"Before I came here, I wasn't used to playing organized basketball," says Jonathan Banados, 16, a shooting guard with a few tufts of black hair clinging to his chin. "He's worked with me really hard the past two years to make me an organized player. Other coaches, if you do something bad, they'll run us to death until we get it right. But he doesn't really get mad. You think he's going to yell, but in the end, he's very positive, he's always encouraging."
And although the coaching fraternity has long embraced a certain militaristic tradition, Heckmann says it's the precepts of positive coaching that keep him churning through the long winter basketball seasons.
Paolo Vescia
Positive Coaching Alliance founder Jim Thompson.
Paolo Vescia
Bob Poser and some Bobcats.
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"I care about giving these guys something more than x's and o's," Heckmann says softly. A bell rings, and within minutes the quad is flooded with students passing from one class to the next; many of the kids stop by to banter briefly with their coach. When the stampede dies down and the kids are out of earshot, Heckmann speaks humbly of the impact he's had on individual players. "A parent pulled me aside after a game late in the season last year -- I didn't know him very well, he was kind of a rough-and-tumble guy. And he said, 'I wanted to tell you what a huge impact you've had on my son's life and how grateful I am he came through this program.' I was completely caught by surprise. It wasn't like I had any special relationship with his son; he was a quiet kid who was only here as a senior. But you talk about feeling validated ....
"Every time you talk to one person, and they buy into positive coaching, you've made an impact," he continues. "The much bigger challenge is stamping this footprint culturally, and that's going to take a long, long time. I just enjoy being part of the process."
Kimberly Guillen, a coach in the Jack London Youth Soccer League, has played "the beautiful game" for 30 years, in the United States and Europe, and even started her own high school's team by applying for Title IX funding. When friends told her about the Positive Coaching Alliance a few years ago, she refused to attend a workshop.
"I had an attitude of, 'Look, anything even close to wussification is pretty much despicable,'" Guillen says. "I had to be tricked into going. Some friends invited me to a meeting in San Francisco, and I showed up thinking it was going to be a social outing. It turned out to be a PCA workshop, and my friends had ditched me. I wasn't in a good mood; I sat there with my arms folded." She sighs. "Look, I'm from a huge Mexican-Filipino family -- liking kids is mandatory where I'm from."
But Guillen was struck, despite herself, by one of the ideas presented at the workshop: Keep a positive chart of all the things the kids do well, then use that at the end of practices and games to find good things to say about even less-than-spectacular players. Positive charting made Guillen realize she'd rather focus on the non-stars, and that her true enjoyment came from interacting with the so-called ordinary girl. "The natural athletes are going to excel no matter what," she says. "It's the kids who are the most timid that get transformed into a place where they're possessed by Pele. I thought, 'Everybody in our league needs this.'"
Now, thanks in large part to Guillen, they have it. Last year, the Jack London Youth Soccer League -- the second largest in Northern California, serving about 9,000 kids in Oakland and its surrounding communities -- began incorporating Positive Coaching Alliance workshops, and Guillen calls the program an unqualified success. More than 1,100 coaches and parents attended meetings, and nearly half of the 350 teams sent more attendees to workshops than were mandated by the league. The response was overwhelmingly positive (only five people sent flaming e-mails, Guillen says), and the highest participation rate of parents and coaches belonged to the most elite club teams. "If it were just about satisfying requirements, we would never have had these numbers," Guillen says. "And here's the thing: The program is cheap. We spent $3,000, 30 cents a player, which is ridiculously inexpensive. And in one year, this stuff is working.
"You hear me talking, it's almost like a religious fervor," Guillen gushes. "This has changed my parenting style, my coaching style. I've been in the game a long time. I want to go back and relive my childhood and be coached like this."
