Seeing Kids Achieve Their Dreams: CRF Success Defined

I recently had the opportunity to spend some time on the basketball court with Clarence Fields, founder of CRF Sports Academy in Minneapolis, Minnesota. After a short time of working on the fundamentals, Coach Fields had this non-athlete making repeat shots! Upon seeing his success with me, I had the pleasure of interviewing him!

What is your first sports memory?

My first memory of sports was when I was very young (age 5 or less) watching my dad run some of the most organized softball practices I’ve ever seen. He coached my mom and a team of ladies ages 18–35 on the USSSA competitive slow-pitch circuit. They would play weekend tournaments but would practice 3 or 4 days/week to prepare.

When you were growing up, which athlete did you pretend to be when you were playing?

Michael Jordan! I was a die hard fan; I emulated all his moves, competitive tenacity, and the wagging tongue, too.

What have you learned from your participation in sports?

The biggest thing that I learned playing multiple sports was the ability to adjust to a role based on my skill set for each particular sport. In turn, it taught me to appreciate the value of people and their individual ability to contribute something, no matter what.

Keeping that in mind, what’s the end (ultimate) goal of your program?

It is two-fold but with the same goal in mind: both for kids who want to play at the next level (college), and for kids who don’t want to play a college sport, it provides an opportunity to experience what hard work is all about.

Sports teach us so much outside of themselves. In this day and age some kids don’t experience adversity or structure, so it’s important for kids to “go through some stuff” to prepare them for the real world.

What’s the biggest misconception in youth athletics?

I think the biggest misconception is that if you don’t participate year-round in one particular sport, you will fall behind the rest of the competition, which is totally false.

I’m working to change the way youth sports are organized. Currently we’re running more tournaments than practices, and that doesn’t set the kids up for success. Playing doesn’t teach them what they need to play the game. That’s like taking more tests than you study for.

While preparing young athletes to win, how do you prepare them to lose?

Losing is inevitable, so I create an adverse atmosphere in my training/practice sessions to help kids learn to manage their emotions. Today’s youth experience so much positive reinforcement, even when it isn’t warranted, so my rule is to always encourage one more time than I criticize. This allows for athletes to create a self-motivating attitude to strive for the best.

For parents who just want their child to have fun trying a sport, why would they send their child to off-season training?

Kids don’t have as much fun if they’re not prepared correctly. You don’t go into multiplication or division without knowing how to add or subtract first.

How would you describe the difference between “talent” and “working hard,” and how does that affect an athlete?

I think talent is something natural that a person brings to the table and the hard work, or lack thereof, is what separates that talent from being either good or great down the road. A prime example would be the kid who is taller than everyone else from 5th-8th grade and “tops out” because they relied on their “talent” all the way through. Once kids reach the high school level, puberty can either go one way or the other, which is why it’s important to work hard doing the right things at an early age.

At CRF you focus on mindfulness. How does that help young men and women on the court?

We often train athletes to improve at a skill without separating the brain from the body to teach them how to process and retain information. The brain must always send the message to the body to create proper reactive responses, which is especially important in managing emotions related to perceived failure.

Many parents want their kids to be well-rounded and feel off-season or specialized training is over the top. How would you respond?

I’d counter the question: Is structure over the top?

If you could choose an athlete for “your kids” to emulate, who would it be, and why?

Bo Jackson. He played multiple sports growing up which is what cross-trained him into becoming, arguably, the greatest athlete to ever live.

What was one of your most memorable moments of CRF training?

My most memorable moment was when a few of my athletes were cut from their high school teams and still went on to play in college.

When you’re working with young athletes, how do you define your success?

Mindfulness training results — when I see kids stop and catch their mistakes before performing the repetition, and then start over, processing what went wrong and executing perfectly when they try again.

It’s my passion for seeing kids achieving their dreams above and beyond their expectations which continues to drive me.