The PCA Blog - Cleveland

Liberty Union-Thurston School District Creates Partnership with Positive Coaching Alliance to Benefit High School Athletes and the Community

02.24.2020

February 25, 2020 The Liberty Union-Thurston School District has created a new partnership with the Positive Coaching Alliance (PCA), a national non-profit movement developing “Better Athletes, Better People” by working to provide all their high school athletes a positive, character-building sports experience.

The partnership provides the Liberty Union administrators, coaches, parents and athletes with access to PCA’s training, tools and resources.  Those resources come in the form of live interactive workshops, online courses, books by PCA Founder Jim Thompson and additional online resources.

PCA has partnered with roughly 3,500 schools, districts, conferences, youth sports organizations and park-and-rec departments to create a Development Zone® culture, where the goal is using youth and high school sports to develop stronger social-emotional learning and leadership and reasoning developmental opportunities.

“From our initial conversation, it was clear that Matt Gallatin and Janet McClosky understand the importance of high school sports as it relates to social-emotional learning and leadership reasoning and development.” Said PCA-Cleveland Partnership and Development Manager, Ryan Virtue. “This partnership will help ensure that all constituent groups who support the student-athlete experience know and understand the importance of their unique role within the High School athletics environment.”

"We are proud to partner with Positive Coaching Alliance," said Matt Gallatin, Principal of Liberty Union HS. "Through our 19 sports, we aim to meet the needs of the individual student-athletes and build better people for the future. Our programs align with the values and commitment of the Alliance, and partnering with PCA will provide Liberty Union with valuable tools to promote positive behavior and good sportsmanship to our student-athletes, coaches, parents, and community."

For information about this partnership, please contact either Ryan Virtue (PCA-Cleveland) or Matt Gallatin (Liberty Union).

Ryan Virtue, Positive Coaching Alliance
Tel: 440-465-6552
E-Mail: ryan_virtue@positivecoach.org

Matt Gallatin, Liberty Union-Thurston School
Tel: 704-862-4107
E-Mail: matt.gallatin@libertyunion.org

About Positive Coaching Alliance

Positive Coaching Alliance (PCA) is a national non-profit organization with the mission of creating a positive, character-building youth sports environment that results in BETTER ATHLETES, BETTER PEOPLE.

Youth sports currently involves 40M children, which presents a tremendous platform on which to develop youth character and life skills. Research has shown that in order for youth to accrue these benefits from sports, sports needs to be done in a way that creates a positive youth development culture. PCA ensures sports are ‘done right’ with programming that is research-based and designed to have an impact at three levels in a youth sports organization or school:

  • Youth experience improved life skills and character development.  They also perform better!
  • Coaches become more positive and increase their focus on using sports to teach life lessons.
  • Youth Sports Organizations & Schools see their cultures become more positive and everyone involved has more fun.

Since its founding in 1998, PCA has established 18 chapters nationwide, partnered with roughly 3,500 schools and youth sports organizations to deliver more than 20,000 live group workshops, reaching over 20 million youth. PCA offers interactive online courses and has thousands of multimedia tips and tools for coaches, parents, athletes, and leaders available free of charge on PCADevZone.org. PCA also runs two annual awards programs: a scholarship program for high school student-athletes and a coach award program to recognize youth and high school coaches who strive to win and teach life lessons.

PCA gains support from a National Advisory Board of elite coaches, professional and Olympic athletes, organization leaders, and academics who share PCA’s mission including Cleveland Cavaliers assistant coach, Lindsay Gottlieb and others such as Joe Thomas, Dusty Baker, Carol Dweck, Herm Edwards, Julie Foudy, Phil Jackson, and Steve Kerr. PCA is proud to partner with more than 50 national governing bodies, youth serving organizations and professional leagues and teams including Boys & Girls Club of America, National Basketball Association, Major League Baseball, and US Lacrosse.

About The Liberty Union-Thurston School District

Liberty Union-Thurston School District embodies the following core values in its efforts to fulfill our mission of Empowering ALL students to maximize their talents:

  • Innovative Excellence
  • Student Achievement
  • Collaborative Leadership
  • Responsible Citizenship
  • Safe and Productive Learning Organization

Each day the staff of Liberty Union Schools work toward our vision of preparing every student to be successful in the 21st century.

For more information about the Liberty Union-Thurston School District, please visit http://www.libertyunion.org/.