Bill Simmons, athletic director at Bishop Ireton, has announced the completion of a new partnership between the Alexandria school and the nationally acclaimed Positive Coaching Alliance. With none other than Phil Jackson as the key spokesman for the Alliance, Simmons said the philosophy of the PCA is nearly the athletic equivalent of that of the School’s own patron saint, Francis deSales. “Any Ireton student or alum knows the Salesian idea, ‘be who you are, and be that well’. The PCA believes that this is the right approach to athletics. It isn’t about only winning or showing up an opponent. It is about competing, teamwork, improving yourself, your teammates, and the game.”
PCA believes its time to reclaim competition. From an unrelenting seriousness to a joyful seriousness, from seeing opponents as an enemy to viewing opponents as a gift that enables an athlete to realize his greatest potential, positive coaches change the paradigm. They believe in mastery of the sport and a pursuit of excellence to be the goal of athletics, not a win-at-all costs approach. “PCA talks about having double goal coaches, people that understand winning is important, that it is the object of the game; but more significantly, teaching life lessons is the reason American educators brought sports into the school in the first place,” said Simmons in explaining the partnership. “We are getting to the point, to use a golf analogy, that a kid would rather shoot a 45 for nine holes and win than shot a 39 and lose, to me as a golfer that completely misses the point.”
Principal Tim Hamer was originally approached this summer about the relationship with PCA and studied the materials. Once he understood it, he became it’s biggest supporter. He organized the first training session for school administrators and personally introduced the training to the school’s coaches last week.
Coaches from all 22 sports will select student athletes from each team, varsity, junior varsity, and freshmen to attend an upcoming athletes seminar. There the students will be exposed to another phrase, triple impact competitor, where they will discuss how they can make themselves better, make their teammates better, and make the game better. Once they understand, and hopefully embrace this philosophy, they will be the building blocks for teammates to recognize the value of this different outlook on athletic participation.
Finally, and perhaps most importantly, parents will be invited in October to participate in the seminar to develop Second Goal parents. Those parents will team with coaches to ensure the Second goal; learning life lessons, hard work, and enjoy the experience, is reinforced and not simply watch the scoreboard or rehash mistakes. “I hope every parent can attend this session because when they leave I believe they will be excited to know their child is at Bishop Ireton and involved with this life changing program.” concluded the Ireton AD.
Processing your request, Please wait....
