By KLAS STOLPE
Sentinel Staff Writer
Sitka High School activities coaches, directors, athletes and parents will be receiving some specialized training on building their programs by character and leadership.
Sitka Athletic Director Rich Krupa said the clinic was scheduled last spring.
“We recognized the turnover in the AD position and the desire for some outside perspective on how to make things more sustainable,” Krupa said. “In addition there was a realization that we continue to hire a majority of coaches who are not teachers and therefore don’t have access to all the training the district is doing to focus on social and emotional learning. We wanted to invest in our coaches and help build their skill set for this area that our board has decided is critical to student success.”
Sitka High School cross country coaches Shasta Smith and Jeremy Strong talk to their athletes before the Region V championships last weekend in Juneau. (Sentinel Photo by Klas Stolpe)
Taught by ProActive Coaching, a group of former coaches, athletic directors and athletic administrators who travel the country and work with coaches on building programs based on character and leadership, the classes begin on Monday.
“We kind of started this 15 years ago,” motivational speaker Rob Miller said. “I think people are looking for leadership development and cultural development.”
Miller said his group speaks more than 130 days a year at high schools and colleges across the country and have been to Alaska before, mostly in the Anchorage area.
He has a bachelor’s degree in social, exercise and sports science and a master’s in athletic administration, has coached both boys and girls high school track and men’s college basketball. He is currently commissioner of the Wolverine Hoosier Athletic Conference and has served as executive director of the National Christian College Athletic Association.
“I think training coaches is huge,” Miller said. “Nationally I think the focus has been so much on tactical schemes that we have forgotten the educational part of athletics, and that’s part of this process. How do you build culture and make the right decisions to reach potential and develop them into leaders. I think one of the things you hear all the time is we don’t have leadership anymore.”
“I think we have created culture barriers in our culture that have hurt leadership,” he said. “We don’t give the kids the same opportunities.”
Miller noted that when he was a young athlete, he and his buddies played in back yards and playgrounds.
“Organizing ourselves, leading ourselves and managing ourselves,” he said. “Today everything is adult controlled. So we are trying to develop those ways to develop leaders.”
Monday’s class (6-8:30 p.m.) in the Sitka High library is for coaches, and all coaches who are involved with youth sports are invited. The class emphasizes the “Impact of Trust,” showing that when athletes trust their coaches and when teams trust each other it has an impact on performance.
“You can’t really change kids or work with athletes until you gain their trust,” he said. “You better be professionally prepared, personally care and have purposeful character.”
Miller noted when trust is present teams have a much better chance of reaching potential.”
The class also examines the power of words.
“That’s how we teach a character skill,” Miller said. “We can track that with how we teach a physical skill and compare the two.”
Miller said a coach’s words can either be encouraging or destructive, and provide a step-by-step method to work with challenging behaviors, for changing attitudes and developing mutual respect.
Tuesday’s parents class (6-7 p.m.) in the Sitka High commons is for all parents of students in athletics and activities.
“We discuss the things that help their kids reach potential that come from kids,” Miller said. “This is direct information, comes from kids, that our founder compiled over a 35-year survey of athletes.”
These are athletes’ messages to their parents about how adults can help their athletic performance, create good memories and demonstrate respect from the perspective of young people.
“We talk about what you can do before the season, during the game and after competition that can help your kids,” Miller said. “We talk about releasing them to the game. Let all their problems be theirs, let all their successes be theirs. We give incidences of this is where you are, this is where you’re not. We talk about one instructional voice helps your kid.”
On Wednesday (2-3:30 p.m.) in the Performing Arts Center, all student athletes will attend a life lessons discussion on how to have standards, not rules.
“The reason we do this class is that, in general, we throw words at kids,” Miller said. “We say ‘respect’ all the time but if you took all the kids at a school and have them write down their definition of respect how many different versions would there be? We try to get to some specifics and point out certain things you have to have to reach potential.”
Miller said the clearer that behavioral standards are defined, the better chance athletes will rise to them.
The presentation defines age and athletic appropriate lessons in discipline, teachable spirit, mental toughness, accountability, integrity, selflessness, pride and humility.
Team captains will be addressed afterward for an hour, also in the PAC.
“We can tell in that hour we are with them, and the time after class asking questions, who is engaged and trying,” Miller said.
He had just finished a class with 400 athletes in a Michigan high school.
“I could tell 12 kids that I would guess would be leaders, just by the way they were responding and acting,” he said. “But how that goes back and they implement it in the team, that’s why we are training the coaches… they have to be the ones that take it from stage one to stage two.”
The captains’ talk is about never leaving leadership of their teams to chance, and teaches and empowers captains on leading successfully.
This presentation applies seven principles, including being the first to serve, the first to lead by example, the lifeline of communication between the coach and the team, being the first to praise others, being the first to protect and defend your team, being the first to confront violations of your team standards, and being the first to encourage and the last to become discouraged.
“There is a lot of people who think leadership happens just because we put kids in sports,” Miller said. “It has to be intentional. I think we are at a point where we are not as intentional as we were 20-30 years ago, for a lot of different reasons, culture and everything. If we are going to make an impact we have to be intentional about it.”
Miller noted that the amount of time kids engage in sports has been compromised by multi-tasking distractions like cell phones and on-line communications.
“Exhibit A is they have all these distractions going on,” Miller said. “Exhibit B is that we have kids who are playing a lot of games in the summer but don’t practice. They think that just because they are playing a game they will get better. We get into getting confidence by preparing, that is how you get better at your game. It doesn’t take hours, you put in 20-30 minutes a day and you will be a much better player. We also note the studies being done on how lack of sleep impacts performance.”
Krupa stated the Wolves’ family is excited to host.
“Studies show that strong activity programs produce students who are more likely to graduate from high school, more likely to attend and complete post-secondary schools and more likely to become leaders amongst their peers,” he said. “Our coaches are some of the hardest working and selfless people in our community and we are thrilled to be able to invest in them and help them become stronger in their craft.”
TIMES:
Monday 6-8:30 p.m. (coaches in library).
Tuesday 6-7 p.m. (parents in commons).
Wednesday 2-3:30 p.m. (all student athletes) 3:30-4:30 p.m. (captains) both in PAC.
For more information contact Rich Krupa at 966-1956 or krupar@sitkaschools.org.
