Coach and parent Resource page

The role of a coach in an athlete’s life is a complicated one. You might serve as instructor, teacher, motivator, disciplinarian, substitute parent, social worker, friend, manager, therapist, and even fundraiser 

Help maximize your athlete’s potential both on and off the field with these TrueSport Coach resources. 

Grow your understanding of supportive environments that will help your athletes thrive on and off the field!

The USOPC (US Olympic and Paralympic Committee) created this course in partnership with Stand Up LLC and with support from the Susan Crown Exchange, in an effort to train one million coaches in social and emotional learning as part of the Million Coaches Challenge. 

Find Courses and other resources for all coaches.

 Coaches are the backbone of youth sports, serving as mentors, role models and inspirations for generations of young athletes. But unlike other educators, youth sports coaches are often unpaid or underpaid volunteers, with little training or time to complete it beyond the mandated certifications in critical topics like CPR, concussions and SafeSport. 

The USOPC (US Olympic and Paralympic Committee) Quality Coaching Framework consists of six chapters, each focused on a different, but related, component of quality coaching.

The chapters highlight the coach­ing principles associated with each subject:

• Chapter One: Quality Coaching
• Chapter Two: Essential Coaching Knowledge
• Chapter Three: Athlete-Centered Outcomes
• Chapter Four: Contextual Fit
• Chapter Five: Evaluation and Recognition
• Chapter Six: Coach Well-being

QPI is an approach, a philosophy, and a network of sites working to transform child welfare systems. 

QPI is rooted in three principles: 

• The prioritization of excellent parenting and meaningful relationships; 
• The use of research; 
• Putting those with lived experiences at the center of policy change. 

 Coaching your child can be a wonderful experience when handled well by parent-coach and child. The bonding that occurs can strengthen your relationship with your child. A recent study with youth soccer showed that having a parent coach can not only be great for the parent but for the child (Weiss & Fretwell, 2005). Parents know their child better than anyone and can make informed coaching decisions based on the child’s mood swings and reactions to certain situations. Furthermore, sport organizations need parents to coach to keep youth sport afloat. However, it is a slippery slope!  

Coaching HER tackles the most central, yet unaddressed, issue in youth sport which negatively impacts girls’ performance, self-perceptions, sport choices and experiences: coaches’ unconscious gender biases and stereotypes.

Our Vision: To help more girls get and stay in sport through critical drop-out ages. 

NOTE: the information in these modules are transferable to coaching boys too.

Research, Coaching, Symposiums, Lectures, Podcasts, Summits and more can be found here. House at the University of Minnesota, The Tucker Center is the first of it's kind celebrating 30 years of research around Girls and Women in sports. 

 Want to be a great coach for kids but not sure where to start? 

Our short courses on "How to Coach Kids" and "Coaching Girls" are full of tips to make sports fun and safe for kids of all ages and abilities. 

If you’re the parent or caregiver of an athlete, you’ve probably heard it all on the sidelines: cheering, critiquing, armchair quarterbacking, arguing, cursing, and muttered insults. While plenty of parents and caregivers are respectful fans, some adults simply don’t behave well in the stands.

This article explains how you can observe behavior in the stands and help move it in a more positive direction when it comes to these three common sideline performances.