The PCA Blog

PCA Partaking in SMU's New Sports Leadership Program Curriculum

03.11.2018

Southern Methodist University launched a new specialization to create better coaches and leaders. Sound familiar? The Positive Coaching Alliance is happy to take part in this new program’s curriculum. The Program Director, Dr. David Bertrand describes, “Southern Methodist University’s Sport Performance Leadership (SPL) program develops sport coaches using best principles from both theory and practice. With a rigorous academic curriculum, experiential learning in the field, and leadership development woven throughout, the SPL program prepares students for a variety of possible sport coaching career paths.”

This program can be taken as a minor/specialization through the Physiology and Wellness or Sports Management program. The introductory class for this program is Coaching and Leadership for Performance. This class dives deeper into coaching strategies and philosophies. As part of their curriculum, the students take the Double-Goal Coach Online Workshops. The workshops center around creating the positive coaching environment through ELM, ROOTS, and other tactics. At the end of the workshop, the student can receive their certificate to display they are a certified Double-Goal Coach. After this course, they concentrate on sports exercise and physiology.

Dr. Bertrand shares, “We are proud to be one of the first sport coaching programs in higher education to partner with the Positive Coaching Alliance. We too share a passion for educating and supporting coaches to provide ‘positive, character-building experiences’ for athletes. Together, we can do more and make a bigger impact. We use PCA content in our SPL curriculum and feel good about connecting students with an organization that can continue to support their professional and personal growth well beyond the college years.“