by
NJJN Staff Writer

It’s easy to get guys involved in sports,” said Mary Ann Salerno, director of education at the WinStar Foundation, a nonprofit educational organization whose aim is to create and provide leadership and skills training for coaches and athletes. “They have a tradition of watching and coaching. Getting women involved is harder.”

But hard doesn’t mean impossible, so the JCCs of North America, with cosponsorships from WinStar, the Hadassah Foundation, and the Women’s Sports Foundation, is making an effort to increase the participation of school-age girls in sports.

On March 27-28, a two-day “coaches’ clinic” covering such topics as coaching philosophies and methods and communication strategies was held for more than 30 health and athletic professionals from a dozen states at the Lautenberg Family JCC of Greater Morris in Whippany.

Monica Garrett, senior program officer of the Women’s Sports Foundation, propounded the use of the GoGirlGo curriculum, created to encourage girls to become more physically active.

While they may start out on a more or less equal footing, a dramatic drop-off in the number of girls participating in sports and athletics takes place after the age of 10. “They drop out of programs at double the rate of boys,” Garrett said.

She asked how many in the group were satisfied with the level of activity designed specifically for girls, whose needs differ from their young male counterparts. No one was.

“Everyone is concerned about what youth have to deal with these days — from peer pressure to bullying, self-esteem, and nutrition,” Garrett said. “We need to create a girl-friendly environment, a place where they can feel comfortable and successful.” To do that, she said, JCCs need to do more to attract female role models and offer equal access and tools for their programs.

In recruiting and retaining coaches, it’s important to know why kids play sports, said Robyn Markey, senior manager of coaches development for the Special Olympics of North America, who led a session on the topic on the second day. “So many times we coach [for] the scoreboard, rather than what we should be coaching for.”

The best way to recruit is to “get [people] into an environment where they feel comfortable and give them some knowledge so they won’t feel scared. The more knowledge they have, the more likely you’ll get them to say ‘yes.’”

Retention has its own challenges. “Coaches want to be successful, and they want to continue to learn, so if…they can continue to learn, they’ll stay in the field. When it gets monotonous, that’s when they want to leave.”

Salerno told NJ Jewish News she is a product of the JCC system. “Playing sports made all the difference…with my being successful in the work world. I know how to play on a team, how to set a goal, how to work with other people to make it happen…. I learned how to do all that starting at a JCC when I was a very young child.”

And while it might sound clichéd, she insisted sports was indeed a metaphor for life. “What [the kids] do on the team, in the pool, on the field with their coaching staff [and] with their teammates is pretty much what they’re going to do in life,” she said.

Salerno said the WinStar Coaches Academy was designed to supplement the pieces of coaching that are not sport-specific. “There’s plenty of information on all the X’s and O’s; the coaches needed more expertise in communications style, ethics, managing and marketing their programs, dealing with parents, conflict management….”

She hoped the JCC leaders would leave the clinic with a feeling that “they can do it, that they’re impacting young lives.”

Another session at the clinic was Successful Strategies for Coaching, a role-playing exercise in which the JCC leaders simulated steps in setting up a team, including assessing youngsters’ personalities and athletic skills, and dealing with parents. Participants also took part in a practical exercise in running a flag football program, which has been expanded in JCCs across the country, thanks to a $500,000 donation from the NFL Youth Football Fund.