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Honoring the Game Award Winners
PCA's Spring 2010 winners of Honoring the Game Awards for their excellence as educational athletic organizations are: Chesterfield Little League, Midlothian, VA; Huntley (IL) Park District; Menlo-Atherton Little League (Menlo Park and Atherton, CA); and Roswell (GA) Youth Lacrosse Association. PCA
Connector will profile each of these organizations as part of the National Youth Sports Awards
Program sponsored by Deloitte.
This week's featured Honoring the Game Award winner is Chesterfield Little League.
 The suburban Richmond league, serving more than 1,000 players, is a prime example of a good youth sports organization striving to become great. "Even before we brought in PCA," recalls CLL President John Duncan, "we adopted a tagline that emphasizes the key themes of PCA: 'Working Toward Williamsport...It's the Journey That Counts.' This illustrates that we're focused on winning but know that the life lessons along the way are what is most important to the youth sports experience."
Among the PCA programs in place at CLL:
- The PCA Seal of Commitment, ensuring all league coaches are trained and certified as Double-Goal Coaches
- Honor the Game Day events as part of Opening Day Ceremonies
- PCA banners at fields
- Double-Goal Coach Awards within the organization
This year, CLL is adding a Lead Culture Keeper, who organizes parents appointed as their team's Culture Keepers "to
reinforce and reward PCA-worthy behavior witnessed at fields," Duncan says. "We have trained our team parents in PCA to ensure they are equipped with the tools and language."
Key to CLL's commitment to PCA techniques is the buy-in generated by Duncan and Jeff Church, VP-Baseball, who leads the league's PCA Partnership. That buy-in is due to the Seal of Commitment training mandate coupled with live, group workshops "making it clear that this isn't just about everybody playing nice, and that this isn't a 'positive-at-all-cost' message" Duncan says.
"Leslee Brady, the PCA Trainer who has led our board and parent workshops, has done a fantastic job, and Mark Wiggins, who has led our coach workshops, is a coach's coach. He let everyone know that his workshop was not going to be the touchy-feely session and got coaches who had their arms crossed to open up.
"Consistently, we receive 'WOW!' feedback from coaches who join our leagues from our competitors. Their previous leagues emphasize winning only, and they are so impressed with the PCA message of balancing winning with life lessons. They love the tools, and you can now see and hear coaches and managers on the field using the 'Flush' technique, ROOTS and 5:1. Also, 'That's the way we do things here' can be heard in coach/parent meetings, games, practices and even our board meetings."
As is so often the case within the PCA Movement, CLL has bought into PCA enough to start spreading the news to neighboring organizations. "This year we invited our local rival Little League to attend one of our Double-Goal Coach workshops," Duncan says. "They may become a PCA Partner in 2011. We see this as a positive for both leagues, because it will strengthen the rivalry in a positive direction."
Our series profiling Honoring the Game Award winners will continue in future issues of PCA Connector.
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Monica Smith: Profile of a Double-Goal Coach
 In celebration of the 2010
winners of PCA's Double-Goal Coach� Award Presented by Liberty
Mutual Insurance, PCA Connector occasionally profiles these coaches. Our
featured coach this week is Monica Smith of Saddleback United Soccer Club,
Mission Viejo, CA.
Award nomination letters from
players' parents hailed Smith for such practices as distributing "Spirit
Cards." Each parent before a game chooses a card with a name on it other than
their daughter's; parents then write notes of praise for specific actions that
player takes during the game. The players receive their cards after the game
and affix them to their gear bags...near the "Goal Cards" they have fashioned to
constantly remind themselves of individual and team goals.
Smith also consciously and
proactively uses sports to teach life lessons, even to her players as young as
ten. For example, one season she assigned players to read books about notable
athletes and led a discussion that focused on each athlete's determination to
overcome obstacles and reliance on a support system.
Within weeks, one of Smith's players
was diagnosed with diabetes, Smith said, "and it was an opportunity for me to
sit down with this team, and this particular player, and say, 'Either this
player is going to quit or she's going to continue, and you guys are going to
be her support system, just like we've been reading and talking about.' The
player continues to play and is an example to her teammates that they're always
going to remember."
The
emphasis Monica Smith places on life lessons, even in a highly competitive soccer
club, makes PCA and Liberty Mutual proud to honor her as a Double-Goal Coach
Award winner for 2010.
For more on the PCA/Liberty Mutual
partnership, including access to videos, tips, guides for parents and coaches,
and the chance to win a $2,500 grant for your school or youth sports
organization by May 31st, visit the Liberty Mutual Responsible Sports Program powered by Positive Coaching Alliance. |
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Ask PCA: Videotaping Opponents
Thanks for your responses to last week's "Ask PCA" question from a coach who benched his own son. You offered a great mix of perspectives, from strong support for the coach's effort to teach life lessons to charges that he overstepped his bounds.
Variety of voice is what makes Ask PCA work! You can scroll down to read PCA's response, but, for now, consider this week's question:
Videotaping Opponents
"At my son's middle-school lacrosse game a couple of weeks ago, I noticed the coach of a team we are scheduled to play later in the season videotaping my son's team and making notes about the players who scored. When I asked the coach what he was doing he just walked away, looking
embarrassed that someone would call him on this. What do you think of videotaping and scouting at this age level?"
-- BL, Sacramento, CA
Click here to comment on this topic on the "Ask PCA" blog.
Following is the previous "Ask PCA" question and PCA's response:
"I am coaching my son's
middle-school basketball team, and we were off to a 6-0 start. Then, to
discipline my son for getting in trouble with a teacher, I benched him
for a game, even though there was no rule that I had to do so, and we
lost that game. Now the other players' parents are upset with me for
costing the team a win. Did I make a mistake? And what do I do now?"
PCA Response by Eric Eisendrath, Lead Trainer-New York
There is no question in my mind that you did the right thing. I applaud your courage to follow
through, when frankly, it would probably have been easier to have chosen a
different course.
At PCA, we believe that teaching life lessons through sports
is the number one responsibility of a coach. Clearly, you were making that
choice when you elected to bench your son. You have helped him to grasp
the importance of respecting others (teachers, coaches, and teammates alike) and to
recognize that there are repercussions to any action.
The parents' reaction is troubling, as they seem to miss the long-term benefit -- for your son and theirs -- of a coach who puts life lessons first. When speaking to
parents at PCA workshops, I encourage them to look at the "big picture" versus the
"little picture" associated with youth sports. Being 7-0 instead of 6-1 in
middle-school basketball is an extremely "little picture" concern.
However, teaching your son (and theirs) respect and accountability is an invaluable
life lesson that will serve well beyond this basketball season!
If parents continue to
question your decision, use this as an opportunity to communicate Double-Goal
values to them. Use "narrated modeling," a PCA tool, to tell
them why you did what you did. Send them an e-mail explaining the
Big Picture-Little Picture as you saw it with your son's behavior.
Encourage them to seek you out to talk with you about it. You've got
their attention now so use the opportunity to dialog with them. Empathizing with them can help ("I know it is hard to lose a game. Believe me, I wanted to win that game, too, but I want my son to grow up to
understand responsibility more. Do you understand why I think that is
more important than winning a game?").
But whatever you do, stand your ground. In our Double-Goal Coach workshop
we state, "It takes moral courage to uphold a positive culture." Your
stance is a great example of that credo!
Read all the Ask PCA blog comments on this question.
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Support PCA
PCA is a non-profit committed to transforming youth sports so that all athletes through high school age can benefit from the life lessons that are uniquely available through sports.
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