Table of Contents
Addressing the Shortage of Sports Officials
– Mario Reyna
This article discusses the nationwide shortage of sports officials, best practices and solutions, and how current physical educators, coaches and SHAPE America members in general can help address the shortage and educate youths on the value of sportsmanship.
Cover Story
Your Personal Coaching Philosophy: A Roadmap to Developing an Educationally Sound Vision
- Brian Myers
A coach’s purpose and core value system are used in everyday decision making with relation to student-athletes. Understanding one's perspective as a coach in educational athletics can help all coaches, specifically young or beginning coaches, to recognize the importance of establishing a personal coaching philosophy they can rely on in difficult moments. This article is designed to help teacher-coaches establish their own personal coaching philosophy connected to educational athletics. This step-by-step process will give coaches strategies to help identify their core belief systems and illustrate how these play a vital role in daily situational decision-making.
Articles
The Interaction Between Arousal, Negative Emotions, and Athlete Performance
- Christine Brooks
This article examines the interaction between physiological arousal, negative emotions, and the athlete's performance. It describes how heart rate, physiological arousal, emotions, the sympathetic nervous system and performance are interconnected and explains how warm-ups prepare athletes for optimal training and competition. It also provides coaches with strategies that can guide an athlete toward an appropriate level of physiological arousal for a successful performance and explains how to implement a growth mindset into day-to-day coaching so athletes have a positive attitude toward their training and can better manage situations that trigger negative emotions.
Early Sport Specialization in the Sphere of Long-Term Athlete Development: The Responsibility of Parents and Soccer Coaches Involved in This Process
- Gustavo Zampieri
Due to the significant growth of participants in sports around the world, this article aims to identify the effects of early specialization, as well as the importance and responsibilities of the professionals and people involved in the athlete development, especially in the context of soccer. It describes the phases of Long-Term Athlete Development (LTAD) as a platform for youth sport coaches to encourage and support participants of all levels to reach their full potential and stay involved in the sport. The article provides strategies for soccer coaches to develop their activities and training sessions in alignment with the phases of the LTAD, along with an adequate pedagogical approach to avoid the negative effects of early sport specialization.
Departments
COACH'S CORNER
Drills for Improving Shooting Accuracy in Middle School Basketball Players
- Caleb Wells and Jiling Liu
Every great shooter in the game of basketball has one thing in common: a routine. To help increase basketball shooting accuracy, this article presents a series of progressive drills that any aspiring middle school basketball player can use to develop their own routine and improve their game.
COACH'S CORNER
Preparing for (Dance) Camp: 30-Day Challenge
- Kimberly Maljak, Jayla Sotelo and Katelyn Paulus
Most high school and collegiate athletic teams attend some type of camp to prepare for their upcoming season. This article provides a 30-day challenge to help high school and college dance teams to improve their overall physical fitness while they prepare for summer camp. The ideas can also be modified to meet the needs of other athletic teams.
EDUCATOR'S CORNER
10 New Tossing Stations to Lively Up Your Tossing Unit
- Mandy Kirkham
Tossing is one of the easier manipulative skills to develop and is a fun skill to teach. All students can feel successful and there are so many different activities to do when teaching tossing. This article presents some basic cues and 10 tossing stations to make teaching and learning this skill extra fun.
THEORY INTO PRACTICE
Better Together: Promoting Cooperative Learning in Physical Education
- Mijoo Kim & Seungyeon Park
Physical educators may be hesitant to adopt cooperative learning in their classes because they are concerned that a focus on socioemotional learning may reduce motor skill development. However, cooperative learning can increase physical activity engagement and interpersonal skills. This article demonstrates what cooperative learning can look like in physical education through two activities that highlight the five key elements of cooperative learning.
ADVOCACY IN ACTION
Mindful Harmony of Multimodal Literacies
- Brittany Pinkerton and Christine Craddock
Physical education and academic core subjects do not have to be regarded as mutually exclusive content areas with separate aims and applications. This article suggests a fusion between multiple literacies, content areas and contexts that prioritizes culturally relevant pedagogies.