Lori Gano-Overway - A Coachs Guide to Maximizing the Youth Sport Experience

This book guides sport coaches, parents and administrators in creating a caring and task-involving sport climate that helps athletes perform their best and have an enjoyable and meaningful sport experience. It introduces the concept of a caring and task-involving climate and provides a how to guide to creating this climate in sport.

Firstly, this guide introduces the caring and task-involving climate and summarizes research highlighting its many benefits. Secondly, the five features of this climate are presented along with the reflective exercises for developing them within a team. Coaches will see strategies in action, sample conversations, and a variety of ways to implement the features of a caring and task-involving experience. By describing how it may be implemented and methods for overcoming possible challenges, this book finally highlights how parents and sport administrators can support the creation and preservation of caring and task-involving climates.

By helping teams develop caring climates that optimize athletes sport experience and performance, this book is essential reading for coaches, sport administrators, parents, and sport psychology practitioners. It will also be of great interest to those who have minimal training in sport psychology, but who are involved in sport at many levels, such as youth and high school.

Mary Fry is a professor and Director of the Sport and Exercise Psychology Lab at the University of Kansas. A former coach and athlete, she has worked with coaches, across a variety of sports and skill levels, to help them maximize their athletes sport experiences.

Lori Gano-Overway is an assistant professor in the Department of Kinesiology at James Madison University. She has worked in coach education for over 20 years studying the influence of the climate and consulting with coaches to create environments to support athletes physical, psychological, and social development.

Marta Guivernau is an assistant professor in the Department of Sport Management at Kent State University and certified mental performance consultant. Her focus is on creating positive climates in sport to optimize the experience and lifespan development of all participants. She works with coaches, D1 teams and athletes on performance-related issues, psychological and socio-emotional wellbeing.

Mi-Sook Kim is a professor in the Department of Kinesiology at San Francisco State University. She has worked with competitive athletes including college athletes and professional golfers to enhance their mental performance. She also provides workshops for managers of corporations and coaches and parents in motivational strategies and psychological skills.

Maria Newton is an associate professor and director of graduate studies in the Department of Health, Kinesiology, and Recreation at the University of Utah. She is a Fellow with the Association for Applied Sport Psychology. She has over 50 publications largely centered on the impact and influence of the climate in relation to motivation. She is particularly interested in maximizing the experience of youth in both sport and exercise settings.

As a coach, this book is a roadmap that outlines what I aspire to be. The authors clearly demonstrate the value of creating a caring sports climate and provide excellent examples for achieving that aim. While underpinned by decades of research, the content is refreshingly accessible and keeps the focus exactly where it belongs on youth athletes and enriching their experiences in sport. This book is at the front of my bookshelf and is required reading for coaching staff and parents.

Gabe Downey, Head Diving Coach, University of Kansas

Athletes today expect coaches to know them well enough to care and respect them. They also want to be involved in creating and implementing tactics and techniques in their sport. This book helps you meet their expectations. It provides theories, methods, and examples from coaches and players to do everything from interacting effectively with your athletes and involving them in a team where athletes care about and support each other. This is a go to source when looking for answers to coaching questions.

Jay Coakley, Ph.D., Professor Emeritus, University of Colorado

Mary Fry
Lori Gano-Overway
Marta Guivernau
Mi-Sook Kim
Maria Newton

First published 2020

by Routledge

52 Vanderbilt Avenue, New York, NY 10017

and by Routledge

2 Park Square, Milton Park, Abingdon, Oxon, OX14 4RN

Routledge is an imprint of the Taylor & Francis Group, an informa business

2020 Taylor & Francis

The right of Mary Fry, Lori Gano-Overway, Marta Guivernau, Mi-Sook Kim and

Maria Newton to be identified as authors of this work has been asserted by them in accordance with sections 77 and 78 of the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988.

All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reprinted or reproduced or utilised in any form or by any electronic, mechanical, or other means, now known or hereafter invented, including photocopying and recording, or in any information storage or retrieval system, without permission in writing from the publishers.

Trademark notice: Product or corporate names may be trademarks or registered trademarks, and are used only for identification and explanation without intent to infringe.

Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data

A catalog record for this title has been requested

ISBN: 978-0-367-25413-1 (hbk)

ISBN: 978-0-367-25415-5 (pbk)

ISBN: 978-0-429-28768-8 (ebk)

Typeset in Bembo

by Newgen Publishing UK

This book is dedicated to those coaches who devote their time and energy to creating positive sport experiences for their athletes.
Mary: To Andy, Jared, Lindsey & Ollie, for their love and inspiration.
Lori: To Ken and the Gano-Overway clan, for their patience, encouragement and support.
Mi-Sook: To Chungsoo, Eujean and Sujean, for sparking my curiosity and courage.
Maria: Mary, Joe and Scout for being my most favorite playing partners.
Marta: To Jaume, Julia, Marc & Sara, for being the best team I could ever wish for.

Yesterday we heard from a grandmother who was distraught about her grandsons experience on his youth baseball team. She had gone to watch his team play in a tournament, and was appalled that immediately after one game the grandsons team was out on the field running as punishment for their mistakes in the game. In addition, the athletes were banned from going anywhere near family or friends who had come to see them play. After they played the second game later in the day, again the athletes were punished by having to do push-ups, etc. for every mistake. This grandmother has no training in the field of sport psychology, but she knew this was not good for kids and not what sport should be about. She resented the fact that she could not give her grandson a hug and share the sport experience with him, and that the entire experience, created by the coaches, was so negative. She recognized how messed up youth sport can be. Unfortunately, we hear these stories about negative sport environments daily.