The following recommendation comes from the Aspen Institute’s State of Play Colorado: Aspen to Parachute report. The report assesses the opportunities and barriers for more children to access play, sports and outdoor recreation in rural Colorado communities.
Roaring Fork United is one of the largest sports providers in the Roaring Fork Valley. The soccer club has 122 coaches — and yet only 12 showed up for an offered three-night training, according to Kevin Jardine, the club’s executive director. “Those are the ones who probably don’t need the information,” he said. “Some coaches just wing it and do the best they can.”
Roaring Fork United is not alone. At all age and competitive levels throughout both valleys, we heard a strong desire from coaches and administrators for more education and professional development. Alternatively, there are children who feel unwelcome in sports, so they turn to other physical activities such as theater and dance. Some sports coaches need a better understanding of skill development related to their sport or activity. An even greater need: Coaches must understand how to make youth sports and recreation safe places physically and emotionally for children while using these activities as tools for developing children’s social, emotional and cognitive skills. In schools, fewer teachers serve as coaches given the pressures and expectations on their classrooms, meaning schools now rely more on community members to coach.
“While school districts and the Colorado High School Activities Association do provide paid and volunteer coaches with some training, it often doesn’t go deep enough into trauma-informed practices or scaffolding the skills and techniques in a sport,” said Jennifer Baugh, superintendent of Garfield County School District 16. “Coaches can become frustrated when they don’t have the comfort and expertise in working with youth.
The region could hold a local symposium for coaching positive youth development that becomes the expectation for best practices. School districts could create incentives and/or certification requirements around attending. Coaches throughout the region could be invited to an annual symposium or, better yet, take coaching workshops to different communities to make the sessions more accessible.
One option to lead the training could be Positive Coaching Alliance (PCA), which has worked with the Aspen Valley Ski & Snowboard Club. PCA offers partnerships that include live workshops for school districts, parks and recreation departments, leagues and youth sports consortiums in all 50 states. Interactive workshops range from 30-120 minutes each, either in-person or by Zoom. PCA also offers six online courses.
The Aspen Institute could identify support from organizations in the Million Coaches Challenge, a national initiative aiming to train one million coaches in youth development practices by 2025. Less than one-third of the country’s six million coaches have been trained in this area. The Aspen Institute also offers a free resource, Calls for Coaches. Working with the Harvard University Graduate School of Education, the Aspen Institute identified the research base for the value of coaching for social and emotional skills. The findings from that white paper were translated into an easy-to-follow checklist for coaches.
Another resource is HowToCoachKids.org, co-created by the U.S. Olympic & Paralympic Committee and Nike and inspired by the Aspen Institute. The platform offers simple courses to help kids enjoy sports and play.
Coaches are often volunteers and asked to do a lot, so extra training can be viewed as a hassle. But continued education is vital. It can inspire coaches to stay on a pathway that develops young people off the field as much as (if not more than) on it.
Jon Solomon is Community Impact Director of the Aspen Institute’s Project Play initiative. Jon can be reached at jon.solomon@aspeninstitute.org.