Latest news with #coaching
Yahoo
8 hours ago
- General
- Yahoo
Wilburton names April Wright varsity girls basketball coach
Basketball saved April Wright's life. The new Wilburton varsity girls basketball coach, who lived in the foster system and on her own as a high school senior, said her love of the game changed her perspective on life, which she said she hopes to instill into others. Advertisement 'I was a foster kid and basketball was the one thing that no one could ever take from me and I just loved it,' Wright said. 'As a freshman in high school, I was kind of like the assistant for our freshman team at Durant High School, which helped me pay my rent.' Wright played at Collin County Community College and Southeastern Oklahoma State University. She then became the girls basketball coach at Buffalo Valley High School in 2023 and an assistant at Whitesboro High School in 2024 before taking the Wilburton job Wednesday. Despite the Lady Diggers' recent struggles, she said Superintendent Kyle Vanderburg and Athletic Director Jeff Marshall showed excitement for her to create a new culture and rebuild the program. 'I could just see in their hearts that they truly are for their school, they're for building their school,' Wright said. 'I felt like they had seen in me someone who could build even through a trial and tribulation, which has kind of been my whole life.' Advertisement Basketball is more than just winning and losing, according to Wright. Instead, she said she is determined to inspire the girls on her team to give back to their community and make them feel empowered as they enter the real world. 'For me, it's not about winning,' Wright said. 'It's about building these young ladies and their character so that when they step out in the real world one day and their careers, that they understand what it takes to touch lives, change lives and stand in the gap.'
New York Times
11 hours ago
- Health
- New York Times
What's the best way to coach youth sports? We asked 3 former pros turned coaches
Editor's Note: This story is a part of Peak, The Athletic's new desk covering leadership, personal development and success through the lens of sports. Peak aims to connect readers to ideas they can implement in their own personal and professional lives. Follow Peak here. More than anyone, professional athletes have been exposed to a wide range of leadership and coaching styles. When they leave professional sports behind and start coaching young athletes, they have plenty of experience to draw from. Advertisement We checked in with three former professional athletes who now coach youth sports to gather their advice for other coaches and parents. Drew Stanton was an NFL quarterback for 14 seasons and now coaches his son's football and baseball teams, as well as helping run a youth football organization. He said he's noticed that kids are harder on themselves now than they were when he was a young athlete. As youth sports become increasingly intense, he often reminds kids why they're playing in the first place. 'We just become so wrapped up in the results of it as opposed to, 'What is the intentionality behind what you're trying to do?' ' Stanton said. 'Control the controllables. You get wrapped up in somebody else's success, or you start comparing yourself, and you start to rob these children of their childhood because we've become hyper-focused on making them professionals at such a young age. 'I think the ability to teach life lessons through sports has always been my approach.' He encourages his athletes to focus on setting their own goals and acknowledge that mistakes are learning opportunities. 'We have to stick to the process,' he said. 'Sitting there and yelling or trying to break them down to build them back up, that doesn't need to happen. These kids already break themselves down enough, or they look to social media to gain their understanding or worth from how many likes they get.' Travis Snider, a former MLB outfielder, now leads a youth sports company that offers resources and education for parents and coaches. It's essential, he said, that adults remind athletes that failure isn't a bad thing. 'We're trying to teach kids more skills, but with that understanding of where they're at emotionally and physically,' he said. 'These are just experiences that give us an opportunity to learn and grow, and oftentimes failure is a much better vehicle to learn these lessons and grow and become a better version of yourself.' Advertisement Matt Hasselbeck spent 18 seasons as a quarterback in the NFL. He spent one season playing for Pete Carroll, someone he viewed as completely authentic. It's what he admired about Carroll. But now, after coaching high school football, he realizes just how important it is to find your own identity. 'Put in some speed bumps for yourself,' Hasselbeck said. 'Maybe even write some stuff down. Like, here are some non-negotiables — who I am as a coach.' Hasselbeck, who has non-negotiables like no cursing and putting health and safety above all else, has picked up a few examples. When his son, Henry, played for former NFL quarterback Trent Dilfer, Dilfer had a rule that no one was allowed to sit at a new table during a meal unless all the other tables were full. 'So if you just picture there's 10 seats at a table, it's not a table of four, then somebody else starts a table of 10,' he said. 'No. Every table has to be full before you can start another table. That's just community. No one gets left out. No one's not valuable. No one doesn't have friends.' One year, when Hasselbeck coached high school football, a lot of 'mental mistakes' happened along the offensive line, he said. When Hasselbeck approached his offensive line coach and suggested they simplify a few things, the coach, who was also a math teacher at the school, replied, 'No. No, that's not the issue. This is one of the smartest kids I teach. He's capable. This is just a teenage boy having a focus problem.' That's when Hasselbeck began to understand the strong link between learning the little things about his athletes and improving their play. 'Like, 'Hey, we know this guy struggles learning. Let's make his menu a little smaller so he can do less better. It'll help him succeed. He's got enough on his plate,' ' Hasselbeck said. 'I think just doing less is better.' Advertisement To him, even small things, like knowing what someone's commute from home or family structure looks like, can make a significant difference. Stanton feels strongly about the lessons we can learn from sports, including trust, respect, and effective communication. But to him, embracing adversity is one of the most important lessons he wants to pass along to his athletes. 'I'm telling the kids, 'I want you to be comfortable when it's uncomfortable,'' he said. 'Because we're all in different situations. If you can learn to deal with adversity, if you can learn to deal with all these other things and be able to find a way to persevere, that's how you grow. Eventually, you're going to find something or somebody that's better than you. And what do you do? How do you respond?' To Stanton, it can be as simple as changing the way you speak to an athlete when they make a mistake. Encouraging them, rather than reprimanding them, can help a young athlete develop a better outlook over time. Youth sports require more specialized training, travel, and equipment than ever before. Snider said parents and coaches can't let the time and money they invest in young athletes turn into added pressure. 'It's tough to differentiate your child and their experience in sports versus the time, money and energy that you're investing in and what that return on investment looks like,' he said. 'We built a culture that is geared towards performance and achievement. But your failure and success are not going to define who you are.' Snider believes that if parents and coaches can work on themselves and gain a deeper understanding of how their experiences influence their responses, it can be the difference between a positive experience for a young athlete and a negative one, which is particularly important at such an impressionable age. Advertisement 'We don't recognize how our past experiences show up in those moments when our son or daughter strikes out or misses the kick and how that perpetuates something inside of us that we haven't processed or we weren't aware of,' Snider said. 'We're a product of our childhood and what that generation of parents and coaches did and did not do during that experience. What can we do? It's making child development a priority.' Elise Devlin is a writer for Peak, The Athletic's new desk covering leadership, personal development and success. She last wrote about how to deal with failure. Follow Peak here. (Illustration: Dan Goldfarb / The Athletic; Photos: Nick Cammett / Diamond Images, Rex Brown / Getty Images)
Yahoo
11 hours ago
- Business
- Yahoo
Raul the new named linked with the vacant RB Leipzig head coach role
Bild reports that former Real Madrid Castilla head coach and ex-striker, Raul, is a new name linked with the vacant RB Leipzig head coaching role. Raul is leaving his role as head coach of Real Madrid's second team, Castilla, as he looks to take the next step in his career. The former striker has previously rejected former club Schalke, as they search for their new head coach. It has been rumoured that there has been contact between Leipzig and Raul. Advertisement However, the name that is gaining traction is head coach Alexander Blessin. kicker reports that Blessin and former Werder Bremen head coach Ole Werner are both candidates for the role as well. Leipzig ares struggling to find a new permanent head coach as their two main candidates are Cesc Fabregas and Oliver Glasner, both have valid reasons not to leave their current clubs, especially as Leipzig failed to qualify for Europe. Fabregas is continuing to build a project at Como, while Glasner has qualified for the Europa League with Crystal Palace after winning the FA Cup. This past season has proven a reality check for Leipzig, as without Champions League football, they are no longer as attractive destination as they first thought. GGFN | Jack Meenan
The Guardian
15 hours ago
- Entertainment
- The Guardian
Stick: Owen Wilson's charmingly funny golf drama is as feelgood as Ted Lasso
Golf is – apologies to fans, the ground is gonna get a little rough – inert material for TV and film. It's not explosively combative like say football, either American or actual. In golf, players interact with the environment, not each other. There is no time pressure. Physical adjustments are minute, the airborne ball impossible to see. For casual spectators, the experience mostly amounts to watching a middle-aged man shuffle above a tiny ball, like an emperor penguin sitting on an egg. The sound of even a world-beating putt is a soft plop. However, a lack of basic knowledge brought me late to Friday Night Lights, a show that became one of my favourites. I'd like to avoid making that mistake with Stick (Apple TV+, from Wednesday 4 June), so let's see. Wisely, the show isn't aiming at FNL's grit and spunk, blue-collar catharsis. Stick is funny, in a gentle, humane way. Clearly, Apple+ is attempting to hit its own marker again, the one with 'Ted Lasso' written on it in gold. Owen Wilson plays Pryce Cahill, a former pro golfer reduced to coaching retirees and pulling short cons in bars. When he catches Latino teenager Santi (Peter Dager) sneaking on to the range where he works, to ragefully hammer balls, Pryce realises the boy is a prodigy and offers to coach him. Together with his old caddy and the boy's mother, they road trip between tournaments in search of fortune. But do you know what? I think they might find something deeper. Stick's credit sequence features a ukulele playing over a series of watercolours, so you know this isn't The Wire. It's feelgood! Expect light bickering and dissolvable disputes! Frequent sporting metaphors for emotional growth! Like Community – a comedy that offered a self-aware take on the inspirational speech – Stick is aware that if you stretch such metaphors too far, they snap back into parody. 'I used to think she liked me, but she loves you,' whispers Pryce to his protege, very much in the vein of 'playing golf is like making love to a beautiful woman'. The show just about manages to have its cake and eat it. You don't need Google to enjoy Stick. I let references to knockdowns, casting and holding the finish wash over me like suds in the bath. Dager looks good swinging a stick, while Mariana Treviño, as his forthright mom Elena, improves every scene she's in. Marc Maron is winning as Mitts, a curmudgeonly caddy with a hidden heart – a trope he's made his own. The show finds its groove with the addition of Lilli Kay as Zero, a defiant club worker and love interest. With a she/they character on board, the show gets to prod at generational tension, and the problematic imbalance of mentor relationships. When Pryce admonishes Santi for his discipline, Zero warns him to stop 'prescribing late stage capitalist ideology to your great brown cash cow'. Elena advises Pryce to back off, without backing down. 'They smell fear, the gen Z-ers.' Driving it all, like a high MOI titanium club, is Owen Wilson. Something about Wilson's hair invariably makes me wonder when a weed pipe is going to appear on screen (the answer is seven minutes into the first episode). It's easy to forget he's also an Oscar-nominated writer and subtle actor. With his goofy voice, broken nose and wounded smile, he excels at playing characters who are both boyish and washed-up, full of good cheer dented by time. He's perfect as the broke, dragging-his-heels-through-a-divorce Pryce, whose Ryder Cup career ended with a televised mental breakdown on a fairway years ago. Aficionados will enjoy debating the finer points of Santi's swing. The directors get round the invisible ball problem with soaring drones and POV shots, to inject visual flair and kineticism. The show promises cameos from real-life pros including Max Homa, Wyndham Clark and Collin Morikawa for a frisson of authenticity. With Happy Gilmore 2 coming to Netflix in July, golf fans are spoilt for choice. Which doesn't leave the rest of us out in the cold. Sport in dramas is a vehicle for storytelling, rather than being the story itself. Another tricky mentor relationship is fathering, the show's real theme. A few episodes in, I care enough to see how it plays out. Can Stick stick the landing? I wouldn't bet against it.
Yahoo
17 hours ago
- Entertainment
- Yahoo
How Mendoza's Cuban heritage informs his play
How Caitlin Clark will learn from Indiana Fever coaches while out with an injury Indiana Fever coach Stephanie White provided clarity on what to expect for Caitlin Clark while she's with the team but not playing in games due to an injury.
