Motor competency represents both the ability to perform specific sports and the capacity to enjoy engagement in physical activities (Corbin, Pangrazi, & Franks, 2000; NASPE, 2004). Fitts and Posner (1979) indicate that motor skills are learned in three stages (cognitive, associative, and autonomous) with highly complex skills requiring greater demands on sequencing and reaction time. Such complex skills utilize components of executive control, which refers to a subset of cognitive processes involved in the intentional component of environmental interaction and includes processes such as scheduling, planning, working memory, coordination, and inhibitory control (Norman & Shallice, 1986; Meyer & Kieras, 1997). Although the relationship between effects of cognitive processing and task complexity have been studied in terms of retention and transfer of motor skills (Jarus & Gutman, 2001), the association of executive control and complex motor tasks has not been examined in children. The purpose of this study was to examine the relationship between motor competency of complex tasks and cognitive processes in children using a task with variable amounts of executive control. Seventy four preadolescent children, ages 7-12 (37 boys; M = 9.4 years), were recruited from a summer program at a Midwest university. They performed a paper and pencil version of the Stroop Color-Word Task and three South Carolina Physical Education Assessment Program motor competency assessments (basketball, bowling, and paddle skills). The Stroop task required participants to read aloud as many words as possible in 45 seconds during three conditions (congruent, neutral, and incongruent word pairs). Motor competency was analyzed holistically (whole numbers only) and analytically (criterion score averaged). Regardless of method, there was 96% inter-rater reliability for overall individual scores. A partial correlation controlling for age, gender, and IQ revealed a moderate, positive relationship between the average motor competency and outcomes on all three Stroop task conditions (congruent .41, neutral .40, noncongruent .36, p < .01). Scoring on motor tasks were significantly different (basketball M = 1.72, SD = .79; bowling M = 1.13, SD = .90; paddles M = 1.38, SD = .87, p < .01), with bowling being the most difficult. In conclusion, those children who named words automatically were more likely to score well in basketball and paddles. Therefore, executive control influences motor competency of some sports skills in preadolescent children, reflected in physical education as the achievement of NASPE standard one.Keyword(s): . NA