Jill Kochanek, Oldfields School Soccer Coach, Wins Positive Coaching Alliance’s Double-Goal Coach® Award Presented by TeamSnap
March 17, 2015, Mountain View, CA – Oldfields (Glencoe, Md.) School Soccer Coach Jill Kochanek has won Positive Coaching Alliance’s coveted Double-Goal Coach Award presented by TeamSnap for her positive impact on youth athletes.
Kochanek is one of 25 national recipients of the Double-Goal Coach award, named for coaches who strive to win while also pursuing the more important goal of teaching life lessons through sports. The award includes a $250 prize, a trophy and mention within the websites and newsletters of Positive Coaching Alliance, a national non-profit dedicated to using youth and high school sports to develop Better Athletes, Better People.
“Jill helps her athletes win on and off the court,” said Jim Thompson, founder and CEO of Positive Coaching Alliance (PCA) and author of nine books on youth sports, including The Power of Double-Goal Coaching. “By creating a positive, character-building youth sports experience, and serving as a Double-Goal Coach, Jill helps youth develop into better athletes and better people.”
Kochanek bases her soccer program on the pillars of “passion, collective consciousness and confidence,” she said. “I try to model passion, enthusiasm and excitement. What you say is very important, but as important, or moreso, is how you say it. If you’re visibly enthusiastic, charged up and passionate, what you say can really make a difference. You can hook your athletes into paying attention and buying into what you’re saying. Whatever they become passionate about, whether soccer or anything else, my just giving them an example by being passionate and being all in, let’s them know they should do the same and be invested and let it consume them.
As far as “collective consciousness,” Kochanek said, “I’ve always been a sucker for everything team, figuring out your individual role on a team in order to buy into a collective mission and serve something more than just yourself. Sacrificing for your teammates, working for your teammates and seeing that you as an individual can be empowered by the way in which you can serve and help others is such an important life perspective, that it’s something I really try to emphasize with my players.”
Regarding the third pillar, confidence, Kochalek said, “to see gradual progress take place and to see how much empowerment and self-esteem the players can take from that is really cool. And it’s transformative. That little bit of confidence they gain on the field can trickle into all of their life’s playing fields.”
List of national winners of PCA’s 2015 Double-Goal Coach Award Presented by TeamSnap >>.
About Positive Coaching Alliance
Positive Coaching Alliance (PCA) develops BETTER ATHLETES, BETTER PEOPLE through resources for youth and high school sports coaches, parents, administrators and student-athletes. In addition to hundreds of free audio-video and printable tips and tools at www.PCADevZone.org, PCA has partnered with roughly 3,000 schools and youth sports organizations nationwide to deliver live group workshops, online courses and books by PCA Founder Jim Thompson that help those involved in youth and high school sports create a positive, character-building youth sports culture. PCA workshops and courses, which have impacted more than 7.5 million youth through 2014 strive to transform high school and youth sports into a Development ZoneTM, where the goal is to develop Better Athletes, Better People and the following become the prevailing models in youth and high school sports:
important goal of teaching life lessons through sports
The Second-Goal Parent®, who concentrates on life lessons, while letting coaches and athletes focus on competing
The Triple-Impact Competitor®, who strives to impact sport on three levels by improving oneself, teammates and the game as a whole.
PCA gains support from a National Advisory Board, including National Spokesperson and 11-time NBA Champion Coach Phil Jackson, and many other top coaches, athletes, organization leaders and academics who share PCA’s mission.
Contact:
David Jacobson, Positive Coaching Alliance
Phone: 650-210-0808
E-mail: david_jacobson@positivecoach.org
