The Passing of Senator Ted Kennedy

With the passing of Senator Kennedy after a year-long battle with brain cancer, the United States lost one of the most revered and influential Senators of our time. Having served almost 50 years in the Senate, he will be remembered for his legislative contributions to civil rights, economic justice, and to the ongoing struggle for healthcare reform. He was the driving force behind Title IX, which dramatically increased girls’ and women’s participation on all levels of sports. The Kennedy family was known for their spirited touch football games. Ted Kennedy may well have been the best player of them all. A tight end at Harvard, Senator Kennedy passed up a chance to try out for the Packers in order to go to Law School. At a time in country when political debate often degenerates into angry shouting, we would do well to remember Senator Kennedy’s gift for working across the aisle to advance the common good. We can do no better to say of Senator Kennedy what he said at the passing of his brother, Bobby, “He saw wrong and tried to right it, saw suffering and tried to heal it, saw war and tried to stop it.” Hopefully when we pass, others can say that about us.

Little League World Series on ESPN

ABC, ESPN, and ESPN2 are currently airing the Little League World Series. Broadcasts began in 1963 with the final championship game, but this year 32 games will be aired showcasing teams from Staten Island, NY, Mercer Island, WA, Latin America, Mexico Asia-Pacific, Germany, and Japan just to name a few.

• Is this good or bad news for youth sports?


• What do children think about seeing their peers (11 to 13 years old) on television?


• If you have been watching, do the children look like they are having fun or feeling the pressure?


• How are the coaches behaving?


• Do they look like they are coaching kids or major leaguers?

Play Like A Champion Today wants to know what you think! Post your comments below and we will offer our own thoughts in response.

Celebrating Women's Equality: What About Sports?

August 26 is Women's Equality Day. On that day in 1920 the 19th Amendment to the Constitution was passed giving women the right to vote. Suffrage was a giant step toward equality in the United States, but just a step. The struggle for women’s equality continues today.

We can learn a great deal about gender equity and inequity in our society by taking a careful look at women’s sports. My Dad helped to start a C.Y.O. basketball program for girls as well as boys in our parish grade school in the late 1950s. We both played by the boys’ rules -- full-court. Yet the women’s game did not officially change to full-court until 1971. Women were competing in marathons all over the world, but the women’s marathon only became an Olympic sport in 1984.

The feminist movement and Title IX changed broke many of the barriers to women’s participation in sports. In 1972, at the time Title IX was passed, girls accounted for only seven percent of high school athletes. Today girls account for over 40%. In youth sport, the numbers are even more impressive. Today girls and boys between the ages of six and nine say that they are equally interested in sports. In the early elementary school years seventy-five percent of boys and sixty-nine percent of girls are actively involved in at least one sport. Yet as girls get older, their opportunities to participate decline more precipitously than boys’. The problem is worse in the cities with only 59% of the girls reporting they are involved in a sport compared to 80% of the boys. Some of barriers to girls’ participation are financial; others are structural and cultural. Urban programs’ typically run on scarce resources. Fears about safety as well as outmoded gender stereotypes contribute to an environment that prevents girls from experiencing same the physical and psychological benefits of sports participation as boys.

Shockingly, higher participation rates for female athletes have not translated into greater numbers of women in coaching. Before Title IX , over 90% of the coaches of collegiate women’s teams were women. Now that percentage is 42%, and it is still declining. In 1997 when the WNBA started, seven of its eight head coaches were women. The WNBA added five more teams but now only four headed coaches are women.

Girls deserve the best coaching that we can give them. Qualified males should not be discouraged from coaching women’s sports. Yet qualified women should not be discouraged from coaching men’s sports. Why aren’t we seeing more women coaching men’s sports? Why has the percentage (below two percent) remained constant when the percentage of women has been rising in other professions? The reasons aren’t too hard to find. Athletic Departments have been and continue to be largely made up of men and influenced by “old boy” attitudes, networks, and work structures. Moreover, too many of us view sports as an arena where “masculine” qualities are needed for competitive success.

Among Play Like A Champion Today’s ™ youth sport partners, male coaches outnumber females over three to one. In a revealing study of gender and youth sport coaching, Mike Messner reports an even smaller percentage of female coaches in the Pasedena area. That percentage declines as children get older youth sports programs are viewed as more competitive. Using interview and observational data, Messner argues persuasively that youth sport coaching “remains a highly sex-segregated activity” with little or no change in sight.

As we commemorate the progress we have made toward women’s equality in our country, we need to take a more critical look at sport organizations at all levels. Let’s invite qualified women to coach boys’ as well as girls’ sports at all competitive levels, and let’s make sure that we create and sustain a welcoming atmosphere for them. Let’s get more women involved in athletic administration and in high school and college coaching. Let’s reach out to girls and young women who are denied the opportunity to play sports because of where they are growing up or because their families are poor. Finally let’s set goals for the equality we would like to see in sports and begin to address the barriers we have all too long ignored. As a first step, I strongly recommend that sports leaders at all levels read the 2007 Tucker Center Research Report: Developing Physically Active Girls, which was co-edited by Nicole LaVoi, the Associate Director of the University of Minnesota’s Tucker Center for Research on Girls and Women in sport and a former research associate at Play Like a Champion Today™.

Clark Power Appears on Local NBC Broadcast

Play Like A Champion Today Program Director Clark Power recently appeared on WNDU's news spotlight titled "Focus on Faith." To view this interview visit the WNDU website or click on the video link below:

Focus on Faith: ND's Play Like A Champion Today program

Thank You Wives and Husbands

Coaches sacrifice an enormous amount of time to their sports and players. Their greatest sacrifice is their time away from their wives, husbands, and kids. A recent article in the Knoxville News Sentinal shared with us by Doug Abrams, "You can't coach dedication: Wives learn how to cope with challenging life" by Jesse Smithey, features a number of head football coaches' wives. The story clearly depicts the great dedication that both husband and wife share for each other during and in between seasons.

So what are some words to describe these wives? "Great Multi-taskers," "supportive crutch," or as Brad Taylor so nicely put it, "My wife is Superwoman." Thanks to these women, the football coaches all across Tennessee and the United States are able to make a difference in the lives of young people. Don't forget this fall when your under the friday night lights that behind those coaches sit women who have made great sacrifices for those men to be there.

Wives and husbands of coaches in all sports...thank you for your dedication, sacrifice, and love!

Building Team Relationships Overnight

The Play Like A Champion Today™ GROW approach helps coaches to understand that developing Relationships on their team is integral to building a successful team environment. Building relationships develops team unity and cohesion. According to the PLC Coach Manual (p.25), cohesion defined by Carron is a “dynamic process which is reflected in the tendency for a group to stick together and remain united in the pursuit of its goals and objectives. High levels of group cohesion affect team stability, performance, and athlete satisfaction.”

Recently, I had the opportunity as a sport parent to aid my daughter’s athletic team in building relationships. We hosted the high school cheerleading team at our home for an overnight team bonding experience. The evening was characterized by a shared experience which began with every team member contributing to the menu for the evening (from subs to cookies to lemonade). The captains set the tone by opening the evening’s activities with a team bonding round robin question and answer session of “What are your favorites?” (such as “What is your favorite stunt? What is your least favorite subject in school? What is the scariest movie you have seen? What do you want to do for a career?) Team mates became more acquainted with each other as individuals with likes and dislikes. Amidst the giggles, many found that they shared similar feelings and beliefs, beyond their common love for the sport of cheerleading. The evening went on to include swimming, a bonfire with s’mores, competitive games with girls rooting for each other and a late night movie ending with athletes all in sleeping bags throughout the family room floor with their coach in the middle (maintaining a watchful eye). The sleepy team reluctantly was roused the next morning to pile into cars and head to an 8am practice. Although tired, the practice felt different to the young women who had shared a common team-bonding experience and who knew each other at a deeper, more personal level. Team cohesiveness was built and team stability was cemented.

I encourage all coaches to create such a team bonding opportunity for their athletes to build their team’s cohesion and develop Relationships on their team. I encourage parents who are in a position to support and enable this process to become a resource to their child’s coach in this regard. I encourage athletes to open their hearts to this opportunity to become a stronger, more cohesive team. The result: a forever memory of a shared team experience.

- Kristin Sheehan, PLC Associate Director

PLC Recertification Course Opens Early

In order to accommodate coaches who would like to renew their certification before the fall sports season, PLC and STEP have opened the August-October early.

The course is being offered in partnership with the Satellite Theological Education Program (STEP). STEP is an outreach program at the University of Note Dame that offers quality theological education to pastoral ministers and adults Catholics through online courses.

To sign-up for the course complete the following steps:
1. Go the PLC Recertification page: www.playlikeachampion.org/recertification.html and click on the link “Click here to register for the course.”

2. Create your login information by clicking on the link in the red paragraph at the bottom of the page. Complete the necessary information and press submit.

3. Return to the registration page to register for the course. Choose the course section dates (August 31 - October 9, 2009) in which you would like to participate and press submit.

Pro Football Hall of Fame Speeches

If you didn’t watch the enshrinement for the Pro Football Hall of Fame this weekend, then it is worthy taking a look. Notice how each of the 2009 inductees credit the important people in their lives who have made an impact. So many of them look to their youth and high school sport coaches as inspiration and many think of their parents as the greatest inspiration. Here are some highlights:

Rod Woodson, a native of Fort Wayne, Indiana, credited his coaches Dave Brodie, Jim Russo, Mike Holly and Jim Vernel who worked with him as a youth and in high school.

He gave a great description of the Body of Christ:
“You know, I stand up here in front of you as an individual. But nothing alone has ever been done good. Or excuse me, nothing great has ever been done alone. An English clergyman once said, no man is an island entire of itself. Every man is a piece of a continent. A part of the main. What he's talking about, he's talking about the body of Christ working together. But also what he's talking about is that we're all a part of a team in some capacity throughout our lives. We are all a piece of the puzzle. We are not the puzzle itself. When we realize that, we're better people.”

Highlights to Rod Woodson’s Enshrinement Speech

Randall McDaniel, who is now in his second career as an elementary school teacher looked to Mr. O. K. Fulton, his high school coach, to thank him for his inspiration. But most importantly, he credits his parents as his “real heroes.”

Highlights to Randall McDaniel’s Speech


Bruce Smith pointed to the lessons he learned from his parents, whose commitment and strong work ethic inspired him to become the man that he is today.

Highlights to Bruce Smith’s Speech


As a coach or parent, do not underestimate the impact you can have on your kids. Hall of Fame athletes are never inducted on sheer skill or talent. They receive their recognition thanks to the great influence of the people who have taught them some of the hardest lessons and molded them into men and women of character.

What is your coaching legacy?

How do you want to be remembered as a coach? What kind of impact do you want to make on your players? What is your coaching legacy? These are quesitons always worth asking yourself. It doesn't matter what level you coach, you never know the impact you can have on your players.

Some may even be future coaches themselves. In an article in the Rockland Standard Tom Grady, Braintree High School softball coach, remembers the coaches who made an impact on his life:

“I guess the first was Bob Lee, he was my CYO coach at Sacred Heart parish in Roslindale,” said Grandy.

Another coach who he admired was his high school basketball coach at Catholic Memorial High School in West Roxbury, Ronnie Perry. “He was inspiring and he taught us how to win,” remembers Grandy, who went on to a business career instead of one in education.

Sean Kiely, who retired after 23 years of coaching soccer at Hamilton Catholic high school left a long-lasting legacy according to the TheSpec.com. Co-coach John Ivanic said:

"I was crushed," said Crusaders' co-coach John Ivanic. "I've worked with him for eight years. He has been an inspiration to me. He's taught me a lot about being a good human being and a coach."

Take some time, today, to reflect on the coach or coaches that have made an impact on your life. What was thier legacy? How can you do the same for others?