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American Alliance for Health, Physical Education, Recreation and Dance
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Journal of Physical Education, Recreation and Dance

 Issue: September 2008

Project Coach: Youth Development and Academic Achievement Through Sport
Sam M. Intrator & Donald Siegel

Abstract:
Researchers and educators have long tried to find the connection between participation in sport-related activities and academic and social development among youths. This article traces the conceptual ideas that led to the design of an after-school sports program (Project Coach). This program promotes positive youth and community development through teaching disadvantaged minority adolescents to be sport coaches and to run youth-sports leagues for elementary-age children in their home neighborhoods. The article describes how youth development can be achieved by focusing on key life skills, such as communications, initiative taking, perseverance, conflict resolution, and other leadership capacities. These “soft skills”—or supercognitives—are essential for success in school and in the workplace, and coaching provides an opportunity for youths to acquire and employ these foundational supercognitives.

Article category: At-Risk Youths