Way Of Champions Podcast

Did you know only 1 in 5 youth coaches are properly trained in motivational techniques and only 1 and 3 are properly trained in skills and tactics? The big reason for this fact is the myth that volunteers can’t or don’t want to be trained. In this episode, Tom Farrey, of The Aspen Institute’s Project Play, discusses how untrained coaches lead to the decline in youth sport participation, how vital this participation is to the viability of our communities, and some simple opportunities to get more trained coaches. Listen in to hear more from Tom. Bio Tom Farrey leads the Sports & Society Program, whose mission is to convene leaders, facilitate dialogue and inspire solutions that help sport serve the public interest. With the support of the Aspen Institute, he founded the program in 2011 and in April 2013 launched Project Play, a multi-year, multi-stage effort that provides the thought leadership for sport to build healthy communities, starting with universal access to an early positive experience in sports.

What can sport coaches learn from a former British Commando? A better way to deliver content, ensure learning has occurred, and empower players to own their learning process. In this episode, Mark explains how coaches can more effectively shape behaviors, which will lead to better learning outcomes. Bio Mark has been training, coaching & mentoring individuals and teams since the early 90s. He joined the British Army in 1983. Mark passed the world famous Commando course in 1990 and while posted with the British Commandos experienced the stresses of operations during the first Iraq Conflict. While serving with 29 Commando Regiment as the senior instructor, running the Commando Training Wing, Mark was the first person to initiate structural change to the way soldiers were trained for the commando course. His work in this field culminated in the design of the Performance Development Systems; a holistic and robust approach to maximize real world performance for organizations, coaches and athletes. Following se

Fun. It is the biggest reason kids play sports and it is also the reason why they quit. That is widely known. What is not widely known is the fact kids define fun differently than us adults. In fact, they define fun 81 different ways. You'd be surprised at what they consider fun... In this episode, John talks with Amanda Visek, PhD, the world's leading expert on Fun Integration Theory, about the research she has done in discovering what it takes to make sports fun for athletes of all ages. Bio Amanda J. Visek, PhD, CC-AASP is an Associate Professor at The George Washington University, Department of Exercise & Nutrition Sciences, Milken Institute School of Public Health, Washington, D.C. Her federally funded applied research includes the FUN MAPS – the latest sport science advancement capturing attention from local grassroots communities to national sport organizations. The FUN MAPS are the scientific blueprints for the fun integration theory, the first-ever fully conceptual framework for optimizing youth’

"When I was a child, the vast majority of my sporting activities were in playgrounds and sandlots. Now, the majority of youth sports activities are organized and administered by adults …. The biggest problem in organized youth sports is very simple to explain — too many adults who want to compete through children." — Bob Bigelow, CNN Sunday Morning   Bio A standout at University of Pennsylvania under Hall of Fame Coach Chuck Daly, Bob's talent brought him to play for the NBA's Kansas City Kings, Boston Celtics and San Diego Clippers. Since that time, he has conducted hundreds of talks and hosted thousands of clinics around the country to improve how coaches coach kids, and to develop greater skills in young athletes. Bob co-authored the watershed book, Just Let the Kids Play. Bob's key approaches for a better sports experience for children: Design sports programs that meet children's needs, not adults'. Ensure that every child gets meaningful playing time, up until varsity sports. Make sure that coaches and

Brett Fischer used to see Tommy John’s surgery in 25 to 28 year old athletes. Now he is seeing it in 13 year olds. What has happened to simple joy of the game and playing for fun when we push our athletes so hard they need surgeries at half the age they used to need them? Listen to Brett explain to John what is lacking in youth sports performance, how parents can help young athletes remain healthy and play longer, and how to make it fun and still get the work you need from even the highest-level athletes. Bio Brett is a Licensed Physical Therapist, Certified Athletic Trainer, Certified Strength and Conditioning Specialist and a Certified Dry Needling provider. He has worked with the University of Florida, New York Jets, PGA & Senior PGA TOUR and the Chicago Cubs. He has served as a consultant with the San Francisco Giants and Los Angeles Dodgers and currently provides sports performance training and rehab to MLB, NFL,NBA,NHL and world ranked tennis players. Brett is also currently the staff Physical Thera

Has your child experienced bullying in sport? This episode is the tough conversation none of us like to have but we must in order to protect our children. Author and anti-bullying expert, Jen Fraser, shares her own experiences with John and outlines a new kind of sport paradigm that could end bullying. Listen in to find out how to recognize bullying, address it, and protect your children.BioAuthor and teacher, Jennifer Fraser has a PhD in Comparative Literature from the University of Toronto. Her written work ranges from academic studies to plays and novels and she has taught for over twenty years at the university, college and high-school levels. A passionate educator, her new book Teaching Bullies: Zero Tolerance on the Court or in the Classroom explores what happens when the bully is a teacher or coach. Anti-bullying author and advocate, Barbara Coloroso has said “Fraser’s focus on teachers and coaches is a new and important contribution to the field.” Show Notes8:30 Do some of the school sport eligibilit

Would you be willing to trade 10 minutes at the start of practice in order to shorten training by an hour and increase your team’s learning and development? Many coaches struggle to keep practices short and on task and fear giving up any time to activities like mindfulness training. What Dr. Lynch has discovered, the last few decades working with some of the top collegiate and professional teams, is that mindfulness rituals actually shorten training time and increase performance. If this is being done by the very best, it can be a weapon for any team. Listen in on Dr. Jerry and John as they discuss the miracle of being mindful in sports and creating an investment season for your athletes to better prepare for the regular season. Bio Dr. Lynch has been recognized as one of the top five in his profession nationwide. He has worked with men's and women's basketball, lacrosse, soccer, tennis, golf and other sports at the universities of North Carolina, Duke, Maryland, California, Syracuse, Stanford, Harvard and M

Is the way we coach based upon the latest science, research, and best practices of how children learn? Or is it based upon how we were coached growing up? In this fantastic interview, Dr. Richard Bailey, Head of Research at ICSSPE, separates fact from fiction and discusses some of the common mistakes that he sees coaches of all levels making around the world. He sheds light on what is missing in the coaching profession and the prevailing myths that cause us to approach athletic coaching in the wrong way. He talks about the need for coaching to rely on real science more than it currently does, the fallacy of coach training at the macro level, and what it would take to become a more professional field. He also digs into his research about the dangers of overpraised athletes and the big difference between leaning and training. Hint: it is not about drilling skills, it is about presenting problems. Tune in to hear this smart, humorous, and hard hitting conversation with one of sport’s foremost experts. Bio Richar

What would your team look like if you let them shape and drive the culture, and if you loved them first as people before you ever tried to be coach? Would they be more like the bad news bears instead of Barcelona? If you said the bad news bears, you are dead wrong. In this entertaining and thought provoking interview with Tom Bates, we discover that the world’s greatest teams believe in love, connectedness and the human component as the most important factors in building great cultures and winning teams. Tune in to hear Tom’s fascinating stories from some of the world’s most well-known managers and teams and his own beliefs about what makes a great coach, how to build a great culture, and where the future of sport is headed. Bio Tom Bates is Performance Psychology coach and consultant at West Bromwich Albion FC. Over the last ten years he has worked with youth and senior domestic international athletes, coaches, managers and teams helping them to perform under pressure and be at their best when it matters th

“...and it may mean you may never win.” What if one of the best basketball coaches in the world told you that doing what you think is best for the culture and the program is more important than winning an NCAA title? Would you be willing to let go of the fallacy of winning for creating a culture that matters? This is exactly what Roy Williams told Jenny Levy in 2012. Jenny took what Roy told her to heart and changed her focus from chasing championships to a culture of connection. Two NCAA Championships later, Jenny my have discovered the real “Way of Champions”. Listen in to hear her amazing story and the lessons she learned from some of the greatest coaches of our time. Bio Jenny Levy is third in NCAA Division I history in career wins, a two-time national champion and a two-time National Coach of the Year. She enters 2018 with a career record of 312-109, including 66-30 in ACC play, in 22 seasons. She has led the Tar Heels to nine appearances in the NCAA Tournament semifinals, including six in the last nine

Neurosurgeons say if they practiced the way they did 18 months ago, they’d be sued for malpractice. Heart surgeons believe if they practiced the way they did 5 years ago, they’d be sued for malpractice. Yet, in youth sport coaching we still practice the way we did when we were kids. John Kessel believes we should all be sued for malpractice because we have not evolved the game to meet the times. Do you agree? Listen in on this thought provoking, information packed podcast as John shares an amazing amount of knowledge and has myriad quotable quotes in a short hour long podcast. Get your notebook out for this one! Bio Since 1985 John has been working for the National Governing Body of the sport, USA Volleyball (USAV), now as Director of Sport Development. He currently serves as the staff liaison for Disabled Programs, USA Deaflympic Teams, Starlings USA, National Parks and Recreation Assoc., the YMCA and over 30 other Affiliated Organizations working with USAV. He is Secretary of the NORCECA Technical and Coach

If an athlete’s inner dialogue is made up of the voices they hear most often and most intensely in their daily lives, what are we as parents and coaches saying that can form a champion’s mind? Join us as we talk to Two-time Iowa High School State Basketball Championship winning coach, Nate Sanderson, to discuss how better engagement with parents leads to on court success and off course success for players. He will share how he engages the parents, how important it is to implant a championship dialogue in players, and how the power of positivity won a State Championship. Bio In the summer of 2017, Nate became the varsity girls basketball coach at Linn-Mar High School in Marion, Iowa. Prior to that he built one of the top basketball programs in the state at Springville High School. During his tenure at Springville his teams had a record of 112-59 (.665) including 74-7 during his last three seasons. Springville won back-to-back state titles in 2016 & 2017 and was state runner-up in 2015. Nate is also the Dir

What if there was a single component you could add to your coaching that would get total commitment from your players, create better relationships with your parents, and possibly help you win more games? Jim Thompson shares this component and more in the newest Way of Champions Podcast. He also discusses the knowledge, strategies, and advice he has learned from some of the world’s greatest coaches in his 20 year journey of “Developing Better Athletes, Better People”. Listen in to hear more. Bio Jim Thompson, founder and CEO of Positive Coaching Alliance, started PCA in 1998 to transform the culture of youth sports into a Development Zone™ with the goal to develop Better Athletes, Better People. PCA’s vision of youth sports as a Development Zone has attracted the support and involvement of many elite coaches, athletes, academics and business leaders in this country. Jim received an MBA from Stanford where he was Director of the Public Management Program, named during his tenure as the nation's top non-profit

What do the Collingwood Magpies, the New Zealand All Blacks, Barcelona Football Club and the New York Yankees have in common? They’re all members of author Sam Walker’s list of the 16 greatest sports teams ever. It’s not the talent, the coach, or the strategy that made these teams great - it was the Captain. Syd Coventry, Richie McCaw, Yogi Bera, and Carles Puyol led these teams to eternal greatness, and what made them great captains is not what you think… Sam Walker is The Wall Street Journal’s deputy editor for enterprise, the unit that directs the paper’s in-depth page-one features and investigative reporting projects. A former reporter, sports columnist, and sports editor, Walker founded the Journal’s prizewinning daily sports coverage in 2009. In addition to The Captain Class, he is the author of Fantasyland, a bestselling account of his attempt to win America’s top fantasy baseball expert competition (of which he is a two-time champion). Subscribe to the Way of Champions Podcast on iTunes Show Notes 9:0

Ryan Holiday is a strategist, speaker, and best-selling author. He dropped out of college at nineteen to apprentice under Robert Greene, author of The 48 Laws of Power, and later served as the director of marketing for American Apparel. His company, Brass Check, has advised clients like Google, TASER, and Complex, as well as many prominent bestselling authors. Holiday has written five books including Ego is the Enemy, The Obstacle is the Way, and Trust Me I’m Lying. His most recent, The Obstacle Is the Way, has been translated into seventeen languages and has a cult following among NFL coaches, world-class athletes, TV personalities, political leaders, and others around the world. He lives on a small ranch outside Austin, Texas. Subscribe to the Way of Champions Podcast on iTunes Show Notes 6:15 What inspired Ryan to write The Obstacle is the Way? 10:45 Do we incorrectly define adversity in the US? 17:45 Athletes naturally face adversity, Coaches don’t need to create it 21:45 Your job is to keep athletes on t

Lynn has over 45 years of experience in youth, high school, collegiate, and professional sports. Lynn was an All-American water polo player and swimmer at Slippery Rock University where she received her BS and MS Degrees in Physiology and Education. She was a 12-year member of the United States National Water Polo team, and then served on their Executive Committee. Throughout an 18 year career at Bucknell University, Lynn held various coaching positions, including serving a decade as the head coach for the Men’s and Women’s Water Polo and Swim teams. Lynn served as the Athletic Director at Saint Mary’s College for 10 years, and moved on to become the Vice President and General Manager of the South Bend Silver Hawks Minor League Baseball Team. Most recently, Lynn served as the National Outreach Director for Play Like a Champion Today. Under her guidance, the program was transformed from a small organization focused on educating Catholic youth coaches and parents into one of the top educational programs serving

Stuart Armstrong is the Head of Coaching for Sport England. Prior to Sport England, he was the Player Development Manager for the Rugby Football Union. He is one of the world’s top experts on player development pathways and skill acquisition, and has helped thousands of coaches in the UK create better learning environments and develop deeper relationships with their players. His sports coaching experience is in golf, cricket, field hockey, rugby, and soccer. He leverages the knowledge gained from the various sports he has coached to help create multi-sport, player-focused training programs that assist athletes in not only developing sold skill foundations but great off-field skills to help them succeed in life. Show Notes 7:30 Stu’s push to create a more diverse coaching force 9:30 What’s working in the UK for coaching diversification? Change the definition 15:15 We need to support coaches “where they are coaching” 21:30 There is no magic practice 24:00 Biggest mistake coaches are making - Joystick Coaching 2

Julie Foudy is a two-time FIFA Women's World Cup champion and Olympic gold medalist. She played for the United States women's national soccer team from 1987–2004. Foudy finished her international career with 271 caps and served as the team's captain from 2000–2004 as well as the co-captain from 1991–2000. In 1997, she was the first American and first woman to receive the FIFA Fair Play Award.   From 2000–2002, Foudy served as president of the Women’s Sports Foundation. In 2006, she co-founded the Julie Foudy Sports Leadership Academy, an organization focused on developing leadership skills in teenage girls. In 2007, she was inducted into the National Soccer Hall of Fame with her teammate, Mia Hamm. She is currently an analyst, reporter and the primary color commentator for women's soccer telecasts on ESPN.Foudy is the author of Choose to Matter: Being Courageously and Fabulously YOU and appeared in the HBO documentary Dare to Dream: The Story of the U.S. Women's Soccer Team.   Subscribe to the Way of Champio

As co-creator of social enterprise 'myfastestmile' and with a role in the UK Olympic sport system, much of Mark's work revolves around understanding learning & expert performance in order to facilitate the development of sport participants, coaches and leaders. He is passionate about creating dynamic environments for people at all levels of sport to be their best, blending his own and others experiential knowledge of sport with principles from the emerging field of Complexity Science. Prior to arriving in the UK early in 2014, Mark spent 12 years working with a professional Australian Rules Football club in his home town of Adelaide in South Australia. Subscribe to the Way of Champions Podcast on iTunes Finding Mark Website - www.myfastestmile.com Twitter - @Uppy01 Show Notes 6:15 Does the general coaching practice lag 20 years behind the research? 9:45 On patience as a virtue when instituting something new in your coaching. 11:30 Random training versus blocked training sessions. Which works best? 16:45 D

Author of Women in Sports Coaching, Nicole M. LaVoi, Ph.D. is a Senior Lecturer in the area of social and behavioral sciences in the School of Kinesiology at the University of Minnesota where she is also the Co-Director of the Tucker Center for Research on Girls & Women in Sport, and the co-founder of the Minnesota Youth Sport Research Consortium. She received MA (’96) and doctoral degrees (’02) in Kinesiology with an emphasis in sport psychology/sociology from the University of Minnesota. After completing her graduate work, Dr. LaVoi was a Research & Program Associate in the Mendelson Center for Sport & Character at the University of Notre Dame (2002-‘05) where she helped launch the Play Like a Champion character education through sport series, and was also an instructor in the Psychology Department. LaVoi was an Assistant Professor of Physical Education and the Head Women’s Tennis Coach at Wellesley College (1994-’98), and the Assistant Women’s Tennis Coach at Carleton College (1991-’93). Show