a listing of top ten U.S. sport psychology specialists in the 1980's.

Dan told Performance in Motion that “youth sports in America are at an important cross road. On one hand, sport is a highly popular youth activity that has important physical, psychological and social development consequences for those millions of children involved. It has been shown to lead to improved feelings of competence, the development of achievement and initiative and the fostering of life skills such as leadership, teamwork and improved racial understanding. Moreover, given the epidemic of inactivity and obesity in American children, youth sports can play a major role in improving children’s health and welfare for years to come.

Despite these benefits, contemporary youth sports are not without major problems. Young athletes become injured or burnout as a result of excessive stress and still others learn inappropriate behavior such as aggression. Developmentally inappropriate overly competitive models are often forced upon children and the child development potential of involvement is often unmet because of either a lack of leader training or a failure of leadership. Finally, in recent years increased violence has occurred in youth sports programs with incidences of parent altercations with officials, administrators, coaches and themselves on the rise.

Youth development experts are often confused about youth sports. On one hand, they recognize the popularity of these activities and the many potential benefits. At the same time, they see increased “professionalization” of youth sports with winning being the prominent theme, epitomized by a few highly talented teens having agents and signing million dollar contracts. They also see that other problems such as trash talk and disrespectful behaviors are on the rise in young athletes who try to emulate their professional counter parts. All this occurs while many children (those with disabilities, poor minority boys and girls without exceptional athletic talent) never become involved and still others discontinue involvement at an early age. They see a lack of appropriate leadership in many organizations.

To rectify this paradoxical state of affairs, an educational organization needs to provide unbiased leadership and scientifically based information to guide youth sports practice. The only one of its kind in the United States, housed in one of the premier institutions of educational leadership in the United States, supported by the number one college of education and staffed by a Kinesiology faculty comprised of experts in pediatric kinesiology the Youth Sports Institute is perfectly positioned to accomplish this goal. The Institute can provide much needed leadership at a critical time for youth sports in the United States.

Specific goals and objectives Dan sees for his first year with the Institute include:

Developing a strategic plan for focusing the Institute’s many research and outreach efforts;

Increasing research productivity by conducting cutting edge research on the benefits and detriments of youth sports participation with a special emphasis placed on addressing key practical issues facing those in the field;

Developing educational service and outreach materials focused on development of youth sport coaches, parents, administrators and officials, as well as young athletes themselves; and,

Collaborating with the Michigan High School Athletic Association to provide the best coaching education program in the country.

While very optimistic about the role the Institute has and will continue to play in transforming the nature of youth sports in America, Dan recognizes the many challenges facing the Institute. Chief among these is a need to external funds to support the many activities and initiatives of the Institute. The Institute also needs to focus its activities as a result of decreased state support. However, with the help of alumni and friends of MSU and colleagues in the department, college and across the university he is confident that these goals can be reached. As Dan said “making a difference does not come without a good deal of effort and making a total commitment to excellence. Given the enormous effects the Youth Sports Institute can have on America’s children and youth the Institute is well worth all the effort it will take!”