Youth Sports Spotlight

Those who dismiss Positive Coaching as "soft" or "not for elite competitors" should consider Punahou High School, which Sports Illustrated last month named the nation’s best high school sports program, and which yesterday signed on as a PCA Partner.

Positive Coaching Alliance Trainers Ken Smith and Alan Lum, who use Positive Coaching as coaches and teachers at Punahou, earned three of the school’s 16 state titles in the 2007-2008 school year. Says Lum, "Like PCA teaches, it is not the winning, but the culture behind the programs. I have photos of fans at the state tournament holding up signs saying, ‘Honor the Game.’ Our success is due to PCA principles, which are so much a part of our coaching culture that they are printed and sewn on to signs."

Other Punahou coaches bring a Positive Coaching ethic to the "Buff ‘n Blue" (named for the school’s sand-and-sea color scheme), as evidenced in this quotation from Austin Murphy’s Sports Illustrated article. "Buff 'n Blue athletes are taught to savor the journey to a championship more than the triumphant moment itself. ‘If you make winning your be-all, end-all and then you lose, what do you have left?’ asks boys' volleyball coach Rick Tune."

Punahou’s PCA Partnership shows that Positive Coaching Alliance is not just about fun and games. It’s where the best go to get better.

If you're an NBA fan and a Positive Coaching Alliance fan, you love these NBA Finals, matching not only two historic rivals with the most NBA Championships, but also two PCA National Advisory Board Members: Phil Jackson and Doc Rivers. We wish them both the best!

Both incorporate elements of Positive Coaching. But what will prevail? Will it be Phil Jackson's "Sacred Hoops" approach to tribal togetherness, drawn from the Lakota Sioux, or Doc Rivers' take on "ubuntu," which the Celtics chant when breaking huddle in homage to an African concept of unity?

Click on the Comments link below to share your views on the Finals and the lessons for youth sports coaches to be taken from Phil Jackson and Doc Rivers.

Has there ever been a more remarkable month than May for female athletes? The month that started tragically with the death of the filly Eight Belles at the Kentucky Derby could end triumphantly for Danica Patrick at the Indy 500.

In true "Honoring the Game" fashion, Patrick will face the best competition available -- the first full field of top open-wheel racers at Indy in 12 years -- now that rival factions in the sport have ended their rift and paved the way for truly open qualifying. Between the May 3 horse race and Sunday's 700 horsepower race, women's sports this month gave us pause for reflection on greatness with retirement announcements from Annika Sorenstam and Justine Henin.

May also gave us the stunning debut of Candace Parker in the WNBA, and news of Bonnie Richardson, Rochelle High School's only qualifier for the Texas Class 1A track and field championships, who scored enough points to win the team championship, besting the field in the high jump and 200 meters, taking second in the long jump and 100 meters, and third in the discus. Richardson is a true Triple-Impact Competitor, improving herself, her team and her sport.

What inspirational messages do these competitors provide to youth athletes? Click the Comments link below to share your opinions with Youth Sports Nation.

I am a lifelong sports participant and fan - as well as an unapologetic starry-eyed idealist and romantic.  Few things can reduce me to tears as quickly as the display of sacrifice, honor, integrity and humility on the field of play.

To this day I still well-up when I remember in my mind's eye the courage and stamina of the Olympic marathon runner in the '84 LA Olympics as she willed herself to the finish line within a body that was shutting down.  Or when I recall the emotion in the voice of Ben Crenshaw describing the sportsmanship and honesty of a young 10 year old junior golfer who lost a tournament as a result of a two stroke penalty - he called on himself.

Not many young athletes who compete will become professionals.  But all will have opportunities to display whether or not they discovered the life lessons that can only be learned on the field of play.

That's why the events of this past week in a womens' college softball tournament were so powerful.  Mallory Holtman and Liz Wallace of Central Washington carried Sara Tucholsky around the bases after her home run.  A knee injury prevented her from running them herself.

But the amazing thing is, Tucholsky played for the other team - Western Oregon.  That story needs to be told at the beginning of every season so coaches, parents as well as young boys and girls realize what it really means to excel on the playing field.

Some of our country's greatest leaders in business, education and government learned life  lessons as young people playing youth soccer, Pony League or junior golf.  Lessons that still serve them today. PCA is changing the national climate of youth sports so it will have the platform to impress upon our young people today the things that really matter when they take the field.

--Art Noyes, Houston, TX

Tom Farrey asks tough questions…and not just when interviewing Miguel Tejada for the episode of ESPN’s E:60 that aired last night.

Farrey, the two-time Master of Ceremonies for PCA’s National Youth Sports Awards also asks hard questions in his new book, Game On: The All-American Race to make Champions of our Children. 

Among them: How did we get to the point where youth sports performance is more important than participation at even the youngest age levels? And, most importantly, how do we correct that situation?

While we urge you to read Game On, scheduled for release May 6, feel free to consider those questions and leave your answers right here, right now, by clicking on the comments link below.