Meet Peter Carlisle: Reformed Sports Project Founder, Olympic Agent, and Youth Sports Advocate

Peter Carlisle has spent 30 years as an Olympic agent representing some of the greatest athletes in the world. Additionally, he is a co-founder of the Reformed Sports Project, where he advocates for a healthier, more balanced approach to youth sports. We sat down with him to talk about what sports taught him, what the industry gets wrong, and the future of youth sports.

What is your favorite youth sports memory?

Pond hockey, without a doubt. While I played organized sports of every variety, there was nothing like the feeling of getting out of school and running down to the pond with skates, stick, puck, and just playing pond hockey.

Who has been the most influential coach in your life?

The most influential coach in my life was my dad. He coached my brothers and me in Little League Baseball all three years and it was a great experience. He instilled in me the understanding that it's possible to work hard, to get better, to compete, and to do all of that without losing sight of the real priority, which is to have fun. And that's something that I've applied in sports through my life and later in my career.

What's one lesson you've learned through sports that has shaped your life?

I think the most important lesson I learned through sports was how to lose. When you love sports and you start to focus on a single sport and you get better, you start to view yourself differently. And when you run into competition, which you ultimately and inevitably will, it's really tough and can be an almost existential problem when you lose. There has to be something more to sports than just winning because you're never going to beat everybody. I learned to deal with pressure and to function under pressure through sports. And I don't know where I'd be in my career if I didn't have that ability.

You've spent decades representing Olympic athletes. What's one thing people consistently misunderstand about their journey?

People generally understand that it's a lot of work and it's a lot of focus, but to be truly great in a sport requires a level of sacrifice that has really significant costs, personally. Unless you see it firsthand, it's easy to underestimate that. If you want to truly realize your athletic potential, it does require you to give so many things up. And with that, you end up developing a more narrow identity for a time. That can lead to difficulties and tough transitions. I think that the effect of that sacrifice is probably overlooked by many.

As co-founder of the Reformed Sports Project, what inspired that — and what are you hoping it changes?

At the age of seven, my son really had to choose to play hockey to the exclusion of most other sports if he was to play hockey at all. I felt that was unfortunate and misguided. So, I became involved in coaching and coached my kids through their youth sports experience. Then I began to advocate about youth sports and try to keep an eye on what the purpose of youth sports is. You can pursue success, you can become the best athlete possible, and you can do so without sacrificing balance and diversity of experience. I think there's a lot that can be done today in the world of youth sports to create a healthier, more balanced experience for kids.

What do you hope changes in how we define "development" in youth sports over the next decade?

I'd like to see the perspective shift so that people view sports not so much in terms of wins and losses or peer-to-peer comparisons, but rather through the many benefits that are available through participation in sports. There's nothing wrong with wanting to win. There's nothing wrong with competing. But your ability to function under pressure, to deal with teammates, to support others, to navigate through difficult situations — that sort of thing we can draw upon every day of our lives. Sports, I think, is uniquely positioned to help our kids do that. Hopefully, kids a decade from now have the ability to play multiple sports until they make the choice to focus on a single sport.

Stay tuned for more content from Peter on Youth Inc.