Wesley Temples
Wesley Temples, former Football Coach at Normal Community High School has won Positive Coaching Alliance’s coveted Double-Goal Coach Award presented by TeamSnap for his positive impact on youth athletes.
Temples 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.
“Temples helps athletes win on and off the field,” 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, Wesley helps youth develop into better athletes and better people.”
Temples is quick to give recognition to his entire staff for the approach they take with their athletes.They share his vision of mentoring kids and caring about them as individuals to get the most out of them on the field. They build a rapport and relationship with the players on and off the field and use what they know about each athlete to motivate them. Temples says, “Football is a relationship business. It’s so much more than football and I encourage my staff to get to know the guys on a personal level. The better we know our kids the better we’re going to be as a team.” His staff takes a teaching approach where mistakes are celebrated as part of the learning process so kids feel safe to take risks knowing it won’t ever result in yelling from the staff.
Temples leads by example through his actions with compassion, encouragement and clear expectations and goals. An online reward system is used to help keep athletes on track with their goals with recognition as players of the week or team captains for their effort on and off the field. One award that he particularly likes is the weekly “scout team player”. “It’s up on our scoreboard, an announcement is made on social media . Those kids who maybe don’t get to play as much as they’d like to on Friday night...we try to make it a big deal for them. Each and every day they come to practice and help make the starters that much better.”
They also use social media to post videos, photos and posts from the various coaches discussing things like character, sportsmanship and leadership. His staff sees the bigger picture of coaching and wants to have an impact on every facet of their lives. They are taught to be respectful, considerate and compassionate because they are being trained not just for the game of football but for becoming young men in society. “It’s so much bigger - it’s not about winning football games it’s about all the details of making them better people.” The approach Temples and his staff takes demonstrates the role sports can play in the development of youth, Thompson said. Temples stepped down from his position of head coach in December to pursue a master’s degree and get into administration.