Source: Positive Coaching Alliance
December 4, 2014, Mountain View, CA – Our nation’s estimated 40 million youth and high school athletes -- plus their parents, coaches and the school and organizational administrators who serve them – have many questions about how to get the most from the youth and high school sports experience. Answers are now available at the Development Zone, a new website from the national non-profit Positive Coaching Alliance (PCA).
Anyone involved in youth and high school sports can find answers to most any question through keyword searches or by browsing all items in a category with a single click. Many answers come from tips and tools delivered in short, impactful videos featuring the top pro and college coaches and athletes on PCA’s National Advisory Board. For example, searching “parent-coach relationship” brings up videos on the topic by NBA Coach Doc Rivers and former NFL Pro Bowl player Joe Ehrmann.
The site also focuses on “hot topics” such as hazing and bullying in sports, and sports concussions and injuries, while still addressing evergreen topics, such as team-building, motivating athletes and character development through sports. Another section links to sport-specific skills-and-drills content from other content providers.
Like all PCA products and services, www.PCADevZone.org offers research-based concepts and practices that help improve athletic performance while creating an environment in which youth learn life lessons that have great value beyond sports. Content in the site comes from leading sports psychologists, educational psychologists, organizational leaders and top athletes and coaches. The site’s video and podcast library alone include:
- Baseball: Dusty Baker, Bruce Bochy, Charlie Maher, Mark Shapiro
- Basketball: Lindsay Gottlieb, Phil Jackson, Steve Kerr, Doc Rivers, Brad Stevens
- Football: Joe Ehrmann, Pat Fitzgerald, Marc Trestman
- Soccer: Brandi Chastain, Julie Foudy, Leslie Osborne, Claudio Reyna, Jerry Smith, Rachel Buehler Van Hollebeke
- Water Polo: Heather Petri, Brenda Villa.
“There is much anguish around youth sports when people confront problems they don't know how to deal with. That is a big part of why I started PCA—to help coaches, parents, athletes and leaders use youth sports to create Better Athletes, Better People," said PCA Founder and CEO Jim Thompson, whose most recent of his nine books is Developing Better Athletes, Better People: A Leader’s Guide to Transforming High School and Youth Sports into A Development Zone. “So much is known about how to get the best out of kids in sports, and how to help them get the most out of those experiences, and our Development Zone website makes that knowledge available to anyone, anytime, anywhere in the world free of charge."
About Positive Coaching Alliance
Positive Coaching Alliance (PCA) is a national non-profit developing “Better Athletes, Better People” through resources that help create a positive, character-building youth and high school sports experience. Founded by Jim Thompson in 1998 within the Stanford University Athletic Department, PCA serves youth and high school sports coaches, parents, administrators and student-athletes through live workshops, online training and books, as well as the PCA Development Zone, offering hundreds of free audio-video and printable resources that help improve youth sports.
In partnership with thousands of schools and local youth sports organizations nationwide, as well as many national youth sports organizations, PCA has conducted more than 13,000 live group workshops and impacted more than 6 million youth. PCA training and resources cultivate:
- The Double-Goal Coach®, who strives to win while also pursuing the more important goal of teaching life lessons through sports
- The Second-Goal Parent®, who concentrates on life lessons, while letting coaches and athletes focus on competing
- The Triple-Impact Competitor®, who strives to impact sport on three levels by improving oneself, teammates and the game as a whole.
PCA gains support from a National Advisory Board, including National Spokesperson and 11-time NBA Champion Coach Phil Jackson, and many other top coaches, athletes, organization leaders and academics who share PCA’s mission.
