The Double-Goal Coach : Positive Coaching Tools for Honoring the Game and Developing Winners in Sports and Life

Written for both parents and coaches, The Double-Goal Coach is jam-packed with specific tactics and strategies to help motivate and inspire young athletes to reach their potential.

There is a nation-wide epidemic of poor sportsmanship at all levels of youth sports, by the parents, the coaches, and the athletes. The nightly news shows parents fighting with one another, coaches lying about the age of their players, and the young athletes imitating the showboating and trash-talking antics of the professional leagues. In response, districts have tried to come up with Pledges in which participants agree to certain good sportsmanship rules, however without a complete rethink of youth sports and a practical program for implementing sportsmanship such Pledges are just words.

Jim Thompson, Director of the Positive Coaching Alliance, provides a new foundation for youth sports. Thompson offers coaches and parents the essential tools to combine the desire to win with the more important goal of using sports to teach life lessons and build character in young athletes. The Double-Goal Coach draws from current sport psychology and proven coaching techniques to provide coaches and parents the practical tools that can be used to make youth sports a fun and enriching experience.

Jim Thompson is the founder of Positive Coaching Alliance, a national nonprofit organization based at the Stanford University Department of Athletics. He is the author of Positive Coaching: Building Character and Self-Esteem Through Sports and Shooting in the Dark: Tales of Coaching and Leadership. He teaches courses in leadership, coaching, and sports and spirituality at Stanford University.