As
coaches and athletes, you plan regular practices and training schedules
during the season. These serve to maintain healthy routines and
the fitness levels that are often necessary for participating and
excelling in sport. So what to do when the holiday season comes
along?
It is very tempting to just take the
time off of training, and enjoy too much of all that fantastic holiday
food. This of course can potentially undo some of the hard work
done during the season, undermine healthy nutritional habits, and
potentially set back the progress an individual has made.
This edition will offer some advice
and resources to help reduce those temptations. Many of these resources
were found by some of the athletes and coaches in the program here
at the University of North Dakota. A special thanks to Anna, Alyssa,
Ashley, Barrett, Brett, Casie, Emily, Jason, Kelsey, Seth, and Spencer.
Sandra
Short
Coaching section editor
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| STAYING ACTIVE DURING THE HOLIDAYS |
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Here are some sources that help us keep
on track with our fitness over the holiday season.
How
to Stay in Shape over the Holidays without Becoming a Scrooge
is for individuals on serious training regimens. Provided are some
ways to stay focused and disciplined when away from a regular routine.
Tips in this article include planning workouts, setting goals for
the break, and making healthy nutritional and lifestyle choices
while avoiding some of the temptations that abound. The fine folks
at Indiana University also provide information
about fitness during your holiday celebration, with some helpful
advice about activity choices and putting things in perspective.
If you live in a more northern climate
the cold may make regular exercise a little more difficult. Some
good tips include dressing in light layers, staying hydrated, and
being wary of frostbite and hypothermia. Children can stay active
during the chilly weather as well by getting involved in fun activities
like building a snowman, having a snowball fight, testing out some
of that new gear, such as skates and snowboards, along with helping
out around the house with the holiday chores. Read Staying
Active in New England's
Cold Weather and Fun
Holiday Exercise Tips.
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| DEALING WITH THE HOLIDAYS |
Tips
for Healthy Eating
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Eat a
light snack before big holiday meals |
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Take steps to avoid recreational eating |
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Reduce
the fat in holiday recipes |
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Choose beverages wisely; drink plenty of water |
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Focus on the festivities, family and friends, not the food |
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Share
a desert with someone else |
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Eat
in moderation |
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Include
low calorie foods like fruits and vegetables |
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Keep a food record to keep track of how much food you eat |
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When hosting big meals, encourage guests to take home leftovers |
These and many more sensible holiday
eating ideas can be found amongst the following resources.
Dealing with Holiday Stress
Another killer over
the holidays is stress. The usual routines are interrupted by travel,
time changes, overindulgence, and family and social obligations,
which can all lead to increased amounts of stress. Stress can lead
to more than just the dreaded holiday weight gain. It can disrupt
our ability to function, mess with moods, cause headaches, exhaustion,
and weaken our immune system.
Ways to decrease stress
include healthy eating, exercise, get enough sleep, wash your hands
frequently, get a flu shot (keeping your immune system strong),
have realistic goals, try to stick to a routine, and set healthy
priorities.
Holiday Activity and Nutrition
Tips
There are plenty of
ways to help children stay active and eat right over the holidays.
Just starting the day with a healthy breakfast will go a long way.
Some other methods include getting them some extra sleep on days
preceding a lot of planned activity. Some ways to help your children
stay active include playing favorite games with a holiday twist,
and taking walks.
Help your children become
informed eaters; hopefully, that teaching will encourage them to
make good nutritional choices, such as replacing empty holiday treats
with healthy alternatives like fruit and nuts, not skipping meals,
and not choosing to fill up on junk.
Read "10
Tips from Sportacus on How Families Can Stay Healthy During
the Holidays" and "Help
kids stay active and be healthy during the holidays."
Adults have additional
challenges, as we are constantly urged to have additional helpings,
enjoy holiday treats, skip workouts to go shopping, and participate
in excessive celebration. To avoid the typical weight gain and stress
of the holiday season there are plenty of guidelines to follow.
These guidelines involve setting realistic goals, getting support
from friends and family members, creating more active and healthy
family traditions, and drinking plenty of water.
Other suggestions include
snacking on fruits, vegetables and high fiber foods, limiting alcohol
consumption, staying active, spreading out meals, and making exercise
a priority. When shopping, pick the parking spot that is the farthest
away from the store, rather than the closest, for a little exercise!
Read "10
Ways to Keep Your Fitness Plan on Track During the Holidays"
and "Tips
to Stay Fit During the Holidays."
Holiday Fitness Events
Another option is to
take your holiday health goals to another level by getting involved
in some of the many events, competitions, and fitness gatherings
that have sprung up to help combat those holiday temptations. Including
cardiovascular activity into your holiday plans is a great way to
keep your focus on your healthy lifestyle goals. Here are examples
of a couple opportunities available around the country: The
Turkey Trot and Take
the Exercise Challenge.
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Now with football, golf, cross country, and volleyball
ending, basketball starting players are making the shift
from football to basketball. Do you believe that athletes
should be attending basketball practice and conditioning
if they are involved in a spring sport? Should the player
be punished because one-sport basketball players are not
playing a fall sport and showing up to only basketball
practice? Do you think that the coaches should put aside
their multi-sport athletes for the lone athletes of their
sport? I see a lot of this during football and basketball
seasons. What do you think? Please share in the forum. |
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| ATHLETES & PREGNANCY
(webmaster) |
| COLLEGES
NEED EDUCATION ABOUT PREGNANT ATHLETES - Despite Title IX protection,
some schools still threaten to pull scholarships from women. "It's
blatantly illegal," said Elizabeth Sorensen, who has headed
a four-year effort to raise awareness of the issue. "To lawyers,
this is a no-brainer. They're astounded the practice has continued."
Read more.
UNPLANNED
PARENTHOOD
Last November, in the
weeks following her freshman season at Mercyhurst College, Rhodes
became pregnant. As the pregnancy progressed, so did her secrecy
about it. On Aug. 10, she returned to Mercyhurst for a preseason
physical, denied that she was pregnant and was cleared to practice.
A day later, Rhodes
tried to assure a concerned assistant coach that she had recently
taken a pregnancy test and that it was negative. The following day,
Rhodes left practice early for her campus apartment, delivered a
six-pound baby girl in the bathroom, then showered as the newborn
suffocated in a plastic bag at the teenager's feet.
Word of the case met
with shock and disbelief nationwide. What brought this woman to
the depths of despair? Could the university have intervened more
forcefully? Was this, indeed, avoidable? Read
more. Also read another article on this entitled Former
Athlete at Mercyhurst College Charged With Killing Her Newborn Baby
and what this
woman has to say.
Wow! Something really
needs to change - College
Student Kills Baby in Teri Rhodes Copycat Crime.
Athletes
often forced into heartbreaking decisions
On the road that leads
to Clemson, S.C., billboards sponsored by an anti-abortion group
dot the highway with the phrase "Pregnant & Scared?"
plastered in large letters. They are an ominous backdrop for Clemson
University, where at least seven current or recently graduated student-athletes
terminated their pregnancies, primarily because they were afraid
of losing their athletic scholarships.
"I have a couple teammates that
have had abortions due to the fact that they knew they weren't going
to get their scholarship back," said a female student-athlete
at Clemson, who asked not to be identified. "But like an actual
teammate having a child, and coming back and earning a scholarship,
that's a situation that hasn't happened." Read more.
Reports
prompt NCAA to review pregnant athletes policies
The NCAA's committee
on women in sports will review its guidelines amid reports of female
athletes being threatened with the loss of scholarships if they
became pregnant. Harding and other female students at the University
of Memphis and Clemson contend they had to sign documents acknowledging
scholarships could be lost because of pregnancy.
NCAA bylaws dealing
with pregnancy "are vague, insufficient, ineffective, whatever
word you want to put there," said Elizabeth Sorensen, leader
of a campaign begun at Wright State University in Ohio aimed at
convincing colleges to establish clear policies to protect pregnant
athletes' scholarships. Read more.
Athletes
and pregnancy: What WSU's policy is for athletes - Although
not many schools have policies about pregnancy, WSU's policy is
starting to open some eyes. This is a great article. This is a topic
that needs to be addressed, and policies put in place such as Wright
State University has done. Read this article.
In
a League of Her Own
Elizabeth Sorensen,
RN, CNOR, PhD, has heard it happen too many times ––
a female college athlete who becomes pregnant is either released
from the team and loses her scholarship or remains quiet and gets
an abortion.
So when Sorensen, an assistant professor
and NCAA faculty athletics representative at Wright State University
(WSU) College of Nursing and Health, in Dayton, Ohio, was asked
to help write a pregnancy policy for the athletic department of
WSU, she took the assignment seriously. She researched the issue
from psychological, physical, and social perspectives and sought
input from a variety of athletic and health care professionals.
Today, she continues to advocate for the cause on a national level.
Read
more.
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| PERSONAL STORIES (webmaster) |
The
Little Wrestler That Could
At the age of 15, little did I know a strange question from a person
I barely knew would eventually change my life. The person was my
third period physical education teacher, and the question was, “Son,
have you ever thought about wrestling? You’d be great!”
Why was this such a strange question? Perhaps, because I was only
4 foot 7 inches tall, 96 lbs., and I avoided confrontation like
a politician at a press conference. If anyone was a prototype for
wrestling, it definitely wasn’t me. Read
more.
Teacher-coach's
life lessons went far beyond classroom - Arthur Moroyoqui taught
students more than arithmetic and the most effective way to swing
a golf club. The semi-retired Sunnyside Unified School District
teacher and coach educated his kids about life. Read
about this remarkable coach, and the things students had to say
about him.
Speckman
is small-time coach with big-time message - Like everybody,
Mark Speckman multi-tasks. He talks on the cellphone while he drives.
He surfs the Web while he fills out paperwork. Simple things, really.
Like fewer people, however, he was an outstanding high school athlete.
Like fewer still, he
rose to a position of authority and became a great leader.
Like very few, his story was once in the
tabloids, next to the sightings of aliens and Elvis. Read
more.
With
humility and hoops, Joe Coelho inspires kids to succeed - on
and off the court
When fourteen-year-old
Joe Coelho tried out for the high school basketball team in 1970,
he grabbed a ball and earnestly raced down the court. During his
fevered sprint, the ball never touched the ground. The coaches and
players erupted in laughter, and the boy stood humiliated.
Dribbling was foreign to the Portuguese-born
Coelho, as was the game of basketball. The experience worsened when
he made the team but only played in the final thirty seconds of
meaningless games. Heartbroken by not getting to participate, he
regularly dribbled a basketball twenty miles back and forth from
his home in Eugene, Oregon, to the neighboring town of Elmira. Read
more.
Coach
Turns Fight for Life Into Lesson - Women's basketball Coach
Kathy Delaney-Smith was diagnosed with breast cancer. As part of
her commitment to education, both of her students and of the broader
community, Delaney-Smith has decided to be public about her disease,
its treatment, and its effect on her life. |
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| POSITIVE COACHING
(webmaster) |
| Coaching
Skills & Roles
Most athletes are highly
motivated and therefore the task is to maintain that motivation
and to generate excitement and enthusiasm. The roles that you will
find you undertake as a coach will be many and varied and you will
find at some stage in your coaching career that you will be: instructor,
assessor, friend, mentor, facilitator, demonstrator, advisor, supporter,
fact finder, motivator, counselor, organizer, planner and the Fountain
of all Knowledge.
This website
provides a wealth of very good information on all the aspects of
coaching and being a coach.
Balancing
Parenting and Coaching
Being a parent is a difficult
job, but here's a surprise: Coaching your son or daughter's soccer
team is equally tricky. After you step inside the white lines, and
your child straps on the shin guards, you're likely to encounter
an assortment of issues. Most of them should be minor, but some
may be problems that you never even dreamed of dealing with before.
Don't panic! Although
coaching your child can be complex and confusing, it can also be,
if handled properly, an extremely rewarding experience for both
of you. Sure, you'll probably experience occasional bumps along
the way, but if the two of you work together, you'll enjoy some
very special memories to savor for a lifetime.
And take comfort in the fact that you're
not alone. Approximately 85 percent of all volunteer soccer coaches
have their own sons or daughters on the team, so you're venturing
into common parenting territory. Read
more.
Positive Coaching:
A Behavior Checklist for Youth Sports Coaches (read the
information under each list at each link)
31
Ways to Positively Affect Youth Basketball. These principles
apply not only to basketball, but all sports. Those who coach youth
have an incredible opportunity to mold young people as students,
players, and young men. Character and values, along with a sense
of teamwork, listening, and hard work are the makings of a solid
philosophy for youth coaches. Too often, though, this important
job is taken haphazardly and followed though with little effort
and commitment. Apply these
principles to your own coaching.
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Bacteria
that killed Virginia teen found in other schools - Students
at a high school in Virginia prepared Thursday for the funeral of
a popular classmate, the victim of a deadly drug-resistant strain
of bacteria that has turned up in schools across the country recently.
It's called MRSA, short for methicillin-resistant Staphylococcus
aureus, and is responsible for more deaths in the United States
each year than AIDS, according to new data. Read more.
MRSA
Confirmed In Dead New York School Student
Health officials from
New York city confirmed yesterday that a seventh grade male student
who died on the 14th of October had MRSA, a highly infectious drug
resistant form of staph bacteria that normally occurs in hospitals
and nursing homes but is now beginning to take hold in community
based places such as sports centres, schools and gyms. It has become
known as CA-MRSA, or community-acquired MRSA.
MRSA stands for methicillin-resistant
Staphylococcus aureus, a bacteria that normally causes skin infections
and has become resistant to penicillin and other antibiotics. Most
people make a full recovery with treatment, but sometimes, if the
bacteria gets into the bloodstream through a cut for instance, and
the person has a weak immune system, it can lead to serious illness
and death. Read
more.
Also read MRSA
in High School Athletics.
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| THE
YOUNG ATHLETE (webmaster) |
The
Young Athlete - Young athletes have special needs. Because their
bodies are growing, they often require more age-specific coaching,
conditioning, and medical care than mature athletes. An awareness
of the special requirements of young athletes can better prepare
them for the competitive pressures and physical injuries that can
come with increased sports activity.
Peer pressure and the economic and social
forces exerted on school coaches to win may lead to decisions that
are not truly in the best interests of a child's health, growth,
and development are other factors that have spurred interest in
the health of young athletes. Find out more.
Intensive
Training and Sports Specialization in Young Athletes - Children
involved in sports should be encouraged to participate in a variety
of different activities and develop a wide range of skills. Young
athletes who specialize in just one sport may be denied the benefits
of varied activity while facing additional physical, physiologic,
and psychologic demands from intense training and competition.
This statement reviews the potential risks
of high-intensity training and sports specialization in young athletes.
Pediatricians who recognize these risks can have a key role in monitoring
the health of these young athletes and helping reduce risks associated
with high-level sports participation. Find out more.
For
Young Athletes Having Fun, Mastering Skills Outscore 'Winning At
All Costs' - Boys and girls who played basketball for coaches
trained to emphasize personal improvement, giving maximum effort,
having fun and supporting their teammates reported lower levels
of sport anxiety compared with athletes playing for untrained coaches.
Further, athletes playing for trained coaches showed positive changes
in their personal achievement goals. Read this report.
Sudden
Death in Young Athletes - A fourteen year old boy comes to your
office for a physical exam prior to entering high school. He is
planning to play soccer. What are the important areas to cover in
your history and physical exam? Find
out. |
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