Steve Phillips

[Cascade Baseball @CadetBsbl]

JV County Champs!!!

JV sweeps the day beating Brownsburg JV Purple to finish as the lone undefeated team at 2-0. The Cadets cap off a great season today finishing the year at 12-2 and MAC Champions. Great work this year boys!! The future is bright for Cascade baseball!

[Steve Phillips @StevePhillips89]

@CHSCoachSimmons Congratulations to all of you!! Glad everyone is doing well! Your worlds just changed…for the better!

[Connor Simmons M.Ed. @SHS_APSimmons]

Power Toss & Criss Cross in Cascade’s No-Huddle Wing-T Offense:

Power Toss
31 ATTs - 11.2 Yds/Rush

Criss Cross
19 ATTs - 13.1 Yds/Rush

Downhill power toss with QB lead, paired with Criss Cross counter for misdirection.

Condensed sets force the defense to tighten and puts the OLB in conflict as the force player.

Flow too fast? Play hits back the other way for an explosive play. Toss puts the ball immediately in hands of running back for immediate reaction from linebackers that leads to an explosive counter criss cross.

Make them defend every blade of grass on the playing surface.

#WingT #OffensiveFootball #FootballTwitter #NoHuddleOffense

[Connor Simmons M.Ed. @SHS_APSimmons]

Handed out our summer schedule for 2026. Here’s what in it:

7 Practices
75 Minutes/Practice
June: 3
July: 4

4 Scrimmages
June: 1
July: 3

Lift Schedule
Tues: Sprint/Squat
Wed: COD/Bench
Thur: Sprint/Clean
90 Mins/Day

All Fridays: OFF
All Saturdays: OFF (Minus 1 in June for Colts 11on11)
All Mondays: OFF (Last 5 Mondays of summer are moratorium days)

✅Guaranteed 4 day weekend for kids to have a summer
➡️Days with practice, kids are here from 3:30pm-6:30pm
➡️Days without practice, kids are here from 8:30am-10:00am
➡️Scrimmages all kids get reps, our younger players tend to get more than varsity returners for development

Multiple kids have already come up to let me know they won’t be at certain days for other things. My response: “Thanks for letting me know, reminder though summer is not mandatory and don’t let a coach tell you it is, it’s here to benefit the program. Show up when you can.”

‼️Reminder: NO PART OF THE SUMMER IS A SPECIFIC SPORTS MONTH AND NO PART OF SUMMER IS MANDATORY. The more you do is not better. Less is a better approach. Be fast and be efficient. Be mindful of the kids time because they just spent 182 days at the school.

Since moving to this type of summer: Our program is 37-12. Yes we’ve had some great talent come through, but our players are happy and healthy through the seasons and buy into our process of why we do what we do.

For our football program, we do not touch a football from our last snap of the season until summer time. Strictly weight room/Sprint emphasis.

✅Happy & healthy kids in your program = RESULTS.

[Steve Magness @stevemagness]

Norway is once again dominating the winter Olympics.

And this is their youth sports program:

Participation trophies for all kids.
No keeping score until 13.
No national travel competitions in youth sports.
No posting youth results online.
Motto: “Joy of Sport for All.”

They let kids be kids. And it works.

But…it’s the winter Olympics,right? Recently, they have had tremendous success in summer sports.

Karsten Warholm demolished the 400 meter hurdles world record. Kristian Blummenfelt broke the Ironman triathlon record and won Olympic gold. His training partner, Gustav Ivan, won the 2022 Ironman World Championship. Casper Ruud reached world number two in tennis. Viktor Hovland is a top ten golfer in the world. Erling Haaland set the record for the most goals in a season in the Premier League. Beach volleyball champs, a surge of elite runners. By any metric, Norway’s elite athletes are achieving on a global stage. Yet, if we turn to their youth sports, their programs are the opposite of the US.

Norway doesn’t allow for official scorekeeping until the age of thirteen. They dissuade early national travel teams in favor of local leagues. You can’t even post the results of youth games online without being fined. And almost sacrilegious in certain American circles, Norway doesn’t allow trophies unless everyone gets one.

As Tore Ovrebo, Norway’s director of elite sport, told USA Today writer Dan Wolken, “We think the biggest motivation for the kids to do sports is that they do it with their friends and they have fun while they’re doing it and we want to keep that feeling throughout their whole career.” Their youth sporting model can be summed up with their chosen slogan, “Joy of Sport for All.”

But not keeping score, giving out trophies, not being “win at all costs”...that’s anti-American! How can they be competitive?

Research backs their approach up.

1. The fire has to come from within

If you look at ​research​ on prodigies who eventually become standout adult performers, a deep intrinsic drive is paramount. Researchers found that intrinsically motivated football players were 3.5x more likely to make it to the next level, and athletes in general 2x more likely.

The problem is that early success often pulls young people away from this inner drive. Kids start playing soccer (or violin or chess—this isn’t just about sports) because it is exciting and fun. As they improve, they gain accolades and praise from their parents, coaches, and teachers. They start winning trophies or seeing their names in online commentary. Without even realizing it, their intrinsic drive gets replaced by external validation and a need to please and impress others.

The quickest way to kill that internal motivation? Hype achievements and be a crazy controlling parent or coach.

The best way to create and maintain intrinsic motivation is to let kids dabble, explore, and find something with which their interests and talents align. Then, let them enjoy it without an undue emphasis on success. Praise effort, character, and teamwork, not results. This is easy to talk about but hard to do. Find ways to reward and incentivize the values you want to instill. That means not taking the easy road and talking about who set a new mile best or scored the most points, but instead highlighting who hustled during the fourth quarter, rallied after it seemed like the match was over, or displayed exemplary sportsmanship.

2. Go Broad over Specialization

Even if the entire point of youth sports was to create future champions (which it’s not), we’d still adopt something similar to the Norwegian model. An ​analysis​ of over 6,000 athletes explored what separates athletes who reached world class and those who came up short.

Those who reached world-class had during their youth:
-More multi-sport than specialized practice
-Started their primary sport later
-Accumulated less overall formal practice
-Initially progressed slower than national class peers

Those who performed well when young, but didn’t progress:
-Started their primary sport earlier
-Specialized, engaging in more practice in one sport
-Made quicker initial progress

Norway doesn’t have 300 plus million people and an NCAA system to funnel talent. They have to develop theirs. And they realize the best way to do that is keep as many people in the system as possible.

Why? Because you can’t predict talent development very well! Just go look at the age group record books. It’s easy to fool yourself into thinking early performance equals talent and potential. The kid running a 6-minute mile at 10 looks way better than the one running 6:45. But if the faster one is at track practice 5 days a week and the slower one rolls out of gym class in jeans and runs it off “fitness” from just playing, well I’m betting on the slower one!

When we assess performance early on, we’re not measuring talent, we’re looking at training age and opportunity. And we’re crowning winners based on who started grinding first.

America gets away with the insane achievement model because we can burn out 9 kids to get 1 survivor. Norway can’t afford to do that. They take the longer, more sustainable model.

Rethinking Youth Sports:

The whole point of youth sports should be for kids to learn, develop, have fun, and want to come back and play again next season! The best chance of developing a D1 scholarship athlete is essentially to do the exact opposite of what our current youth sports fiasco promotes. Even the poster child for early specialization, Tiger Woods, ​acknowledged​ it’s not a good thing for parents to push their kids too hard: “Don’t force your kids into sports,” he says. “I never was. To this day, my dad has never asked me to go play golf. I ask him. It’s the child’s desire to play that matters, not the parent’s desire to have the child play. Keep it fun.”

While youth sports in America aren’t going to adopt the Norwegian model anytime soon, we can rebalance the equation. As I outlined in my book, it’s not getting rid of competitiveness, it’s rebalancing the equation to make sure that crazy mom, dad, or coach don’t extinguish the fire that makes great competitors (and sport fun!).

In research on performance orientation and grades in school, a teaching environment that supported and emphasized mastery[PA1] , where students focused on the process of learning and comprehension instead of a comparison to others, was also linked to better grades. But it wasn’t the direct relationship that an outcome orientation had. Instead, in one study on college students, a mastery approach was linked to challenge-seeking, which in turn predicted end-of-the-year grades. In another study, mastery goals predicted higher levels of interest and enjoyment. Mastery works on our approach system without activating avoidance. It frees us up to take on a challenge and pursue our interests without getting bogged down by the pressure or judgment that often comes with an obsession with outcomes. The same findings hold true when looking at sport or the workplace. In a large meta-analysis that analyzed the impact of goal setting in sports, process-orientated goals had a large effect on performance. Outcome goals had little to no effect.

These two paths represent a fast versus slow road to success. Both a mastery or outcome focus can lead to better performance, but the latter is akin to taking a shortcut. Obsession over outcomes is the most direct path to improvement, but it comes with some downsides that shift us toward avoidance. The slow path takes a longer, indirect route. It helps improve our performance not by focusing on the results themselves but by supporting the foundation that ultimately leads to better performance. It stokes the fire of enjoyment and interest to sustain our curiosity and work ethic over the long haul. It pushes us toward challenge-seeking so that when we inevitably hit a roadblock, we’ll take it on instead of trying to protect our ego. Both approaches work. One is more sustainable, providing success with less angst. Society has thrown us so far out of balance that we can’t even see the slow route right in front of us.

We can either instill a love of sport in our youth, or we can turn sport into a burden where kids are exhausted, stressed, and scared. We’ve seen this go both ways, and the results couldn’t be more different. One leads to happy, healthy, and better young athletes. The other leads to burnout, family tension, mental health challenges, and quitting. As parents, volunteers, coaches, and community members, let’s all do what we can to minimize the latter and champion the former.

-Steve

[Connor Simmons M.Ed. @SHS_APSimmons]

Congratulations to Quarterback Brady Trebley on being selected to the IFCA Region 6 All-Star Team!

Brady is now eligible to be selected for the IFCA North-South All-Star Game this summer!

We are proud of you young man!

#ETR

[Connor Simmons M.Ed. @SHS_APSimmons]

Congratulations to Running Back Dayton Mink on being selected to the IFCA Region 6 All-Star Team!

Dayton is now eligible to be selected for the IFCA North-South All-Star Game this summer!

We are proud of you young man!

#ETR

[Connor Simmons M.Ed. @SHS_APSimmons]

Congratulations to Wide Receiver Marcus Hobson on being selected to the IFCA Region 6 All-Star Team!

Marcus is now eligible to be selected for the IFCA North-South All-Star Game this summer!

We are proud of you young man!

#ETR

[Connor Simmons M.Ed. @SHS_APSimmons]

📚🏈 Cascade Football Fall Academics

🏆 State champions on the field with a championship mindset in the classroom.

Seniors: 3.48
Juniors: 3.35
Sophomores: 3.45
Freshmen: 3.15

Proud of our Cadets for being STUDENT-athletes.

#ETR

[Connor Simmons M.Ed. @SHS_APSimmons]

👀 Wing-T leading the state in scoring. Go Cadets!

[Braxton Lewis @blewdawg]

Roll Tigers! 🐯

@CHSCoachSimmons @qbdietz @Coach_McElwain @DePauwTigersFB

[Connor Simmons M.Ed. @SHS_APSimmons]

Congrats to all of our players who made it on the Wabash Valley Top 25, 1st Team or HM. Way to represent!

Top 25
SR QB @BradyTrebley
SR RB/LB @toby_savini5
JR RB/DB @Lucas_Farmer_

1st Team
SR RB @DaytonMink
SR WR @M_Hobson4
JR OL Wyatt Minardo
SR DL @bus_bentley
SR LB @blewdawg
SO LB @TJ_Turner_Jr
JR DB @michael9langley
SR At-Large Dominic Appleby
JR K Brogan Trump

Honorable Mention
SR DB @RoshongJT
SR OL Brody Duncan
JR OL Dillon Setty
SR LB Baynx Stirling

#ETR

[Connor Simmons M.Ed. @SHS_APSimmons]

🎄Merry Christmas from the 2025 3A State Champion Cascade Cadets! Grateful for our players, families, staff and community who make this program special. Enjoy this time with loved ones!

[Steve Phillips @StevePhillips89]

Congratulations Marcus!! Proud of you!!

[Connor Simmons M.Ed. @SHS_APSimmons]

Congrats Marcus! Depauw is getting an ELITE playmaker! Proud of you young man!

[Connor Simmons M.Ed. @SHS_APSimmons]

Congratulations JT!! Proud of you young man! MSJ is getting a good one!

[Connor Simmons M.Ed. @SHS_APSimmons]

C/o ‘27 CB Michael Langley. Junior season highlights. Ball hawk corner led our defense in INTs. Strong cover skills. Physical corner willing to come up and tackle.

[Steve Phillips @StevePhillips89]

Congrats Marcus!!!

[Marcus Hobson @M_Hobson4]

After a great phone call with @coachgilbert10 I am blessed to have received an offer from Wabash College!
@CHSCoachSimmons

[Connor Simmons M.Ed. @SHS_APSimmons]

@lmess22 And every Saturday off

[Connor Simmons M.Ed. @SHS_APSimmons]

➡️Cascade Wing-T Evolution
🐌Slow Pace to 💨No-Huddle

🏈Record: 40–18
✅25-1 over last two years
🏆2025: 15-0 State Champions

🏃16,248 Rush Yds | 222 TDs | 7.0 Yds/Rush

✈️4,967 Pass Yds | 75 TDs | 16.9 Yds/Rec

📊21,215 Total Yds | 2,223 Pts | 378 Explosive Plays

⭐️7 All State Players
(1 QB, 3 RB, 1 WR, 1 TE, 2 OL)

📈22 School Records

#ETR #WingT #RTDB