This book is written for youth sport coaches, the individuals who volunteer their time to teach young athletes the fundamentals of a given sport, as well as the skills needed to work as a team. In writing this book, we recognize that children who enroll in recreational sports have a variety of experiences and skills, and thus this book seeks to provide coaches with a foundational structure and methods to provide effective instruction for all athletes. Within any given team, young athletes have varied skills that range from novice to competent and providing the same activities for all will result in frustration for some of your athletes, either because they do not possess certain prerequisite skills or because they have reached mastery and become bored. It is our goal to provide easy-to-use, practical tools to not only prevent this frustration but to help create an environment that encourages mastery and fun for all, including you, the coach. This book includes information on accessible coaching for teams that may consist of young athletes with learning disabilities, behavioral disabilities, attention deficit hyperactivity disorder, as well as athletes without disabilities. Effective Coaching includes topics such as effective organization, design of practice environments, communication with families, efficient and feasible progress monitoring, and chapters targeted toward common youth sport programs (e.g., soccer, t-ball, indoor hockey, basketball, flag football, lacrosse, and volleyball).
Margaret M. Flores was a special education teacher in the public schools before earning her doctorate in Education of Students with Exceptionalities from Georgia State University in 2004. Her first position in higher education was at the University of Texas at San Antonio from 2004-2008. During this time, she met her co-authors and expanded her research interests in academic interventions accessible instruction for students with disabilities to include recreational sports. She and her colleagues began a line of research related to children with learning, behavioral, and attention deficits and their experiences in recreational sports. In 2008, she accepted a faculty position at Auburn University and is currently a Professor of Special Education in the Department of Special Education, Rehabilitation, and Counseling.
Tiffanye M. Vargas, Ph.D., CC-AASP, is an Associate Professor in the Department of Kinesiology at California State University, Long Beach. A native Texan, she received her B.A. in Plan II and Psychology at the University of Texas at Austin before earning her M.A. in Counseling and Ph.D. in Sport Psychology from Michigan State University. Listed on the United States Olympic Committee Sport Psychology and Mental Training Registry, she has worked with aspiring Olympians and Paralympians, collegiate, and club coaches and athletes on mental skills training. A former collegiate athlete and youth sports coach, Tiffanye uses her research on coaching education and personal experience to develop coaching curriculum and seminars for youth sport volunteers. She is the past president of the National Council for the Accreditation of Coaching Education, serves on the Editorial Board for the International Journal of Sport Science and Coaching, and is an active member of the Association for Applied Sport Psychology.
