Disgruntled parents, win at all costs, troublemakers, playing time, balancing talent, and tracking drop-outs...These are just some of the issues faced head-on in this book. Coaches experience many problems - many created by excluding parents from the process. This book provides concrete ways to involve parents in the process as well as step-by-step help with kid-coaching basics and trouble management. It is the perfect primer for organising and coaching children from ages 5 to 14 years. Much has been written about coaching children. Most books are sport specific - covering only one sport and going into depth on its mechanics. Others are more general - mostly feel-good psychological stuff. They often focus on how to make the participants feel better - not necessarily perform better. Very little, however, has been written on the basic challenge of coaching children in general, regardless of the sport, and even less on organising children's sports from the coach's and league's viewpoints.

It is so statistically unlikely as to be almost unbelievable. Somehow, the Gronkowski family has produced three sons who play in the NFL (Rob, Chris, and Dan), one who was drafted into Major League Baseball (Gordie, Jr.), and another who is the starting fullback for Kansas State (Goose). Their father, Gordy, even played college football for Syracuse.

How did it happen? From an early age, Gordy realized the potential his sons had and worked with them to make the most of it. Beyond their monstrous size, physicality, and raw talent, he instilled in them a commitment to fitness, health, drive, and determination that would give his boys a leg up in ways other families simply couldn't match. And the boys' motivation certainly wasn't something solely triggered by a driven father. They were like a pack of adolescent wolves readying themselves for the recruiting hunt. Still, all were honor roll students; the three oldest earned college degrees. Each was motivated and inspired by his brothers. Competition and bragging rights were -- and continue to be -- a big part of what makes the Gronkowskis tick. "Growing Up Gronk "reveals the secrets to the Gronkowski's astonishing collective success while opening the door to a lively, entertaining, one-of-a-kind household.