Tawanna Flowers
Tawanna Flowers, Head Girls Basketball Coach at Trinity Valley School has won Positive Coaching Alliance coveted Double-Goal Coach Award presented by TeamSnap for her positive impact on youth sports.
Flowers is one of 50 national recipients of the Double-Goal Coach award, named for coaches who strive to win while also pursuing the more important goal of teaching life lessons through sports. The award includes a $200 prize, a certificate, and mention within the websites and newsletters of Positive Coaching Alliance (PCA), a national non-profit developing Better Athletes, Better People through youth and high school sports. All 50 winners are provided two tickets to PCA’s National Youth Sports Awards Dinner and Benefit Sponsored by Deloitte to be held at Maples Pavilion on Stanford University’s Campus April 28th, 2018 to receive recognition of their award.
Flowers has also been selected as one of four of the 50 coaches to win an all expenses paid trip to Palo Alto for the event. She’ll join the other 3 winners on stage in a panel discussion at the event. In addition, a video crew will visit Flowers in Fort Worth to capture her during a practice with her team and the video will be shown at the National Youth Sports Awards Dinner & Benefit as a shining example of what it means to be a Double-Goal Coach®.
“Coach Flowers helps athletes win on and off the court,” said Jim Thompson, PCA Founder and CEO and author of nine books on youth sports, including The Power of Double-Goal Coaching. By creating a positive, character-building youth sports experience and serving as a Double-Goal Coach, Tawanna helps youth develop into better athletes and better people.”
Challenges in her own young life influenced the approach Flowers takes with her girls. She had coaches who recognized when she brought personal struggles from home into practice and they used sports as a way to reach her. She was fortunate to have coaches who cared about her as a person “I had great relationships to the point where I can still reach out to my high school coach and my college coach to this day with questions. I carry on the legacy of coaching and pay it forward. This is how I want to live my life”, she said. Flowers likes to take time to visit with the girls outside of practice as well to ensure she knows how their day is going before they get started.
Flowers uses many different techniques to reach the girls including visualization, self-reflection and meditation. She sometimes tapes the girls talking about themselves to give them the opportunity to self-evaluate She teaches them how to self-motivate and gives them the belief that they can be champions even when they don’t dream that big themselves. “Ultimately, with the girls, I want them to know that this season or basketball doesn’t define them, that they’re learning stuff to take on to whatever university or whatever power five company they’re going to be working for. These skills will only help to propel them in leadership roles.”
Taking such a strong interest in her players often means that they rely on her more than she might realize. Players refer to her as a role model, mother-figure, teacher and counselor. Going above and beyond means seeing things outside of basketball like when she realized that a player was squinting and needed contacts, but didn’t have the means so she helped her to get contacts. She finds ways to help girls when they can’t afford to travel with the team during summer tournaments, and was the only one able to console a player who received devastating news that her father had died while out of town at a summer tournament. By being more than just a coach, Flowers is making an impact on young girls to become not only better players, but better people.