Youth instruction at a click of button

Local developing site to aid parents, coaches

By: Justin Feil
   A dozen wide-eyed second-graders stared up at Doug Donaldson, and he wasn’t sure exactly where and how to begin his coaching career.
   The Plainsboro resident is pretty sure that he is not alone in that feeling.
   Donaldson is hoping his new start-up, a broadband channel that carries youth sports instruction, can help the next wave of parents and coaches understand where to begin and how to keep their child developing the right skills. Donaldson couldn’t find the right resources no matter where he looked when he began coaching his son’s basketball team, and nine months ago he started PlaySportsTV.
   "Most parents who start coaching are happy, volunteer parents," Donaldson said. "To give them those basic fundamentals, it’s amazing how little material is in the marketplace. That was the impetus behind starting it."
   Donaldson expects his site, PlaySportsTV.com, to launch within the next month. A demo site is already available at the preceding URL. It features coaches from the local area — such as West Windsor-Plainsboro North girls’ soccer coach Kevin Mackenzie and WW-P South boys’ basketball coach Bob Schurtz — talking about the proper techniques and fundamentals in their respective sports. Other local coaches featured in snippets are WW-P South boys’ soccer coach Brian Welsh, and WW-P athletics director Marty Flynn, a former baseball coach, as well as former Princeton University hockey players Dave Scowby and Ted Annis, who both work at Princeton Sports Center.
   "I’ve got about 300 short instructional pieces," Donaldson said. "I started working with local coaches. A parent, or parent-coach, can go in and they can identify five or six really great instructional pieces to use."
   Donaldson and his partners are continuing to add content to the site, and are continuing to seek qualified coaches who are interested in giving instruction for the site. Any interested coach can e-mail Donaldson at [email protected].
   "We want good coaches teaching parents," Donaldson said. "Ultimately that benefits the coaches because they have a brighter kid in the future."
   Donaldson, who is vice president of business development for TEAM Creations in Washington, D.C., spent last week filming instructional segments for soccer. He stayed local for it. He used the West Windsor-Plainsboro Soccer Association for more than 100 vignettes to go on the site.
   "We had 13 13-year-olds who gave up pretty much four full days of their spring break for it," Donaldson said. "It’s phenomenal. That’s something a little different. We’ll offer curriculum as something you can purchase."
   The site has drop-down menus for each sport and from there breaks down the instruction into basics, intermediate and advanced levels. When a selection is made under one of the levels, a video snippet plays that has a coach demonstrating a skill. Next to the video, the key points of instruction are highlighted.
   "If someone comes to our site, goal is they can get anything they want free," Donaldson said. "They can get as much of, for instance, basketball background as you want. If you want the full turnkey approach, we want to provide that service too. It’s a fine line now. The site has to be rich enough, exciting enough that people are coming back regularly. I have bloggers in every sport. I have a guy from New York blogging about basketball.
   "If a parent wants to get in and get an education about basketball, they’ll be able to do that. If they want to go a little farther and get something turnkey, something that will make them a really good coach for 10-12 weeks, we’re going to have that available for a small fee."
   Instructional visuals will be able to be printed off the site via pdf files. PlaySportsTV.com will offer more than pure instruction as it tries to enhance the entire youth athletics experience.
   "We’re not doing highly difficult skill stuff; our goal is for it to be an initial portal for sports," Donaldson said. "We’re working with Rick Wolff, one of the senior guys at SportsParenting.org. He’s doing some things on sportsmanship and parents. If you’ve ever been to a youth soccer game, the parents can be pretty tough on the players, refs and coaches sometimes. It’s important that parents get an education too."
   PlaySportsTV expects to be able to have even broader appeal when it links its syndicated player with instructional content to sports specific areas of League Lineup. League Lineup, whose founder and president is Belle Mead’s Ed Carmon, hosts sites for more than 100,000 youth and amateur teams and gets more than 30 million page views some months.
   Donaldson thinks that will add to the appeal as parents try to keep up with the interests of their children. It will benefit the ordinary parent fan as well as rookie coaches.
   "The level of coaching you find those first couple years is so broad," he said. "Another goal is to level that playing field for those parents and parent-coaches. And it’s for the parent that just wants to see what a sport is about.
   "Whether you’re a parent or parent-coach," he added, "you might say, I have no clue what lacrosse is about. How can I go in my backyard and do something with my kid? Our goal is also if you want to get more into it, you can get some drills and things you can do to help them get better."
   And ultimately, Doug Donaldson hopes that there will be plenty of parents and coaches who know just where to begin when faced with a dozen wide-eyed rookies.