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PCA Updates

David Klein's End-of-Season Parent-Player Meeting

06.12.2018

David Klein founded Menlo Park Legends Baseball and Legends Village, a 501(c)(3) organization designed to teach life lessons through baseball, and recently won Positive Coaching Alliance’s coveted National Double-Goal Coach® Award presented by TeamSnap for his positive impact on youth in sports.

With the focus on the whole person, Klein runs his program with a very holistic approach. He works with the players on not only their baseball skills, but on diet, meditating and visualization, personal goals and journaling. “I like to think I’m a forward thinker and I’m always looking up research... to find ways to better serve my players. Klein is a believer in Carol Dweck’s Growth Mindset concept and shares with his players that “you can change your life, change your game, improve relationships, improve your grades with focus and determination.” He finds that once he can demonstrate this improvement to the players it snowballs from there and they get more motivated.

Klein's latest season with Legends recently came to a close. Only moments after the season ended, Coach Klein sent out an email inviting each player and his parents to an individual 20-minute meeting to talk about the season. 


Here are a parent's remarks on that meeting, which speak to why David was honored as a Double-Goal Coach® Award winner this past April:

  • "I love that it happened in the first place. So great to offer specific feedback, and to solicit feedback from the player."
  • "He required that my son do most of the talking….not David, and not us parents. Great practice of critical life skills – introspection and ability to speak to adults."
  • "He focused on the goals that the player wrote at the beginning of the season (a requirement of team membership) and asked my son to grade himself on each goal. This keeps the kid honest and (one hopes) makes him feel good for the progress he made."
  • "He developed a list of three things that my son could work on during the off-season. They were specific, useful, and realistic, and got my son excited to work on them. THAT is positive coaching!"

Coach Klein was action-oriented, and truthful and specific both in his praise and plans for the future. Coach Klein's end-of-season meeting was a win because the player led the conversation, yet included parents to make them feel part of the process and on the same team.