How to Use If/Then Statements

Watch youth sport coaches from around the country put the principles from Play Positive and Positive Coaching Alliance to work with their athletes. This video features Kim Oden, a PCA National Advisory Board Member and Olympic Volleyball Bronze Medalist. Oden graduated from Stanford University with a degree in public policy. After graduation Kim joined the U.S. Women’s National Volleyball team and captained the squad in both the 1988 and 1992 Summer Olympics Kim finished her Olympic career by bringing home a bronze medal in the 1992 Olympics. As a coach at Saint Francis High School in Mountain View, California, Oden won PCA’s Double-Goal Coach® Award.

When competition commences, coaches cannot execute; that is left to the athletes. Therefore, coaches should provide athletes with tools to anticipate eventualities and how players may need to respond. Here you can see a volleyball coach using “if/then” statements. As she points out, this can be particularly useful with teenagers, because it helps them reach their own conclusions, which is a powerful method of message absorption that leads to learning and improvement. Watch this coach implement the if/then method, then try it at your next practice!

Positive Coaching Alliance is proud to have worked with Liberty Mutual Insurance to create this video and other powerful resources.