Positive Coaching

ISBN 978-0982131701

Positive Coaching: Building Character and Self-Esteem Through Sports

Authored by Jim Thompson

With an emphasis on motivating and inspiring athletes through positive coaching methods, Positive Coaching provides aspiring and experienced youth and high school coaches with dozens of concrete, practical tools to help athletes reach their potential—on and off the field. In a conversational voice filled with Thompson’s hallmark storytelling, this comprehensive volume presents solutions to the gamut of challenges coaches face—how to motivate athletes to give their best, how to communicate most effectively, how to get the most from mistakes and losses, how to make practice time productive, how to make parents your allies, how to turn athletes into competitors and individuals into a team, and how to coach kids with vastly different abilities. Through it all, Thompson gently reminds coaches of their ultimate purpose: to build character and teach life lessons through sports.

Positive Coaching launched the movement that is changing the face of youth sports across the country.

Praise for Positive Coaching

“Positive Coaching has some wonderful words of wisdom to parents and coaches. It fused a lot of my thoughts about coaching and about being a parent of young athletes. I recommend it wholeheartedly for all coaches. In the book, Jim Thompson states that his positive coaching tactics may not work on a professional level. Being a believer in motivation through support and praise, I know it works on this level, too.”
– Phil Jackson, Head Coach, Los Angeles Lakers

“Basketball might be a job for the coach but it should be fun for the players. It’s all too easy for a coach to become negative, which takes the fun out. Positive Coaching is a valuable tool for helping every coach remember that a positive approach gets better results.”
– Tara VenDerveer, Head Coach, Stanford University Women’s Basketball

“This is really a book for all ages, whether you’re a parent, teachers, counselor, manager, leader, or friend.”
– John W. Gardner, author of Self-Renewal and On Leadership