High School team captains challenged to lift others — and themselves

As co-captain of Copper Hills High School’s girls wrestling team, Eliza Brunner has a daily goal to be a positive influence for her teammates and coaches.
But Eliza often wages internal battles with a roster of negatives: Self-doubt. Self-criticism. Overthinking.
“Sometimes, to myself, I will say really rude things,” she said.
Eliza’s co-captain on the Grizzlies wrestling team, Maya French, gets it.
She also knows that a positive word or nod — to others or to one’s self — makes winning sweeter, and losing a bit more manageable.
“Just (positively) connecting with other people,” said Maya, “is really beneficial.”
Eliza and Maya are both skilled wrestlers, but they say their capacity to lift their teammates and themselves has sharpened after participating in a Positive Coaching Alliance workshop sponsored by the Jordan School District.
Last week, the two Copper Hills wrestlers got a pass from morning classes and joined scores of other winter sports team captains from the district’s six high schools with athletic programs — Bingham, Copper Hills, Herriman, Mountain Ridge, Riverton and West Jordan — for the alliance’s student-athlete workshop.
Bryan Veazie, the district’s director of athletics and activities, said the Jordan School District implemented the Positive Coaching Alliance workshops to enhance the sports’ experience for high school student-athletes, along with their parents and coaches. The workshops, offered to both coaches and team captains, focus on building positive relationships and helping student-athletes thrive outside of comfort zones.
The alliance/Jordan District partnership is fueled by a shared goal: to maximize each student-athlete’s potential and positive athletic experience at a moment when youth sports are being defined by overwhelming pressures to win and perform at all costs, literally and figuratively.
Jordan School District athletic team coaches gathered in recent weeks for a Positive Coaching Alliance workshop on student-athlete development.
But the Nov. 19 gathering at the district’s JATC South campus in Riverton was crafted specifically for captains of Utah high school winter sports — basketball, cheer, drill team, swimming and wrestling.
The workshop’s title: Becoming a triple-impact competitor.
“The goal of the district is to ensure that all of our programs demonstrate the highest level of sportsmanship, class, pride and spirit,” said Veazie, introducing the workshop. “We want you as athletes to understand the direct impact that you have on your school culture. We want you to understand the direct impact that you have on the school’s overall success, academically as well as athletically.
“You guys are leaders — and you have a huge influence, not only on your teams and not only within the athletic program, but throughout the school, throughout the halls, in your classrooms and anywhere you go in the community.”
Jessica Crate Oveson — an elite track athlete, USA Track & Field coach and a businesswoman, presented the team captains workshop.
High school team captains, she said, enjoy unique, life-altering opportunities to lift others amid competitive sports’ turbulent, twisty road of wins, losses, victories and failures.
The workshop is, well, an interactive “team” experience. Throughout the two-hour event, the young athletes were up and down, swapping experiences and hollering out ideas.
The raucous atmosphere was much more “basketball playoff game” than “golf tournament.”
Sporting athletic gear and running shoes, Crate Oveson scurried from one end of the auditorium to the next with microphone in hand, encouraging her audience to claim ownership of the workshop with their thoughts, suggestions and opinions.
Triple-action competitors, she taught, impact sport on three levels: They improve themself. They improve their teammates. And they improve the game.
It’s essential that student-athletes master sports’ “ELM Tree”: Effort. Learning. Mistakes.
Growth comes from exerting maximum effort, learning each day and then allowing others (and one’s self) to make mistakes. To ”fail forward.”
Crate Oveson asked all the student-athletes to stand, find and partner and play a round of Rock Paper Scissors. The losers sat down — the winners remained standing and found another standing winner to play the next elimination round. The do-or-die Rock Paper Scissors games continued until there were only two young athletes standing — a wrestler and a drill team member.
Crate Oveson called the two to the front of the auditorium to determine who would be the workshop’s Rock Paper Scissors champ. They played two rounds.
For the first-round, the audience was told to be negative. Everyone booed the finalists — and they visibly flinched.
For the second round, the audience was instructed to be positive. Everyone cheered. The reaction from the Rock Paper Scissors finalists was far more pleasant.
The same negative/positive response applies to sports teams, said Crate Oveson.
“You guys all saw what happened to the two girls up here when we were booing them and critiquing them. They froze. That’s not a good feeling. But as soon as we flipped the script and you guys were positive and cheering and affirming. They were able to focus, and they got the job done right.”
Before you choose to toss criticism at a teammate, check in with them. Ask how they’re doing.
“Ask, and then listen,” said Crate Oveson. “We have two ears and one mouth for a reason. Ask, and then listen to understand.”
Crate Oveson moved to the back of the auditorium where the district’s high school athletic directors were seated together. She asked each to stand and share a bit of “coach wisdom” with the scores of team captains:
Concluding the Positive Coaching Alliance captains workshop, Crate Oveson challenged the young team leaders to always honor the game. That means respecting the rules of the game, the competition, the officials, teammates and one’s self.
“Honoring the game is important because it not only affects you, it affects everyone else associated with the game,” she said. “So behave respectfully and treat yourself and others with dignity.
“We’ve interviewed a lot of athletes, and one of the highlights of the interviews was that it is hardest to deal with yourself. It’s easier to treat others with dignity. So treating yourself with dignity is so important.”
Many of the district’s team captains are seniors. That means the window’s closing on their high school sports experience.
“How will you be remembered?” Crate Oveson asked. “What will you do to be remembered by your teammates, your coaches, your opponents, your peers, your parents and the grade-schoolers who watch your games?”
Following the workshop, Copper Hills High School athletic director Ben Morley said he appreciates the alliance’s message to student-athletes to manage set-backs, look out for others — and then keep competing.
“It’s all about reminding our student-athletes that it’s OK to fail,” he said, “It’s okay to feel anxious about a performance coming up. It’s OK to have adversity. In fact, you should embrace it. You should see it as an opportunity to improve yourself as an athlete and improve yourself as a person.”