LIHU‘E — According to its own website, the Positive Coaching Alliance is “transforming youth sports so sports can transform youth.” The Kaua‘i Pop Warner Association is going to try to take in some of these lessons from the PCA, as
LIHU‘E — According to its own website, the Positive Coaching Alliance is “transforming youth sports so sports can transform youth.”
The Kaua‘i Pop Warner Association is going to try to take in some of these lessons from the PCA, as they will be having their own leadership training session, Saturday from 9 a.m. to 1 p.m. at Chiefess Kamakahelei Middle School.
“I’ve been trying to get this on Kaua‘i for about four years,” said Mel Rapozo, Kaua‘i Pop Warner league president.
According to the organization’s mission statement, it has three national goals to cultivate a positive, character-building experience:
“1. Replace the ‘win-at-all-cost’ model of coaching with the Double-Goal Coach, who wants to win but has a second, more important, goal of using sports to teach life lessons;
2. Teach youth sports organization leaders how to create an organizational culture in which Honoring the Game is the norm; and
3. Spark and fuel a ‘social epidemic’ of Positive Coaching that will sweep this country.”
After not gaining enough interest in previous years, Rapozo said that there was unanimous agreement from all five Kaua‘i Pop Warner institutions to participate in the training.
Started in 1998 as a non-profit within the Stanford University Athletic Department by Jim Thompson, the PCA says it has now conducted more than 6,000 workshops for coaches, parents, organizational leaders and athletes.
Its national advisory board reads like a who’s who from the elite levels of various sports, including NBA Hall of Famer and former U.S. senator Bill Bradley, NBA and NCAA championship coach Larry Brown and Olympic gold-medal swimmer Summer Sanders, among numerous others.
Los Angeles Lakers head coach and 11-time NBA championship coach Phil Jackson is the PCA national spokesperson.
In addition to impressing new methods and mindsets upon coaches, the PCA looks to develop “second-goal parents,” who focus on helping their athletes learn life lessons, and “triple-impact competitors,” student athletes who strive to “improve themselves, their teammates and the sport as a whole.”
“I’m stoked, I’m really excited,” Rapozo said.
