Page 12 - Special Edition • Morrow County Fair and Rodeo • Heppner Gazette-Times, Wednesday, August 6, 2008
44
Conceiving a new view of youth activities 11
77»$ article was written by
Brian Meehan o f The Or
egonian. As we approach
fair time let s all try to keep
m prospective what we are
trying to accomplish with
the 4-H program and proj
ects. “Winning ” should
not be the goal. Doing the
very best we can shouId
be the goal. If 4-H mem
bers have worked hard on
their projects all year, doing
well in their classes will
come. Have a great fair and
n
« t« # * n / x l
n
« a «
m
-
• *
good luck to all!
What is the most
daunting challenge in sports?
Coaching an NBA team in
this age of enormous con
tracts and bigger egos might
get a few' votes. Chasing
Lance Armstrong through
the Alps certainly is intimi
dating. But my ballot goes
to the challenge taken on
by Jim Thompson, founder
and executive director of the
Positive Coaching Alliance
at Stanford University.
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Thompson has con
ceived a mountain of a task;
He wants to change the cul
ture of youth sports. Perhaps
when he finishes he will
turn to solving the federal
budget deficit or teaching
Shaquille O'Neal to convert
free throws. “Youth sports
is really about teaching life
lessons, but too often adults
behave like they would
at professional events,”
Thompson said. “It’s this
win-at-all-costs mentality
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a
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that is the enemy.”
Thompson was a
middling athlete growing
up in North Dakota. His
love of sports re-emerged
when he began coaching his
son, Gabriel, 20 years ago
in Northern California. He
read books on coaching but
couldn’t find one that broke
down the intangible aspects,
such as motivation. So he
began work on what would
become his first book, “Posi
tive Coaching.”
“There were too
many parents and coaches
overly focused on winning,”
he said. “They had good
intentions but were doing
exactly the wrong thing.”
Thompson thinks
coaches who motivate by
fear stifle their players' per
formance, chase away kids
and lose opportunities to
use sports as a teaching tool.
“How do you teach char
acter in a classroom?” said
Thompson, 56, who once
taught leadership seminars
at the Stanford Graduate
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School of Business. “It be
comes too abstract. But
youth sports is a totally
underutilized classroom for
teaching kids about life.”
Thompson devel
oped a new coaching mod
el. He calls it the "double
goal coach,” a mentor who
wants to win but is more
focused on developing char
acter in kids. “What is the
best thing a coach can?”
Thompson asks. “A coach
can make it OK for a kid to
make a mistake.”
In 1998, Thom p
son sounded the alliance at
Stanford and began giving
seminars to high schools and
youth sports groups. The
alliance now has more than
400 partnerships nation
wide and presents work
shops to coaches, athletes
and parents. Nike thinks
enough of the alliance to
provide $240,000 in grants
so Thompson can take his
message to urban neighbor
hoods in Ix>s Angeles, New
York and Chicago.
The nonprofit alli
ance has drawn support from
coaches such as Phil Jack-
son, the alliance’s national
spokesman; Dean Smith,
the former North Carolina
men’s basketball coach; and
Herman Edwards, coach
of the New York Jets. De
troit Pistons coach Larry
Brown also is on the advi
sory board. Thompson said
Brown offered to help after
his young son had a bad
experience with a baseball
coach.
A key to Thomp
son's double-goal coaching
model is positive reinforce
ment. Thompson encour
ages coaches to follow the
“magic formula.” which is
five positive comments for
every negative one.
“John Robinson,
the former USC (football)
coach, once said something
that stuck with me,” Thomp-
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