On August 3, 2017, 25 Army and Navy Academy coaches and administrators attended a workshop put on by the Positive Coaching Alliance (PCA). Presenter Nick Davidson gave a fantastic, engaging and interactive presentation. The mission statement for PCA is simple:
The Positive Coaching Alliance mission is to transform the youth sports culture into a Development Zone® where all youth and high school athletes have a positive, character-building experience that results in Better Athletes, Better People.
The Positive Coaching is an organization started at Stanford University by Jim Thompson.
PCA courses have been given to thousands of coaches and reached millions of athletes.
A positive approach gets the most from youth and high school athletes, which is what coaches, parents, and the athletes themselves want. Staying positive also helps youth get the most out of sports.
Encouraging athletes with positive reinforcement helps them hear and heed the necessary corrections. With that winning combination of truthful, specific praise and constructive criticism, athletic performance improves and so do the chances that kids stick with sports longer and learn all the valuable life lessons inherently available through organized competition.
Academic research and real-world scoreboard results from millions of coaches, parents and athletes that PCA has trained and educated prove what the pro and college coaches on PCA’s National Advisory Board already know: Positive is powerful.
Candace Heidenrich is the CEO of Aperture Advisory Associates, where she works with private secondary and higher education leaders to strengthen programs and practices. She founded Aperture in 2018 after more than a decade in a senior administrative role at a boarding school in California. Additionally, she held faculty and chair positions at private schools and colleges in Los Angeles and Ojai. Her background also includes director and executive level positions with start-ups and Fortune 500 corporations.
While earning her B.A. in Education and Humanities in the Lawrence Henry Gipson Scholar program, she studied abroad at Oxford before pursuing her master’s at the University of California, Santa Barbara. A frequent speaker at national conferences, she is a recognized thought leader and authority on enrollment management and marketing best practices.