Alliance urges youth coaches to be positive
By Wes Nakama
Advertiser Sports Writer
To paraphrase lawyer Johnnie Cochran's famous line, "Who's policing the police?", exactly who is coaching our youth coaches these days?
The Positive Coaching Alliance, a non-profit organization based at Stanford University, would like to try. Jim Thompson, the alliance's founder, and colleague Tonya Booker conducted a 2 1/2-hour workshop at Punahou School on Tuesday and at Iolani School on Wednesday to try to spread the word about "Double-Goal Coaching."
The two goals would be winning ("important") and developing positive character traits ("more important"). About 70 people paid $15 to attend Tuesday night's session and close to 80 came on Wednesday, according to event organizer Chip Hammond.
"Tonya and I are evangelists, we're trying to start a movement," said Thompson, a former high school girls basketball coach. "Youth sports is so de-centralized. We're trying to get everyone across America to learn and use common terminology."
That terminology would include catch phrases like "team culture" and "emotional tank" as well as the acronym "ROOTT," which translates into respect for Rules, Opposition, Officials, Teammates and Tradition."
As its name implies, the alliance emphasizes positive teaching methods and aims at redefining the word "winner."
"Our society is so caught up in winning, that's often what is considered to be most important," said Booker, who played basketball at the University of Illinois. "That's what we call the 'scoreboard definition' of winning. It's based on results and comparison with others, and mistakes are not OK. We believe in the 'mastery definition' of winning, which is based on effort and learning. Mistakes are OK, because in every sport, there are going to be mistakes made. The key is how we deal with them."
Thompson acknowledged that winning is the desired outcome and the alliance doesn't preach 100 percent "happy talk," but it believes that adhering to the mastery definition of winning can eventually lead to positive results by the scoreboard definition.
She also cited statistics reporting about 70 percent of kids in youth sports quit by the time they are 13, and less than one percent will eventually earn major athletic scholarships for college.
Thompson said every player has an "emotional tank," which — like a gas tank — needs to be filled for maximum productivity. Coaches, he said, can help fill the tank with positive reinforcement and by passing along optimistic attitudes. Likewise, they can drain the tank with negative comments and attitude.
Thompson and Booker also suggested ways of promoting sportsmanship through a "team culture," which they define as "the way we do things here." With a positive team culture, they said, problems with unruly parents also can be addressed.
The audience on Wednesday mostly consisted of youth soccer, baseball and basketball coaches, although Radford athletic director Eddie Maruyama and Iolani football coach Wendell Look also were in attendance. The workshop included group activities, and Thompson and Booker took several questions from the audience.
"I thought it was really good," said Daryl Ching, who coaches 7-8 year-olds in the Kalaniana'ole Athletic Club basketball program. "Most of the coaches I've seen try to follow the positive philosophy, but for some, a lot of it is yelling. Most of it should be positive."
DeWayne Malachi, who coaches baseball and softball in Kapolei, said the workshop was accurate in describing how easy it is for coaches to fall into negative traps.
"We see negativity on a day-to-day basis — on the road, with customers or dealing with clients," Malachi said. "So it stands to reason that some coaches will be pushing that on our children. We need to get rid of that negative effect on our youth, and maybe that will get rid of some of the violence at the next level."
Thompson has authored two books on the subject, "Positive Coaching: Building Character and Self-Esteem Through Sports" and "Shooting in the Dark: Tales of Coaching and Leadership."
The alliance also has a website: www.positivecoach.org.
"This was good reinforcement, because learning it is one thing, but practicing it is a hard thing to do," Ching said. "Sometimes we get emotional, especially when our team is getting slaughtered. But I think the more leaders who attend things like these, the better off our kids will be."
