Dawson’s Desk – Summer Reflections

By Dawson Blanck —

One of the things the co-founder of Minnesota Youth Athletic Services, Dan Klinkhammer, used to say has stayed with me throughout my time with this organization: “If you stand still, you fall behind.” As we celebrate 35 years of MYAS in 2026, that feels as relevant today as it ever has.

Technology changes. The youth sports landscape definitely changes. The ways families communicate, register for events, and consume information continue to change. And the number of organizations and private operators in the youth sports space has grown significantly. Our responsibility is to evolve with those changes without losing sight of why MYAS exists in the first place.

I was reminded of that recently as we launched a completely redesigned MYAS.org website and through the process of evolving our brand alongside Sharp Creative.

On the surface, it is a website and brand refresh. But the process became something more than that. It gave us an opportunity to step outside of our day-to-day work and ask some important questions:

When you have been part of an organization for most of your professional career – as I have – it is easy to assume other people understand MYAS the way we do internally.

The website update reminded us that isn’t always the case. Our previous site had accumulated years of programs, pages and information. It did its job. But over time, it became increasingly difficult to navigate. We wanted the new MYAS.org to be more of a “show and tell” experience — a place where families can see the energy and celebration happening at our events, quickly find the information they need, and discover other opportunities across the MYAS network.

Brand workshops also helped sharpen how we talk about ourselves.

For many years we used the phrase, “Youth Sports Done Right.” We still believe deeply in what those words represent. But as we reflected on our future, we wanted language that better explains our role in the entire youth sports experience.

Our new tagline is Game Day Starts Here.

And underneath that tagline is an even more important statement about our purpose:

We protect the purpose of youth sports so kids can stay in the game.

That last part matters to the entire MYAS team.

MYAS has never existed solely for the most talented athletes or the highest-level teams. Our mission has always included the other 80+ percent – the kids who simply love participating in baseball, basketball, football, wrestling, or another sport and deserve an opportunity to continue participating regardless of their current skill level.

Our job is to help create environments that keep kids playing! Evolving how we operate is part of fulfilling that mission.

We saw another simple example of that this spring. After the retirement of longtime MYAS staff member, who spent 30 years with our organization and became a master at scheduling events and leagues, we had to examine how some of that work was done.

The result was not simply replacing an old process with the exact same process. We found opportunities to become more streamlined and efficient — including dramatically reducing the amount of paper we use for scheduling and event administration.

That may sound like a small thing. But I believe healthy organizations continually look for those opportunities.

Whether it is utilizing new technology, improving communication, implementing artificial intelligence where it makes sense, strengthening safety procedures, or simply asking whether there is a better way to accomplish something we have done for years, we cannot become comfortable doing something a certain way simply because we have always done it that way.

At the same time, evolution cannot mean chasing every new idea.

One of the challenges in today’s youth sports environment is balancing innovation with mission. There is a growing business of youth sports around us, including many excellent private and for-profit operators. MYAS must understand that landscape while remaining very clear about our WHY.

That is why the work we are doing around safety, sportsmanship, parent education, and better communication is every bit as important as running tournaments, events, and leagues.

A few additional updates from across the MYAS network demonstrate the scope of that work:

Those are very different initiatives, but to me they all connect.

Thirty-five years into MYAS, we have changed in countless ways from the organization that first began serving Minnesota youth sports in 1991.

As we should. Because if we stand still, we fall behind.

The underlying purpose of the change remains remarkably consistent: support community and school-based youth sports, provide opportunities for kids, help the people who make those opportunities possible, and create environments that allow young people to stay in the game.

That is what Game Day Starts Here means to me.

And that is what we intend to carry forward into the next 35 years.