By Jennifer Hiller
Advertiser Education Writer

On the surface, it sounds a bit touchy-feely.

There's breathing and visualization involved, along with good posture, affirmations and meditation. You're supposed to breathe out your doubt, breathe in your strength.

This is not your typical high school sports program.

But if it's good enough for University of Hawai'i athletes, Olympians, Tiger Woods and professional basketball players, then it's good enough for Maryknoll Schools.

Maryknoll said it has become the first high school in Hawai'i to start using a Professional Development Institute program with its coaches and athletes that makes the connection between mind, body and spirit.

"The whole idea of sports counseling has moved from a feel-good, soft approach to hard science," said Michael D'Andrea, UH professor of counselor education and one of the developers of the Professional Development Institute. "What's happening in general in our society is people are looking at quality of life and holistic approaches."

That means that coaches and players learn to set goals in athletics, academics and their personal lives. They do team-building exercises. They breathe.

It has practical uses that go beyond the feel-good level. Players can learn to calm themselves before a game, pump up their energy level, block out crowd noise and develop rituals that can help them make their free throws or serves with more consistency. Teams learn to resolve conflict. Coaches learn to be more positive with their players, pointing out what they've done right instead of what they've done wrong. Players use biofeedback so they can hear the electrical current of stress moving through their bodies, and learn to control it.

D'Andrea and Judy Daniels, also a UH professor of counselor education, have used the techniques with the UH men's basketball team for five years and the women's volleyball team for three years, two of the most successful sports programs at the university.

Years after the publication of "Personal Power" by Tony Robbins, performance enhancement and sports counseling have become all the rage in professional-level sports.

Tiger Woods and Michael Jordan use visualization before events. Professional sports teams are using meditation classes and martial-arts techniques to improve the minds of their players. In the Olympics, when fractions of a second mean the difference between a gold and silver medal, athletes have long used mind-body exercises.

Corporations caught onto this concept years ago, adding health clubs to their facilities and offering flex-time, with the goal of creating a healthier organization, happier workers and a more profitable bottom line.

Now that's being taken to the high school level.

Pattie Heatherly, director of athletics at Maryknoll, found the program when she was looking for a way to provide some support and training to coaches. "We're one of the few states that doesn't require certification of coaches," she said. "There's not too many coaching clinics here locally." Heatherly has sent coaches to national conferences and workshops on the Mainland, but that can be expensive.

For corporations the bottom line is profit. For college athletes it's a championship. The bottom line in high school?

At Maryknoll, Heatherly said the bottom line is the development of good character and a whole person. That includes mind, body and spirit.

Reach Jennifer Hiller at jhiller@honoluluadvertiser.com or 525-8084.