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PCA Connector
April 12, 2011
David Jacobson, Editor |
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Why Shane Battier Is Excited About
Jim Thompson's Latest Book
 "I'm excited about Jim Thompson's Elevating Your Game because the athletes I most admire...are Triple-Impact Competitors," says Memphis Grizzlies star Shane Battier in the book's foreword.
Triple-Impact Competitors elevate the game by making themselves, their teammates and the game better by how they compete.
Battier: "(My dad) taught me the importance of the next play. If you make an unbelievable move, you cross the guy over and make him fall, and dunk the basketball and get fouled and the crowd's going crazy, what do you do? Do you beat your chest and point to your girlfriend in the crowd and make a scene? No. You make the free throw, get back on defense, and try to do it again.
"If you fall down and your guy scores and the crowd is laughing at you, do you sit there and pout? No. You pick yourself back up, dust off your shorts, and say, 'That's not going to happen again. I'm going to stop him next time.' "
Jim Thompson is also pretty pumped: "I had lots of help with this book. Our trainers and partners gave me advice, and the high school members of PCA's National Student-Athlete Advisory Board were extremely helpful with their comments. Basically, this 90-page book contains the information we all wish we knew when we were high school athletes."
 Let's give Shane Battier the last word: "Elevating Your Game has great ideas and exercises to help you become a better player -- but more important, a better person who will help make this society better. Our country needs Triple-Impact Competitors, who make themselves, their teammates, and the game better, now more than ever. That's why Elevating Your Game is such an important book."
Purchase Elevating Your Game.
Read Shane Battier's foreword.
Help us make the Triple-Impact CompetitorTM the standard for high school sports! Share Elevating Your Game with high school athletic directors, coaches, parents and athletes you know.
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PCA In The News
PCA enjoyed an exceptional amount of media coverage since our last issue of PCA Connector, much of it around last week's 10th Annual National Youth Sports Awards Dinner and Auction Sponsored by Deloitte.
Balboa High Teacher Wins Coaching Award
By Laura Colgan, San Francisco Examiner
Coverage of Rocio Ramirez, one of the winners of PCA's Double-Goal Coach� Award Presented by Liberty Mutual Insurance
Menlo-Atherton Little League Coaches Bob Crowe and Doug Kaufman Win Positive Coaching Alliance Award
By Linda Hubbard Gulker, InMenlo
Giants Manager Gets Lifetime Achievement Award
NBC Bay Area coverage of Bruce Bochy winning PCA's Ronald L. Jensen Award for Lifetime Achievement
Bochy Gets Top Award from Youth Coaching Group
By Chris Haft, MLB.com
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At the 2011 National Youth Sports Awards Dinner and Auction Sponsored by Deloitte (L. to R) PCA Founder and Executive Director Jim Thompson; Bob Crowe and Paul Kunzel, winners of Double-Goal Coach Awards Presented by Liberty Mutual Insurance; Deloitte's Mark Edmunds; San Francisco Giants Manager Bruce Bochy; Double-Goal Coach Award Winners Rocio Ramirez, Patrick Mulligan and Doug Kaufman; and Deloitte's Larry Varellas. PCA will bring you more media coverage of the National Youth Sports Awards program as recordings and rights become available.
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New Issue of Momentum Now Online
 PCA has recast its Momentum newsletter as a 2010 Year In Review, which made its debut at last week's 10th Annual National Youth Sports Awards Dinner and Auction Sponsored by Deloitte. Headlines include:
New Online Coach, Parent and Athlete Courses a Huge Hit
AAU Mandates Double-Goal Coach Training for All 50,000 Coaches
PCA Trains 45,000 Coaches and Officials for Texas Schools
Full-Scale Chicago Office Launched
Triple-Impact Competitor Scholarship Program Expands
"For PCA, 2010 was an amazing year," said PCA Founder Jim Thompson. "Recapping the major events of last year reminds me once again how fortunate we are to have such supportive donors and corporate allies who are expanding their role in the PCA Movement!"
Click here for Momentum: 2010 Year In Review.
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Ask PCA: MVP Awards for 6th-Graders?
Thanks for your answers to our most recent "Ask PCA" question about Honoring the Game when an opponent does not. To review that question and PCA's answer, you can continue scrolling through this item, but for now, consider this week's question:
MVP Awards for 6th-Graders?
"Coaching 6th-grade basketball, my assistants and I are trying to decide whether to name a team MVP at our end-of-season banquet. Any advice?"
-- Name Withheld By Request
Following is the previous "Ask PCA" question and PCA response:
"In our indoor soccer league (multi-town - so no guarantee of program consistency), we played an opponent that wasn't honoring the game. One of their players frequently fouled our players, trying to elicit a response and 'trash talking.' One of our team parents asked, 'How can we respect an opponent that doesn't respect us, the rules, or the officials?' I was hard pressed to answer. Any advice on how to handle?"
PCA Response by Joe Scally, PCA Trainer, Chicago
 When an opponent does not Honor the Game, it takes moral courage for your players to do so, anyway. Players demonstrate this moral courage by staying true to themselves, playing hard, and showing respect...even for the player who is trash talking. When players show self-respect by rising above the situation, they have an Honoring the Game experience that will be of value to them in many areas of their lives.
We show respect first and foremost because it is the right thing to do. Showing respect also helps us become better as people and as competitors. Your opponent was trying to throw your players off their game. Coaching them to follow the rules and respect the officials helped your players stay focused, an important skill for any athlete to develop.
I asked my daughter, who plays college soccer, about your question. She has developed a mindset for dealing with opponents who foul and trash-talk, telling herself that her opponent must be doing this because the opponent doesn't feel she can outplay my daughter. This motivates my daughter to work harder within the rules to show that she is the better player that day. My daughter's mindset helps her focus on the game and avoid being sucked into the trash-talking and fouling mode, which would keep her away from playing her best.
Prepare your players during practice for provocative opponents. Have a team discussion where individual players share ways that they stay focused. Praise any player who maintains focus despite being fouled. Ask players to role play trash talking in the controlled setting of practice to immunize other players against this tactic.
Then talk to the team about what they experienced. Give your players tips on maintaining self-control by doing things like walking away, focusing on winning the next 50-50 ball, and reminding teammates to stay cool. Devoting time to these things helps you develop a culture where players understand that Honoring the Game is just the right thing to do. Tell parents what you are teaching and why it is important. This will help everyone involved to model good behavior and support the players in becoming better competitors.
Finally, you can remind your team how a World Cup championship outcome might have been different if Zinedine Zidane had ignored some trash talking!
(PCA Trainer Joe Scally is a longtime soccer coach based in the Chicago area. Joe spent several years as PCA's national director of training.)
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Responsible Sports Coaching Tip: Dealing With Losing
A great challenge that all coaches must face is how to help their athletes cope with losing. It's never easy, but there are some specific steps to take that can put a loss in perspective, teach life lessons and keep athletes on track to come back even stronger for the next competition.
Click the video screen above to learn the approach taken by former U.S. Olympic Wrestling Coach Bruce Burnett as part of the Liberty Mutual Responsible Sports Program Powered by Positive Coaching Alliance.
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