“I want to teach the truth about exercise and sports.”
— Dr. Matt Seeley, BYU Exercise Sciences
BYU exercise sciences professor Dr. Matthew K. Seeley faced a conundrum: How could he help change negative trends in youth sports and shine a light on the benefits of youth participation?
Seeley has a passion for promoting youth sports and developing life-long activity enthusiasts. Children and adolescents who participate in sports reap several benefits, including increased physical activity, increased confidence, greater confidence, reduced anxiety and depression, improved academic performance, and a decreased likelihood to smoke and take drugs.
However, these benefits are sometimes overshadowed by the pressure youth may feel to outperform their peers or to give up some sports in order to specialize in one with the hope of eventually going pro. Seeley worries that the pressure could cause children to lose interest in sports, or worse, get injured from overexertion.
“Data clearly suggests that early sport specialization does not always produce elite athletes,” Seeley says. “Data also suggests that early sport specialization leads to increased risk for musculoskeletal injury and mental and emotional burnout.”
Unfortunately, well-meaning parents and coaches can also contribute to the problem when they become overly invested in a game and resort to poor sportsmanship. Seeley has witnessed parents yell at their children and the referees—one parent pushed over a lawn chair in a fit of passion.
“Kids play sports because they're fun,” Seeley explains. “As coaches or parents, we should ask our kids, ‘Are you having fun? Are you working hard? Are you learning? Are you trying your best?’ and not, ‘Did you win?’”
Although Seeley is deeply grateful for the immense service offered to his children from numerous volunteer youth coaches, he is frustrated by this growing culture of competition in youth sports that is having a negative impact on the well-being of young athletes today.
Motivated by these affronts to the positive value of youth sports, Seeley is determined to make a difference. As a parent, coach, and exercise scientist, he has a unique perspective on the challenges of the current culture around youth sports and how it leads to overuse injuries, rising costs, and dropout.
Inspiration struck when he realized that he might be able to improve youth sports by placing scientific information into the hands of coaches, parents, and even the youth athletes themselves. Thus, the concept for the Strong Youth Project (SYP) was born.
Making a Difference: The Strong Youth Project
Cofounded by Seeley and Justin Yee (EXSC '03), a BYU alumnus and sports coach based in Spanish Fork, Utah, the SYP intends to improve organized sports experiences for youth, parents, and coaches through education and implementation of evidence-based practices. Seeley, Yee, and their team of BYU students want to make a difference in the lives of young athletes.
The Strong Youth Project has three primary aims:
1. Communicate scientific-based information to all youth sports stakeholders.2. Conduct scientific research regarding issues influencing youth sport experiences.
3. Design and deliver evidence-based training programs to youth athletes.
The SYP seeks to provide valuable information on a wide range of topics, such as pre-sport meals, concussion prevention, sport specialization, and strength and resistance training. To address these goals, Seeley has formed a collaborative research team from several departments at BYU, including the Departments of Computer Science; Exercise Sciences; Family, Home, and Social Sciences; Nutrition, Dietetics, and Food Science; Psychology; and Statistics as well as the School of Communications and BYU Athletics. Seeley has also collaborated with scientists at other universities who share his concerns. These collaborations are designed to promote the SYP’s values. Students, faculty, and industry professionals work together to conduct research and arm coaches, parents, and athletes with the best scientific-based information.
“Youth sports are crucial to the development of youth athletes, so we need to ensure that the best science-based information for young athletes gets into the hands of those who can influence the culture,” Seeley explains. “If we can teach parents that early sports specialization is detrimental, and show them that there's a lot of scientific data to support that, then maybe we can change some behaviors.”
Youth sports are crucial to the development of youth athletes.
The SYP team conducts and publishes research, presents at conferences, and partners with local organizations to educate the public on their findings. The team is also currently expanding their reach and beginning to work with youth basketball teams, ski clubs, cross-country clubs, and community recreation programs.
Partnering with Youth Sports
“As the parents have gotten quiet on the sidelines during a game, the kids' experience has improved. It's changing the athletes because it's changing the parents.”
—Coach Justin Yee, Shooters Soccer Club.
The SYP partners with Spanish Fork-based Shooters Soccer Club to provide comprehensive training during the winter offseason. Working under Seeley’s direction, BYU exercise sciences students implement training techniques with the young athletes. Yee works with parents, Seeley, and the students to create memorable experiences for them. Seeley feels that partnering with Shooters and other similar youth sports and recreation organizations simultaneously benefits both the youth athletes and the BYU students who get real-world experience applying what they are studying and researching.
"In my department, we’re heavy on theory,” Seeley shares. “Theory is important, but I also want to give students opportunities to go out and see how hard it is to prescribe exercise to real people, including a bunch of seven-year-old soccer players!"
Seeley and Yee both understand the negative effects that aggressive coaching and sideline parenting can have on kids. Yee joined the SYP to change the culture of youth sports from a coach's perspective.
Yee is concerned that many kids don’t return to sports when they feel that they have failed. “The goal is to teach coaches and parents that if their kid is not trying, it may not be because they're lazy or they don't want to; rather the kids are afraid of the coaches’ and the parents’ reaction if they mess up,” Yee says. “It sets a bad trajectory for life when they have a bad experience with sports and then they don't have a desire to take care of their physical bodies. How is that going to affect them in the long run?”
Teaching kids fundamental life skills is Yee’s focus and a way that he feels the SYP meshes well with the club. He hopes that kids learn not only how to compete but how to be kind to their teammates and to themselves as they improve in their sport. He wants the kids under his tutelage to stick with sports for the rest of their lives.
Inspiring Spiritual Connections
Seeley says that he feels strongly connected to the Spirit as he leads the project. “More than any other endeavor I've pursued at BYU, I feel like the Lord wants the Strong Youth Project to succeed,” he shares with emotion. “I feel like I've really been prepared with my athletic training and research backgrounds, as well as my experiences as a youth athlete and a parent of youth athletes.”
BYU students helping fulfill the SYP’s aims also see the hand of the Lord as they participate in the project. Corinne Vorkink (EXSC ’26) enjoys how Seeley makes the project a matter of prayer. Dance major Callie Floyd (BFA ’25) loves how she can see divine revelation aid the SYP in idea generation. “We spend time in the temple to pray, and eventually ideas start flowing and everyone comes together on the same page,” she recounts.
“Dr. Seeley is constantly blending the gospel with science,” says Ben Barton (EXSC ’26). “As a research group, we go to the weekly BYU devotionals on Tuesdays. We read the scriptures and pray to receive inspiration and answers that we would not have found otherwise.” This revelation continues to guide the project as they expand research questions and methods.
Yee sees many spiritual connections in the quest to help young athletes. In his own way, he encourages them to “think celestial.” Yee says, “The connection with BYU is keeping that eternal perspective that holds true in sports. You can think long-term or you can just think, ‘Hey, can I win the game this Saturday?’ You sacrifice a lot of long-term development just to win in the short run.” Because of this perspective, Yee has seen a lot of growth in the athletes he works with.
- Instagram: @strongyouthproject
- YouTube: @StrongYouthProjectBYU
- Website: https://exsc.byu.edu/the-strong-youth-project-homepage
Strong Youth Project Student Perspectives
Callie Floyd
As a young dancer, Callie Floyd (BFA ’25) incurred traumatic injuries, compound fracturing her arm twice within two years. She had to get a metal rod put through her radius after the second break and had to wear a sling for most of her recovery. Resting her arm in a sling during a seven-inch growth spurt caused her to develop intense scoliosis that the doctors believed could only be healed by a full spinal fusion. This would mean that she could never dance again. But she refused to give up her sport. Floyd went through intense physical therapy and wore a back brace every night for four years so that she could keep dancing. Floyd does not want other young athletes to give up their sports early on due to injuries. She feels that the SYP will help kids receive the correct training to avoid injury in all sports.
“Injuries are something that need to be cared for,” Floyd says. “You can't overlook them just because you are a star player.”
Floyd oversees injury prevention research to test the effects of external cues on the biomechanics related to ACL injury in youth athletes. To collect data, her team tells the athletes to jump higher, land softer, or a combination of both cues before performing a vertical drop jump. In Floyd’s mind, their study is “putting science behind coaching.”
"Injuries are something that need to be cared for. You can't just overlook them because you are a star player."
Floyd enjoys volunteering at Shooters. “Seeing how each kid can add to the team and also how they can enjoy the sport itself makes a huge difference,” she says. “We have been working to make sure that each kid feels equally involved, and we spend time with the kids who are struggling so that we can get them on the same page as all the other kids.”
This experience training the young athletes at Shooters will help Floyd in her future career as a physical therapist. Because she has learned how to help struggling kids stay motivated, she is better equipped to train adults as well. The soft skills she is learning will allow her to approach difficult patients with more care and empathy.
Ben Barton
All-American decathlete Ben Barton (EXSC ’26) wants to improve the sports environment. After incurring a multitude of sport injuries that resulted in eight surgeries, Barton hopes to help young athletes learn injury prevention techniques. Barton’s research uses AI to evaluate biomechanical movements. He is eager to teach the kids to identify the underlying issues that contribute to injuries and apply science-backed practices so injuries are less likely to occur in the future.
Personal experience also draws Barton’s interest toward the harmful effects of early sports specialization. “In high school, my basketball coach wanted me to quit football and track to make it to the next level. He got many of my teammates to quit their other sports and activities. Fortunately, I did not. The lessons I learned from those other sports are invaluable,” Barton says. “I believe sports are more valuable than simply making it to the next level.”
Barton hopes to correct false ideas in the sporting community: “There are a lot of misconceptions floating around and a lot of people relying on their own anecdotal evidence. Coaches don't know how to communicate to athletes, so they will yell at them in inappropriate ways. Parents also don't know how to communicate to athletes, so there's a lot we can work on.” Barton encourages parents, athletes, and coaches to read the scientific research found on the SYP website about nutrition and strength training for children.
I believe sports are more valuable than simply making it to the next level.
Parker Dean
While sitting in one of Dr. Seeley’s kinesiology classes one afternoon, Parker Dean (EXSC ’24) heard a presentation from Coach Justin Yee. Intrigued by the idea of improving the youth sports experience, Dean became one of the first students to join the SYP. He was involved in the general creation of the project and focused on the research aspect of the program.
Dean’s motivation to participate in the SYP stems from the positive sports environment he experienced during his childhood thanks to his father and coaches. “I really appreciated that they respected my decision when I said ‘You know, baseball is not really for me. I'm not having a lot of fun with baseball.'” That freedom allowed him to sample a variety of sports and find which ones he enjoyed the most. While coaching kids during the research process, Dean has seen how multi-sport training leads to long-term fitness.
By presenting this research to parents, coaches, athletes, and fellow academics, Dean has discovered how impactful research can be when it is made available to community members and then applied in everyday life. He spends a lot of his time preparing project papers for publication and submitting International Review Board (IRB) applications to move the SYP's research forward. Because of his research efforts, Dean was on the team that got to present the SYP's findings to Utah State’s counterpart department in January 2024.
I want to be able to give back and help other people have the same opportunities that I did to sample sports, enjoy, and excel.
The SYP has taken on a new meaning for Dean now that he is a young father. He has had many discussions with his wife about what a future in sports could look like for their son. “We want to instill in him a love of being active in sports. This has motivated me to continue being part of this project even after I graduate because I want to be able to give back and help other people have the same opportunities that I did to sample sports, enjoy, and excel."
Corinne Vorkink
In her second year with the SYP, Corinne Vorkink (EXSC ’26) collects data on biomechanical differences (joint angles) to identify the coaching techniques that allow young athletes to compete at a higher level. She also watches for changes in body movement that are responsible for improved performance.
Seeing athletes interact with the programs that she and other researchers developed is a memorable part of Vorkink's experience. She particularly loves coaching the young athletes on how to stay in shape during the soccer offseason. Working with these athletes allows her to reflect on the positive aspects of her own youth sport experience.
Vorkink is fascinated by the statistic that 70 percent of youth athletes quit sports before they are 13 years old. “Most of the time they aren't reentering sports, and that makes it harder for them to have regular physical activity,” she says. “A lack of physical activity can put them in more vulnerable positions for developing chronic illnesses.”
She values the communication efforts of the project because she has seen many of her friends rely solely on social media for information, including information on health and exercise practices.