"In 1988 when Jeff Beedy was completing his research investigating the influ­ence of sport on child development at Harvard University, youth sport was reach­ ing new heights of popularity, with unprecedented participation and never before seen expenditures. Jeff 's groundbreaking research was welcomed into a relatively new field, which despite its popularity, was marked by a dearth of social science research on the actual developmental influence of the youth sport experience. Well, as the old adage says, "The more things change, the more they remain the same." It's an understatement to say that sports remain a central part of United States culture. When one considers the sheer number of people who participate in some form of sport, the revenues generated by sport, the amount of media devoted to covering sport, and the iconic cultural status of athletes, it is hard to imagine anywhere in the world where athletics assert a larger cultural influence. Further, the unbridled popularity of sport and the blind faith of the general public in sport's positive educative influence, leave many longing for more research of the sort that Jeff has conducted, research that is rigorous and thoughtful, grounded in practice, and driven by a desire to be useful to sport practitioners. The youth development topics Jeff addresses in Sport and the Developing Child (e.g., the role of competition, the role and influence of coaches, the experience of team community, the importance of understanding child development) remain as pertinent to the field today as they were in 1988-more important, some would argue."

Matt Davidson PhD
Author of The Introduction to Beedy's Sport and the Developing Child Book

1983 Harvard University

​In 1983, Jeff Beedy chose to dedicate his life to exploring sports as a medium for positive change in children--especially, underserved children. Beedy may not have realized it when he began his doctoral program at
Harvard in the early 1980s, but his original thesis charted the cartography of a new domain—sports as moral pedagogy, built on a foundation of research and experience. ​​​

Over the years what began as a thesis process became his life's work. His work and experiences culminated in the development of PLUS and has had global success in Cyprus, China, South Korea, Canada, and throughout the United States.

Throughout his youth, Dr. Beedy enjoyed sports. He found them to be a large part of his identity. He played baseball in the Cape Cod League and participating in the Freestyle Tour. Dr. Beedy saw the value in sports as an athlete but after arriving at Harvard it became evident that his new college friends didn't share that opinion. Beedy quickly found that many had expressed having negative experiences in youth sports.

This was certainly an eye-opening moment for Beedy. He began to wonder how much fun was their sport experience?  What did they learn? As he conducted his research he realized that while sports are a global pursuit, the idea of sport as serious scholarly inquiry was widely dismissed.

In the 1980s, there was little if any quality research on the idea of sports and youth development let alone any curriculum on how to use it as a method for educating youth. As a doctoral candidate, Beedy was on to something. He was on the brink of being a pioneer in his own right on all things sport-based education and moral pedagogy.

Beedy began to understand one thing which led him to develop PLUS, sports may be a positive experience for the skilled but may be a negative experience for those feeling left out. Beedy quickly realized that this experience could be cultivated for every participant skilled or not if the way in which the coaches, mentors, and adults organize and approached sports changed.

At Harvard, Beedy was fortunate to study under Lawrence Kohlberg, Bob Selman, Sesame Street Founer, Gerald Lesser and Carol Gilligan. This afforded Dr. Beedy with the opportunity to study the moral impact sports had on youth. The early 80s were a time when sports-based learning and research was first starting to take shape. Beedy decided to launch a summer camp in Maine called The NewSport Experience. The camp was meant to serve as a case study to understand the moral development of 8 to 12 year old boys. 

As one of Beedy's mentors, Dr. Lawrence Kohlberg flew to Maine to have an 8-hour community meeting with the campers and staffers to discuss issues of theft in the dorm. Beedy was nervous. He had been trying to think of a staged incident to utilize for moral discussion but unpredictably there was a reported theft in the dorm. Beedy decided that this was the perfect incident to discuss as a moral community. 

What took place in that long meeting with children and adults of all ages demonstrated to Beedy that power and value exists in community. After a couple hours of dialogue around the idea that people should lock their doors, they shouldn't leave things out in the open Dr. Kohlberg stood up and said, "what role does the community have in getting the money back to the campers who had their money stolen?" At that moment the whole community dialogue  shifted to what the role of community has in the development of moral reasoning. This provided Beedy a sense of the potentiality of using sports as a moral pedagogy. 

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PLUS Summer Camp and After School Programs

After completing his thesis in 1988, and as a way to expand my program to diversify his participant population, Beedy founded the PLUS camp (Positive Learning Using Sports) at Milton Academy in 1990. At the time, Beedy was teaching with Pulitzer Prize winner, Dr. Robert Coles. The course was called Social Reflections in Literature. The course prompted Beedy to develop literature and add it to the learning environment. In the late 1980s, Brenda Bredemeier and David Shields were studying the work of Kohlberg. They were analyzing sports and its contribution to character development as a branch of sports psychology. However, Beedy's thesis differed in that if factored how sports impact the moral, cognitive, social and emotional development of youth. This had not yet been explored by anyone. 

In the early 90s, Beedy began to realize that the summer camp could be used as a model to develp an after-school program. This lead to Beedy bringing his sports-based youth development program to the inner city in Lawrence and Dorchester, Massachusetts and rurl New Hampton, New Hampshire. 

Creation of PLUS Curriculum

These experiences led to the archiving and creation of the PLUS Curriculum. Today, after thousands of hours of work, PLUS has formulated clear principles and practices into a sports-based curriculum that communities across the country can implement. In order to facilitate its implementation a manual was developed by Beedy. The PLUS Program has benefited from the assembly of a first rate research and development team. Dr. Matt Davidson, who is the Research Director at the Center for the 4th and 5th Rs (Respect and Responsibility) joined the PLUS team to help co-author the program, brining with him his expertise of Kelli Moran-Miller and Dr. Vladimir Khmelkov. Together with long-time staffers Kris Genakos, Cindy Glidden, Adam Tanney, Joe Bowab, Tom Zierk, Gara Field, Steve Davis, Morgan Murphy, Tom Zierk, Jerry Pieh, Andrew Churchill, and Amanda Beedy, PLUS had the right kind of team to move this project forward. This team was and continues to be committed to creating a research-based program that is theoretically sound and empirically tested. The Leadership Rubric is based on Robert Carkhuff's Detractor to Leader Scale and Jeff Beedy and Steve Davis' Total Human Development Model (2002). 

PLUS goes Global

 In 2006, PLUS was invited to Cyprus to examine how sports could be used as a tool to bridge peace between the Greek and Turkish communities. The groups of children, whose parents retained vivid memories of the tumultuous and traumatic events of the 1970s, had been previously forbidden from speaking to each other as the events led to a community division. However, by the third night of the camp, the Greek and Turkish children were dancing, singing, and laughing together. They found that sports were a neutral medium that afforded the next generation of citizens of Cyprus to work together and play together. This allowed the children to be a way for this community to heal and for the parents of these children to begin to heal the divide and conflict felt amongst them. 

In 2010, Beedy was hired as the founding headmaster of Korea International School, which was part of Korea's 2 billion dollar Global Education City on Jeju Island, South Korea. Beedy learned that in Korea it is customary for older boys and girls to "rule over" younger schoolmates. In an effort to address bullying that naturally ensues in these types of dynamics, Beedy and his team created the Learn to Lead Program. This program was based on the idea that leadership is not intentionally taught in the curriculum  but ought to be. The PLUS team felt if they could replace the "bullying power" with "leading power" then they could eradicate bullying and create a circle of mutual respect. By understanding the socialization of children begins in kindergarten, we were able to teach older students how to mentor younger students. The goal of this was that they would have a continuous cycle of positive leaders. Within a relatively short time we noticed a shift in perspective. Instead of investing time toward bullying the older students were encouraged to learn to lead them in a positive way that helped create and foster an environment where every student is invested in each other. 

Montessori and Sports

Over the years, Beedy led two Montessori Academies. He was first intrigued with Maria Montesorri's work when he was studying at Harvard. As the interim head of a Montessori School in Alabama and California, Beedy was able to see first hand how the Montessori approach cultivated and fostered a respectful learning culture.  It became clear to Beedy that when children feel safe, listened to, and respected, the likelihood of helping the child realize their potential is greatly enhanced.

During his years leading Montessori schools, he very rarely witnessed yelling or disrespect. Instead, he experienced laughter and joy. Teachers developed respectful methods, such as color and number games, to direct children to line up after recess. This may sound simple—but it worked, and, even more important, the children were almost always ready to learn. The children felt empowered and moved quickly and confidently through their assignments and challenges. The most obvious reason for this phenomenon is that the teachers began with a deep respect for the child.  

The teachers in this environment were respectful and successful in creating a peaceful environment where children felt safe to take risks. The students were respectful and curious. Many people wonder what Maria Montessori's principles of teaching and learning had to do with children's sports. Beedy felt it was Maria Montessori's principle that tied in best, "Children are human beings to whom respect is due, superior to us by reason of their innocence and the greater possibilities of their future." Beedy began to ask, "What if youth sport coaches and leaders adhered to this principle when coaching children in Youth Soccer and Little League Baseball? Would our children's sport experiences change for the better? If the Montessori children are so respectful and intrinsically motivated then maybe Montessori principles should be applied to youth sports? Beedy understood that sports are different than school but the people participating were the same, children. Much of what Beedy understood about Maria Montessori and her principles connections and applicability to youth sports became motivation for the development of PLUS and the philosophical and pedagogical ideals of Positive Learning Using Sports.

The LifeSport Learning Experience

The LifeSport Learning Experience combines sports for life and life learning. We can teach our children about many of techniques of hiking and why hiking boots are helpful and how to pace oneself on a mountain hike. Hiking is a physical workout and builds the body in positive ways. Our children can learn to record their own heart rate.  Hiking also provides parents with the opportunity to “teach and model” to our children how to persevere when the going gets tough. If we are on a family hike we can teach responsibility and leadership to our older children when we ask them to wait up and support their younger siblings. The idea behind “LifeSport Learning Experience” is that is combines physical workout like hiking with the life lessons of respect and leadership. This approach also provides us with a new way to connect with our children and develop a life long connection through a mutually shared activity. The same can be said about biking, bowling, fly-fishing, and skiing.

Life Sports Versus Conventional Competitive Sports

Competitive sports such as soccer and basketball are wonderful for many but not for everyone. The  LifeSport Experience focuses on sports that are all-inclusive and can be enjoyed throughout one’s life. The LifeSport Learning Experience also builds upon the potential lessons learned through lifelong sports such as golf, hiking, fly fishing, and skiing that can be applied to all areas of life including the workplace. This especially true for women who are just making overdue strides in sports and the marketplace. The LifeSport Learning Experience  offers children the opportunity to learn about sports such as fly fishing.

Positive Leading Using Sports: Learn to Lead by Doing. 

Daniel Coyle, in his book The Little Book of Talent, suggests that “To learn it more deeply, teach it.”   LifeSports PLUS is based on the belief that when high school students are offered the opportunity to mentor younger students they develop a deeper understanding of  what it takes to be respectful and responsible leaders within their community.

There are a number of benefits to teaching older students how to mentor younger students. The obvious benefit is, of course, that the older students learn by doing. In the case of high school students, teaching younger children requires them to understand the skills, such as teamwork, and encourages that they create an environment where teamwork can take place. Leading second and third graders is difficult for experienced adults-- let alone teenagers. Struggling through a session with third graders who won’t sit still and listen requires a young leader to dig deep and find something that works.  Yelling louder or blaming the situation does little to quiet the chaos. Of course, another benefit is that the younger children see the older students modeling leadership instead of bullying.  This process can eventually create a circle of good where leadership actually trumps bullying. The goal is to create an environment where leading and helping is cool.

Synthesis

The goal of PLUS is to bring intentionality to youth sports. The new intentional application of research in the fields of human development and psychology to the philosophical and pedagogical design of sports-based learning activities. It is the belief of PLUS and its founder, Dr. Beedy, that we have a responsibility as leaders and educators to design programs where children can have authentic opportunities to be "at the forefront of global change and innovation". Crafting sports-based programs that educate and empower children is what PLUS is all about. Beedy claims that although he may not have realized it when he started his doctoral studies at Harvard in the 1980s, his thesis would later become the cartography of his new domain, sports as moral pedagogy. This pedagogy was built on the foundation of his research and experiences. Today, this field has gained wide attention and continues to attract more and more researchers, scholars, and schools each year.