Especially for Athletes Leadership Council
Especially 4 Athletes
"For over 7 years UYSA and Especially for Athletes have been doing something unique to youth sports. Over a thousand soccer players have joined the Eyes Up Do the Work movement and accepted the challenge from Especially for Athletes to lead with intent and not simply by default. We are excited to be able to reach more athletes and parents with the development of these Leadership Councils and to make the competitive soccer experience an even better one for coaches, parents and especially the players.”
-Dustin Smith, Especially for Athletes Founder
Leadership Council for Utah Youth Soccer Association Athletes
The Especially for Athletes program has been helping thousands of athletes of all ages and sports for over a decade learn how to better handle what they refer to as the "Sportlight" and how to lead in in a way that creates a positive, safe environment for their teammates, but also for those not involved in sports that they interact with daily in the community and at school. Topics like social media use, bullying, mental health in sports, cheating, drug abuse, accountability and resiliency are a focus of Especially for Athletes. Traditionally, Especially for Athletes has been a resource UYSA has relied on for leadership development at TOSH State Select (ODP) combines.
August 22, 2022
Back to School Message
E4A Youth Leadership Council Members -
The link to our zoom meeting last night is below. If you were unable to attend the meeting last night your homework assignment this month is to watch the recording! We had about 30 members of the council make the call and had a great message from E4A co-founder Shad Martin, and great discussion among the group. A big thank you to those that were able to attend and to those who were not, hope to see you next time! Have a great start to the school year, have a great Fall soccer season, and remember Eyes Up Do The Work!
E4A Sportlight Podcost, Episode 68 - Referee Treatment with Bryan Attridge and Dr. Sheldon Martin
First Leadership Council Challenge!
May 17, 2022
Especially For Athletes UYSA Leadership Council –
We want to thank each of you for attending our inaugural E4A leadership council meeting! My name is Bryan Attridge and I'm the CEO of Utah Youth Soccer. I was able to meet some of you at the meeting a couple of weeks ago. I want to congratulate all of you on your nomination to this council and tell you how much this program means to UYSA, and how excited we are to get this launched. Most of the communication for your involvement with this council will come from either myself, Dustin Smith who is the founder of E4A who you all met at the meetings, or Jen Rader, our Marketing and Media manager.
Hopefully, this follow-up will answer some of the questions you or your parents may have about this new UYSA program.
What is the goal of this Leadership Council?
The goal of the Especially For Athletes program is to inspire athletes to maximize their potential and to use their talents and social influence to assist and lift others. E4A is building a culture of athletes who use their influence or their “sportlight” to make positive change in the lives of those who may be downtrodden, depressed or in need of friendship.
Simply put, we need you to be the leaders in our association to build this culture. You are all connected by this game and your membership in the Utah Youth Soccer Association. We want you to live the E4A principles and teach those principles to your teammates and coaches. We know that if you do, you’ll bless the lives of those around you and make the experience for our soccer players more inclusive and meaningful.
As you left our leadership meeting last week, we know many of you were asking the question, “what’s next?”. Because this council is new, we anticipate it will evolve over time but for the next year we will focus on the following:
Monthly or sometimes weekly challenges with follow-up discussions based on E4A principles (mostly through email or other online platforms)
Quarterly or semi-annually zoom meeting trainings
End of year leadership summit with food, swag, games, and guest speakers.
We are grateful that you’re willing to be involved and help change/guide the culture in our sport. It’s an important responsibility but one that we know you’ll use to improve yourselves and help lift those around you.
We have three tasks for you this upcoming week!
If you are on social media, find Especially For Athletes (E4A) on Instagram, Facebook and Twitter and follow them! If you are not on social media but your parents are, please ask your parents to follow E4A.
At the first meeting you all received an Especially For Athletes pamphlet that summarizes E4A and its 4 main principals. We want you to read through the pamphlet (it will only take you 5 minutes) and memorize the principles and what those principles mean. If you weren’t able to attend the first meeting or didn’t get a pamphlet, we’ve attached a copy of it to this email for you review.
Go to the E4A website and listen to episode 1 of the Sportlight podcast (scroll all the way to the bottom, released on February 8th). It’s only 17 minutes long and Dustin and Shad discuss what E4A is and how it was started.
Have a great weekend! We’re so excited to get this leadership council off the ground and see the wonderful difference you all will make in our association.
If you or your parents have any questions please don't hesitate to reach out to myself, Dustin or Jen.
-Bryan Attridge
Eyes Up Do the Work
Utah Youth Soccer’s hope is that E4A will help these selected youth leaders in our Association and State master the skills to build and a develop a culture and behavior in our sport that will be a catalyst to positive change regarding certain issues we’ve seen within our leagues and events – issues such as poor referee treatment, racism towards opponents, poor sportsmanship on the field, etc.