PCA Trainer Spotlight – Paul Souza

We are excited to profile one of our newer PCA Trainers, Paul Souza.  Paul is an 8-time NCAA National Championship winning head coach in the sport of track & field. He has a bachelor’s degree in communications from Penn State University where he was a two-time All-American and Olympic Trial qualifier in the high jump. Paul was an assistant coach for the US Indoor World Championship Team in 2004 and the US Outdoor World Junior Track & Field Team in 2001. He is the founder head clinician of the Elite Track & Field Series, a two-day clinic that ran from 1995 to 2012, and he is a Level II certified coach and a Level I instructor. In his 17-year career Paul has coached 84 National Event Champions and 284 NCAA All-Americans. He is currently the coaching supervisor for the Riley Children’s Health Sports Legends Experience at The Children’s Museum of Indianapolis.

PCA:  Paul what brought you to PCA?

Paul:  The message.  I had never heard of PCA and when I started working part-time at The Children’s Museum of Indianapolis, my director Caleb Bailey, told me we had a partnership with PCA, and he asked me to be the liaison for the museum. That’s when I became more and more interested in PCA’s message and decided to become a trainer.

PCA:  In addition to being a PCA trainer, you are the Coaching Programs Instructor for the Riley Children’s Health Sports Legend’s Experience at The Children’s Museum of Indianapolis. Can you tell me about the Museum?

Paul: I want to invite everybody to come see The Children’s Museum of Indianapolis. It is the largest museum of its kind in the world, that offers things you can’t find anywhere close such as real dinosaur bones, trained coaches that facilitate interactive games and provide basic instruction in sports. Within The Museum, I work at the Riley Children’s Health Sports Legends Experience® which is an interactive athletics wonderland, right in the heart of sports-loving Central Indiana. Former Colt’s QB Andrew Luck called it a sports utopia and Olympic track star Jackie Joyner Kersee raved about it saying she wished she had something like it when she was a kid.

I love that beyond just a great place for kids to experience sports, it is a place that allows kids that do not have access to youth sports, an opportunity to sample sports. Our museum is located in the area just north of downtown and we provide the six surrounding neighborhoods with free memberships. 

PCA:  Did you have any other roles that really took advantage of your personality and your ability to bring people along?

Paul: I was a college coach and a high school track and field coach for years. And so that’s where the coaching part of it comes in. I am also a professional touring musician and I have a band that I play in. So, the entertainment piece was always there as well. 

PCA:  Do you have an inspiring moment as a trainer?

Paul: Well, I think that every workshop I’ve done I start by telling a story about a young man who had mental health issues and a coach who did not know how to work with him, and then I stop. And then I say, why am I telling you all this? And the coaches say because you don’t want us to do the same kind of things. Yes, and then I turn to them and say the reason I’m telling you this is because the boy in the story is my son. And if you don’t think what I’m telling you here today is important, I can tell you from personal experience that it has been life changing.

PCA: And how is your son doing?

Paul: He is fantastic. He just graduated from Park Tudor High School and is going to be running track next year at Villanova University.

PCA: You have only been working with PCA a short time, but can you tell me your impressions?

Paul:  Well, I mean the number of coaches is amazing and the diversity is mind boggling. And then, when you look at our Advisory Board, it’s ridiculous. I don’t know of an advisory board that is more impressive than the PCA’s and it’s just incredible. But the thing I always go back to is the message. When I started working at The Children’s Museum, my director who introduced me to PCA said he wanted to champion the PCA message across all our spaces. So, we have the Elm Tree of Mastery and Roots plastered all over our spaces outside. So that’s what I always go back to. The message is so powerful and so important right now, because the culture of youth sports in this country is out of control. And you know we gotta reel it back in somehow. And this is the way to do it. The only way to do that is grassroots and get the coaches when they’re starting out and especially those who are coaching younger kids, and you gotta show them the right way to do it.

PCA:  How flexible is your work schedule that it allows you to also be a PCA trainer?

Paul:  It is really simple.  PCA calls me and lets me know about a variety of upcoming training opportunities and I am able to see what fits in my schedule. 

PCA:  Is there anything else you want to help spotlight?

I have talked about The Children’s Museum of Indianapolis and in 2025 we’re going to going to celebrate our centennial and we will be doing some really cool, special things with a lot of our partners who are all the professional teams in Indiana. I really invite anyone in the area or who plans to visit, to check out our website – https://www.childrensmuseum.org/.

I also wanted to highlight that the Riley Children’s Health Sports Legends Experience was named by the Aspen Institute as a Project Play Champion based on the work our organization is doing to grow youth sports participation for all kids.

Check out our website to learn more about our free and highly discounted days like First Thursdays – https://www.childrensmuseum.org/ 

Learn more about becoming a PCA Trainer