Press Box
MY HIGH SCHOOL baseball career prepared me perfectly for my current profession as a sports reporter. PCA teaches the
power of being positiveI would compare my playing ability to Charlie Brown's, but I wouldn't do Chuck such a disservice since he actually got on the field for most of his games. No, I spent much of those four years on the bench with a pencil and scorebook in my hands instead of a ball and glove. It wasn't such a bad thing, since those stat-keeping skills now earn me a pretty decent wage.
Still, I sometimes wonder how I could have been a better ballplayer. Actual talent would have certainly helped, as well as the ability to hit a curveball.
But perhaps the greatest barrier between me and the field was my paralyzing fear of mistakes. A booted groundball would cause brain lock, which would then lead to another error and then another.
My condition was no fault of our coaches, who showed tremendous patience in keeping me around for four years, and isn't unique among young athletes. Now a movement based out of Stanford University is working to help coaches treat ailments similar to mine.
The 3-year-old Positive Coaching Alliance uses extensive research to develop coaching strategies aimed at making youth sports a more enjoyable experience for all involved while maximizing players' performances.
PCA founder and director Jim Thompson and alliance member Tonya Booker held workshops at Punahou and Iolani schools last month for approximately 150 coaches representing a wide range of sports and age groups. And they found a coaching community hungry to learn how best to nurture young egos.
"There is an interest in the psychological issues as well as the skill issues," said Chip Hammond, who spearheads the local Positive Coaching movement.
THOMPSON'S INSPIRATION for PCA arose from his first job working with emotionally disturbed children. His training focused on positive reinforcement and he applied those concepts to his 20 years as a youth and high school basketball coach.
"I was appalled at how negative everything was," Thompson said of the environment he found at various gyms. "So it was natural for me to use the tools I had been trained in to try to change that."
He has since published two books and started spreading the gospel of positive coaching, which seeks to create "double-goal" coaches who win while developing positive character traits.
The program's philosophy de-emphasizes the "scoreboard definition" of success in favor of a "mastery definition," which entails focusing on effort, learning and the idea that mistakes are OK. The theory is that filling an athlete's "emotional tank" regularly will create a more relaxed and effective player.
Thompson and his cohorts aren't preaching a doctrine of patronizing players with constant praise. Rather they hope to eliminate some of the negativity that causes most youngsters to drop out of sports before high school.
Granted, all of the positive coaching in the world probably wouldn't have turned me into a starter. But perhaps it will save other kids from developing their scorekeeping skills far too soon.
>> For more information, go to http://www.positivecoach.org.
Press Box rotates among the Star-Bulletin sports staff.
Jason Kaneshiro can be reached at jkaneshiro@starbulletin.com