Consultant Sports & Health Jürgen Maaßmann: Expertise in fitness, nutrition and health

When it comes to exercise, experts are in demand. Jürgen Maaßmann supports us as a sports scientist M.A. whenever our clients are concerned with the topics of fitness, nutrition and health. We are pleased to have the former professional basketball player on board as Consultant Sports & Health. We will soon be able to officially report on the first joint projects! We talked to him and our Managing Director Rebecca Duden about his work at We are Family.

What is your job at the We are Family?

Jürgen Maaßmann: We are a specialist agency whose aim is to communicate precisely with the young target group and families. For this, it is essential that the topics we communicate about are well-founded in terms of content. This is where I come in. For example, I develop teacher handouts and lesson content in a sports science context. Of course, I also help explain to the client what is or can be the right measure at what age. The colleagues then take care of how to optimally network and communicate the content I have developed.

Please make a statement - How does the pandemic affect the sports and leisure behaviour of children and young people?

Jürgen Maaßmann: For many children and young people, physical activity and regular sporting activities are very much reduced. Only very few associations and clubs offer online training, school sport via homeschooling is almost non-existent. It will take a lot of effort and endeavour for us to motivate children to take part in sports again and to lead an active lifestyle, so that the prevailing passivity does not develop further and persist.

Why did you decide to work with the We are Family?

Jürgen Maaßmann: The agency model is unique! The combination of interdisciplinary target group and communication specialists in combination with subject matter experts is ingenious and is extremely well received by the clients. The international networking is also exciting. One of my first projects was an international interdisciplinary collaboration. Together with Maurice Wheeler from our partner agency We are Family London, we were able to work for an international sports association in the German-speaking market. It's fun to be able to talk in English "again".

Rebecca, a question for you: Jürgen is, or was, a basketball player like you - is his participation in the team a coincidence?

Rebecca Duden: Well combined - of course not! Jürgen and I still know each other from my time as coach and youth coordinator of Ratiopharm Ulm. We are still good friends today, live and die for good food and good red wine - although it should be noted that Jürgen and his wife can also cook the good food.

There used to be some constructive arguments between us on the subject of early childhood competitive sport. *laughs* That's how I know how well-founded and pedagogically profound Jürgen's work is. For him, the child and the associated pedagogy are at the centre.

He revolutionised mini basketball in Germany for the German Basketball Association and developed the mini basketball guide as a standard work for all coaches and teachers in Germany. He was also involved in the conception of the AlbaBerlin Sportstunde - a club-centred content format for movement for children and young people in the pandemic. I am delighted to be working with Jürgen and I think we have some clients who will benefit from his expertise.

The person:

Jürgen Maaßmann is Consultant Sports & Health at We are family. After 15 years as a professional basketball player and a degree in sports, he founded the children's sports school in Elchingen and in 2015 the children's sports school in Giengen, which he has been running ever since. He is a self-employed personal trainer in the field of prevention, rehabilitation and athletics and wrote the guide Minibasketball for the DBB in 2017.