Twenty Youth and High School Sports Coaches Win Positive Coaching Alliance’s Double-Goal Coach® Award Presented by Liberty Mutual Insurance

STANFORD, Calif.--(BUSINESS WIRE)--

In a nation where positive impact on youth is critical, Positive Coaching Alliance (PCA) today named 20 Double-Goal Coaches – whose first goal is winning, and whose second, more important goal is teaching life lessons through sports – as winners of national Double-Goal Coach Awards presented by Liberty Mutual Insurance.

“These outstanding coaches win on the scoreboard, and more importantly, they win by creating a positive, character-building sports experience for their youth athletes,” said Jim Thompson, PCA’s founder and executive director and author of several books on coaching and sports parenting, including the just-released The Power of Double-Goal Coaching. “Ultimately, the youth athletes these coaches serve are the real winners, and as those athletes become tomorrow’s leaders our society as a whole wins.”

The 20 honorees, who receive a $250 prize and mention in the websites and newsletters of Positive Coaching Alliance and the Liberty Mutual Responsible Sports program, are:

• Roger Barta, Smith Center High School Football (Smith Center, KS)
• Debby Colberg, 5 Starz Volleyball Club (Davis, CA)
• Trey Cornelius, Will McDaniel, Bob McLamb, Scotty Zornes, West University Little League (Houston, TX)
• Kim Everist, Campolindo High School Water Polo/USA Junior National Water Polo Team (Pleasant Hill, CA)
• Rich Gonzalez, Brentwood Youth Activities Baseball (Bay Shore, NY)
• Curtis Haggins, Roadrunner Sports Club/Mid-Peninsula High School Basketball (Menlo Park, CA)
• Tom Jaeger, West Salem High School Soccer (Salem, OR)
• Scott Kennedy, Mission High School Soccer/Athletic Director (San Francisco, CA)
• Rob Kurtz, Bethesda Chevy Chase High School Soccer (Rockville, MD)
• Tom MacLean, St. Regis Raiders Football (Bloomfield Hills, MI)
• Patrick McCrystle, Bellarmine College Prep Cross Country (San Jose, CA)
• Linda Michele, Lady Roc Lacrosse (East Rochester, NY)
• Mark Newton, Menlo School Football (Atherton, CA)
• Steve Notarnicola, Chesapeake Knights Pop Warner Football (Chesapeake, VA)
• Paul Peterson, Providence School Football and Weightlifting (Jacksonville, FL)
• Freddan Riccard, Aspen Junior Hockey (Aspen, CO)
• Jim Roberts, Upper Arlington High School Water Polo (Worthington, OH)
• Monica Smith, Saddleback United Soccer Club (Mission Viejo, CA)
• Jack Tierney, St. Philip’s Saints Lacrosse (Dallas, TX)
• Bryan Yorke, Federal Way United Reign Soccer (Puyallup, WA)

“As an insurance company that celebrates people who choose to do the right thing, we believe that youth sport coaching is a clear example of how individuals can promote the fundamental ideals of community,” said Greg Gordon, Liberty Mutual’s Senior Vice President of Consumer Marketing. “By focusing on positive mentoring, these coaches have created a culture of responsibility among young athletes and parents. And by doing so, they’ve also earned increasingly hard-to-find funding for their teams.”

Liberty Mutual and PCA have also partnered to help youth sports coaches and parents, through the Liberty Mutual Responsible Sports program. Founded in 2007, the program serves as a means to highlight the positive impact that everyday, responsible actions can have on our youth.

The Liberty Mutual Responsible Sports program provides resources for parents and coaches at http://www.ResponsibleSports.com to help children reap the full benefits of playing a team sport. The online community incorporates blogs, videos, and best practices on youth sports topics that provide practical, real-world advice. Parents and coaches also can complete guides on positive sports mentoring that offer best practices for handling challenging sports scenarios.

About Positive Coaching Alliance

Founded as a non-profit within the Stanford University Athletic Department in 1998, Positive Coaching Alliance (PCA) has the mission of “transforming youth sports so sports can transform youth.” To that end, PCA has conducted roughly 7,000 live group workshops nationwide for more than 400,000 youth and high school sports leaders, coaches, parents and athletes. Workshop attendees have helped create a positive, character-building youth sports environment for more than 3 million youth athletes.

PCA’s partnership network includes more than 1,700 youth sports organizations, cities and schools. In 2010, PCA will conduct roughly 1,300 live, group workshops across the U.S., while assisting thousands of other individuals via online courses at www.PositiveCoach.org.

PCA workshops train coaches to be Double-Goal Coaches, whose first goal is winning and whose second, more-important goal is teaching life lessons through sports. PCA sports parent workshops cultivate “Second-Goal Parents^TM,” who focus on life lessons through sports. PCA student-athlete workshops produce “Triple-Impact Competitors^TM,” who work to improve themselves, their teammates, and their sport as a whole.

PCA has the support of elite coaches and athletes on a National Advisory Board (http://www.positivecoach.org/advisoryboard.aspx), including National Spokesperson, Los Angeles Lakers Coach Phil Jackson.

About Liberty Mutual Group

“Helping people live safer, more secure lives” since 1912, Boston-based Liberty Mutual Group (http://www.LibertyMutualGroup.com) is a diversified global insurer and fifth-largest property and casualty insurer in the U.S. based on 2008 direct written premium. Liberty Mutual Group ranks 86th on the Fortune 500 list of largest U.S. corporations, based on 2008 revenue. The company has over 45,000 employees located in more than 900 offices throughout the world.

The eighth-largest auto and home insurer in the U.S., Liberty Mutual (http://www.LibertyMutual.com) sells full lines of coverage for automobile, homeowners, valuable possessions, personal liability, and individual life insurance. The company is an industry leader in affinity partnerships, offering car and home insurance to employees and members of more than 12,000 companies, credit unions, professional associations and alumni groups.

Photos/Multimedia Gallery Available: http://www.businesswire.com/cgi-bin/mmg.cgi?eid=6200633&lang=en