LIHU‘E – Coaches from all sports at all levels turned out Friday night to listen to Dr. Dennis Chai discuss various strategies and aspects of a positive coaching atmosphere. Hosted by the Boys and Girls Club of Hawai‘i, Dr. Chai
LIHU‘E – Coaches from all sports at all levels turned out Friday night to listen to Dr. Dennis Chai discuss various strategies and aspects of a positive coaching atmosphere.
Hosted by the Boys and Girls Club of Hawai‘i, Dr. Chai repeated his clinic Saturday morning at the Kilauea Neighborhood Center as the Boys and Girls Club prepare to herald the start of their Termite/Mitey Mite basketball season that kicks off on Saturday, April 2 at three sites.
Drawing heavily from his own coaching experience, Dr. Chai delved into teaching youth leaders more about becoming a positive influence with the goal of the leaders becoming “Double Goal” coaches as compared with the “win-at-all-cost coach.”
Double Goal coaches want to win, but more importantly, use sports to teach life lessons.
“A positive coach is a Double Goal coach where winning is important, and teaching life lessons and positive character traits is more important,” Dr. Chai said.
All attending coaches, including several from the county recreation program, Kaua‘i High School, the Kaua‘i Soccer Association, and Waimea High School, received a workbook which effectively transforms coaches into Double Goal coaches utilizing acronyms that spell out effective strategies to help accomplish the task of teaching the desired life lesson skills and positive character traits of student athletes.
Some of these include modelling and teaching players to honor the game based on the elements of ROOTS (Respect for Rules, Opponents, Officials, Teammates, and one’s own Self).
The task of teaching student athletes to redefine the term “winner” utilizes the ELM Tree of Mastery, the ELM standing for Effort, Learning, and bouncing back from Mistakes.
Another major role of the coach is filling the players’ emotional tanks, Dr. Chai pointing out that a player whose emotional tank is drained is less coachable than one whose tank is full.
To this end, coaches need to use encouragement and positive reinforcement as the primary method of motivating with the ultimate goal being to achieve a 5:1 ratio of five positive reinforcements to one correction or criticism.
Some of the strategies involved in filling the players’ emotional tanks include developing a “Buddy System” where players fill each other’s emotional tanks, developing “player coaches” where players’ input is encouraged rather than telling players what to do, and finally, learning to use the Criticism Sandwich where criticisms are avoided in non-teachable moments.
Dr. Chai effectively used breaks in the “lessons” to get coaches reactions to various scenarios he drew up using his personal coaching experience, with the exercises serving to get the coaches to know each other better as well as serve as an effective ice breaker.
Dr. Chai recently retired as an Associate Professor at the University of Hawai‘i, Kinesiology Department. He did his undergraduate work at the University of Hawai‘i where he was a member of the basketball, volleyball, and track and field teams from 1961-65.
He received his PhD from the University of Southern California in 1976, and has coached at the youth sports level for a total of 11 years (1985-95) where he coached volleyball, basketball, soccer, and softball.
Dr. Chai has also coached boys’ high school varsity and JV basketball, volleyball, and track and field for two years at St. Louis. He also coached JV girls and boys basketball at Punahou, and Kamehameha Schools, as well as JV boys volleyball at Punahou.
He has taught coaching education classes at the University of Hawai‘i for four years and since 1989, conducted numerous coaching education seminars for coaches of various community youth sports organizations.
Clyde Vito, who administers the county’s age-group basketball programs for 12- and 14-year-olds, said Friday night’s clinic was his third as well as several other coaches noting that they had been to the Positive Coaching Alliance (PCA) clinics more than once.
The Boys & Girls Club of Hawai‘i plan to bring back the positive coaching clinic at least once a year.
