I’m Travis Tygart, and I’m married and three kids, 17, Junior, our daughter, and then two sons. One is a ninth grader who’s 14, and a sixth grader who’s 11. And yeah, they love sport, whether it’s just shooting hoops in the driveway or snow skiing. Being here in Colorado is a great family thing that we love to do together. They play on the high school soccer team, and the young guy’s playing basketball and soccer.
Sport is not only important as a family, given all the positive attributes that it brings, but it obviously is my career. And so, it’s obviously personal to us. My entire family enjoys sort of participating in making sure sports stays pure and that winners are those who are playing by the rules and not people that are cheating to win.
If my kids stopped playing sport tomorrow, and that was their choice, totally fine for me. I would hope that they gained sort of the understanding of how to set goals, how to be healthy and stay fit, the enjoyment, the mental break and activity that you can have by participating in sports, just totally for fun. Whether it’s jogging or skiing, or just throwing the baseball around the backyard. And some of those meaningful traits as well, about how to be resilient, how to be mentally tough sometimes to get over some obstacles that are in your way, how to treat other people decently and with respect, how to be in a competitive environment and still be able to succeed and have great relationships, even with people that you might be competitors against.
It’s a tough culture as a parent these days because so frequently athletes who are trash talking or being disrespectful or trying to spike the ball when they score a touchdown and point fingers at the person they just beat, kids see it and kids want to emulate that. Doing stuff like that out on an 11-year-old soccer field is totally inappropriate. There are consequences that maybe those players don’t necessarily have. Teammates who feel bad, other players that feel bad.
I think the real challenge for parents in today’s society is to try to keep kids grounded. We’re not certainly advocating for everyone gets a trophy for just participating at the higher levels of youth sport. But, the dramatic shift where if you don’t win, you’re a loser and you have no value, that’s the imbalance that we risk in our current culture around youth sport. That we’re so focused on just being the winner at a young age, that it’s literally driving kids out of sport. It doesn’t become fun anymore because if they’re not winning, they feel devalued. They don’t feel like it’s enjoyable or meaningful anymore, and they’re leaving sport to go do something that maybe is not as competitive. So, we lose some of that intrinsic value when we push it to the extremes.
I think sportsmanship, it’s kind of the golden rule, like treat others as you would want them to treat you. Certainly you can joke and if you’re competing against friends, you can have fun. It’s not always real serious, but, if you get in a highly competitive game, whether you’re a coach or a parent or a player, I think it’s just treating people how you would expect them to treat you.
I’d love to see sportsmanship be valued more in our professional sports, our Olympic sports, in our society, more than it is today. I think it used to be in a much bigger way, but with our culture where everyone’s got to be unique, it’s a zero sum game where if you win, you got to make the other person feel not only that they lost, but they lost really bad and they’re really a loser. It’s kind of this us versus them mentality that I don’t think sport was ever supposed to be. In fact, sport, I think, was supposed to be a fond event between competitors who are making each other better and you respect your competitor for helping you become better.
I’d love to see people talking more about how important it is, valuing it, being rewarded for demonstrating it. Those are the kind of things as a society we ought to place more emphasis on as opposed to just lionizing the winner.
Creating a competitive youth sport culture that prioritizes sportsmanship is a challenge in today’s society where winning seems to be everything. Travis T. Tygart, CEO of the U.S. Anti-Doping Agency and TrueSport Parent, talks about the benefits for young athletes who practice the Golden Rule at all levels of competition.
Learn more about Travis T. Tygart.
Hi. I’m Trevon, Trey, Jennifer. Team USA wheelchair basketball player, paralympian, and true sport athlete. Today, I want to talk to you about goal setting. And there are three things that I would like you to know. First, successful athletes set goals and a planned roadmap. Second, goals should be written down, assessed over time, and changed if necessary. And third, goals need to be challenging in order to be worthwhile. As a freshmen at Edinboro University, I was a part of a team that made the national championship game. And at that time I recognized I was the low man on the totem pole, but I felt in my heart that I knew my dreams were so much bigger than winning a national title. I wanted to make Team USA. I knew what achieving my lofty goal was not going to be easy and that I would need to work hard every day.
So, as a reminder, I created a pyramid of goals that I kept right above my bed. This pyramid reminded me of the accomplishments that I was working towards and visually represented my need to create a solid foundation underneath me before reaching the top. In the bottom roll of my pyramid of goals I listed goals such as obtaining my bachelor’s degree, becoming a scholar athlete award recipient, and becoming an All-American. The middle row listed winning a national title and playing for a professional team. And at the top row, the most challenging of them all, I listed becoming a gold medalist for Team USA.
By understanding that there are smaller stepping stones to achieving my ultimate goal of being on Team USA, I was able to stay motivated and to stay focused on completing the smaller stepping stones fully before moving onto the next one. Now I’ll be the first to admit that not every goal that I listed on my pyramid was accomplished, but seeing my goals every day when I went to bed, I was able to push through the days that I felt like doing nothing in hopes of achieving the bigger picture. Remember, create a clear goal roadmap, assess your goals often, and continue to challenge yourself. I hope that you never stopped dreaming big or reaching for the stars. And I look forward to seeing where your roadmap takes you.
Hi, I’m Kara Winger, Olympic javelin thrower, and true sport athlete. Today I want to talk to you about body image and I have three things I’d like you to know. First, healthy thoughts often lead to healthier bodies. Second, there are varying body types and no one’s body is exactly like another. And third, true beauty goes deeper than the skin. As a multi-time Olympian, I’ve experienced a lot of variation and progression in my training. My coaches and I adapt to my training frequently, all with the goal of supporting my long-term success and health in the sport of javelin. I’m talking to you about body image today because sometimes even with the best of intentions and a common goal in mind, the changes you make to your training habits can prove to be detrimental if made for the wrong reasons. In the lead up to the 2012 Olympic trials, I was told in order to improve my performance on the field, I should try to become a leaner, skinnier version of myself.
So I changed my diet. I went along with what I was being told to do, even though I’d had great success at a slightly heavier weight and higher body fat percentage, and became much leaner than ever before. It seemed like a successful change at first, but I didn’t have nearly the results I’d had before. And I believe becoming leaner than my body naturally wanted to be was what caused my ACL to tear. In the end, it cost me heavily going into the 2012 London games. The takeaway for me, and hopefully for you, is that it’s important to know what works for you and your body and to not compare yourself to others. You should do your research and experiment with your diet to find what makes you feel the best, rather than focusing on what you look like. Today, if I feel like having a chocolate chip cookie, I have one, just not every day.
I’ve learned what a properly balanced meal for my body looks like and I recognize food as the fuel that keeps me throwing. I hydrate and allow myself time to recover. And I listen to and communicate with my body so that I can be the best version of myself. In the end, you are in control of how you see, treat, and respond to your body. We only get one and it’s amazing to discover how many things our bodies can do. Be a true sport athlete. Love who you are in this moment and get excited for all the places your body will take you.
Hi, I’m Izy Isaksen, Team USA, Modern Pentathlon, Olympian, US Army Sergeant, and True Sport Ambassador. Today, I want to talk to you about being a good sport. There are three things I’d like you to know. First, real winners act the same toward their opponent, whether they win or lose. Second, follow the rules and be a gracious winner and respectful loser. And third, sportsmanship reveals your true character.
I started competing in Modern Pentathlon eight years after my older sister and three-time Olympian, Margaux Isaksen, began competing. I soon realized that people often compared the two of us. I would overhear spectators and teammates asking, “Who’s the better athlete,” and “Who’s going to beat the other.” Instead of letting outside pressures create a negative experience for us, I chose to practice winning and losing with grace and respect. I know that it would have been easy to let our hyper competitive mindset affect our relationship, but instead we decided to support and cheer for each other, regardless of our own performance. My experience of competing against and being compared to my older sister, taught me to focus on how to perform at my best, rather than putting wasted energy into wishing for others to fail.
I believe that sportsmanship reveals true character. So, no matter what situation I encounter during competition, I know it’s important to always treat people with respect and be a good sport. Remember, be a fierce competitor, find grace in all your victories and losses. And I hope to see you out there.
Edwin Moses: You’re a coach. Maybe what you want is very simple, for everyone to just run in the right direction, score for their own team, to try and try again and again. Maybe you want your athletes to become all stars. You want them to earn trophies, medals, win titles. You want them to reach the highest height their sport allows. And wanting all of that, of course, that’s good. But as every great coach discovers, developing a great athlete means nurturing, nurturing the even greater person within. Truth is, you have even more influence than you know.
You have the ability to affect even deeper change, to take what’s in your hands and do something even more extraordinary. You can be both the coach who provides the skills needed to win the game and the coach who helps them learn and succeed beyond the sport, to become all stars wherever they land in the future, and to enjoy their lives more now, because the confidence and courage they find working with you will stay with them when they need it the most. There are games to be won, lives to change. Coaches have the power to do both.
I’m Edwin Moses, and the lessons I’ve learned through sport have challenged me, guided me, and shaped my life forever. What kind of coach do you want to be?
At first glance, dietary supplements look the same. They seem safe and healthy, but just because the label says a product is a dietary supplement, that doesn’t mean it’s safe. Unfortunately, you can’t tell whether a product is safe or not just by looking at the label. Most vitamins, minerals, fish oil, and other supplements containing nutrients are probably just fine, but supplements are not evaluated or approved by FDA before they are sold. Although it is rare for vitamins or minerals to be contaminated with drugs, there has been at least one case of a vitamin containing an anabolic steroid.
At the other extreme are products that contain drugs, stimulants, anabolic steroids, or other hormones. Even though these are not technically dietary supplements, many of them are labeled as supplements. For example, body-building products sometimes contain anabolic steroids or Selective Androgen Receptor Modulators, known as SARMs, or other hormones. Some pre-workout or energy products contain illegal stimulants like DMAA, ephedra, or other amphetamine-like stimulants. Weight loss products might contain prescription drugs like sibutramine, or hormones, like human chorionic gonadotropin, also known as hCG. All natural or herbal sexual enhancement products might contain hormones or Viagra-like drugs. Products like these can harm your health and career, but they’re for sale online, in some nutrition stores, and they’re labeled as dietary supplements.
When you pick up a supplement, especially one that promises performance enhancement, you don’t know if it belongs in the “Mostly O.K.” pile or in the “Dangerous” pile. After all, two products might look the same, but one might contain just amino acids and other legitimate ingredients, while the other also contains anabolic steroids. Because of this, FDA has issued a warning about certain categories of supplements: body building products, weight loss products, and sexual enhancement products. Be extremely careful when considering a supplement in one of these categories. We strongly recommend that you avoid products in these categories.
Even when FDA tests supplements and finds dangerous ingredients, companies sometimes refuse to recall them. Sometimes, they simply repackage their product and continue selling it under a new name. Just because a product is on a store shelf doesn’t mean it is safe. You need to do your research and be an informed consumer. The dietary supplement industry is enormous. Supplements that appear to be safe could actually be dangerous products in disguise. If you use dietary supplements without doing your research, you may be taking serious risks with your health and your career. Please visit USADA’s Supplement 411 for more information about dietary supplements.
