Mindlessly scrolling through social media one night, I paused on a post that said, “Take your kid’s side, always.” Stuck somewhere between a teacher eye roll and a flush of mom guilt wondering if I do this enough, the post has bounced around in my head since. My first parent phone call as a new …
After 29 years of coaching gymnastics, I’ve learned something that shows up season after season: The athletes who succeed aren’t just the most skilled - they’re the most mentally prepared. They know how to respond to pressure, reset after mistakes, communicate with teammates, and stay focused on what they can control. Here’s the part we …
Continue reading From Health Class to Game Day: Using What We Teach to Build a Champion Mindset
No, we’re not talking about poly-spots, safe spots, squad spots, or anything in between. We’re talking about structures of play: Side-by-Side: Where players are facing and moving in the same direction. Parallel: Players are in a similar space, but frequently focused on their own thing. Oppositional: There are clearly two or more individuals/teams versus each …
Sean McVay is the youngest Head Coach to win a Super Bowl. He understands a common delusion among high performers – that endurance equals excellence. That working yourself down to a nub somehow equates to success. Reflecting on his early career, he admitted, “I used to like almost think it was cool to be able …
When I first stepped into the classroom, I carried a heavy binder of pedagogy and a heart full of expectations. I used to think that being a "great teacher" was a purely technical feat—a puzzle of perfectly timed lesson plans, sophisticated behavior modification systems, and the pursuit of instructional rigor. I obsessed over the data, …
The pursuit of excellence in Health and Physical Education is an ongoing act of finding balance (or “Tau” in the Aotearoa-New Zealand context I come from). As educators, our primary mission is to create a learning environment where every student, regardless of their capabilities or background, can find a meaningful connection to movement and Hauora …
In 30 years of teaching across six high schools on two continents, I’ve been fortunate to work in places that value physical education - schools that prioritize it, protect time for it, and employ certified teachers to lead it. I’ve even worked alongside former professional and Olympic athletes. In those moments, it’s clear: many schools …
Teaching is often treated as a problem to be solved. Pick the activity. Link it to a standard(s). Sequence the lesson. Measure performance. In physical education, this can show up as perfectly timed lessons, detailed progressions, and tightly structured plans … everything mapped out in advance: the day, the week, the month, the year … …
The quick growth of esports (i.e., organized competitive video gaming) in secondary education has transformed competitive gaming into a legitimate outlet for students to represent their schools. As middle and high schools increasingly adopt club and varsity interscholastic esports programs, it is clear that these opportunities are not only engaging but also beneficial for student …
The purpose of this article is to discuss health-related musculoskeletal injury concerns of esports and video game players. Competitive video gaming continues to increase in popularity worldwide. However, gamers are sedentary in prolonged seated positions with increased screen usage while incurring repetitive uses of muscles in specific areas of the body. Because of these habits, …
Continue reading Controller Pain: Physical Toll of Virtual Play
These days, parents, teachers, and other trusted adults are very aware of how technology can capture the attention and focus of children and teens. According to recent data from Stanford University, 90% of youth have a smartphone by age 14, with the majority getting one by age 12. Access to social media follows soon after, …
Continue reading Are you READY? – A Strategy to Promote Responsible Tech Use
We live in a world where young people are constantly taking in messages about sex, relationships, and identity—often before they’re developmentally ready to understand or process them. Whether through social media, TV shows like Euphoria, or online videos, these messages can shape how teens think about intimacy, consent, and what’s “normal” in a relationship. Unfortunately, much …
I want you to understand something: You are in a conversation with yourself all day long. Before practice. During class. After a mistake. After a poor test score. During high pressure moments. During a high stakes testing moment. Whether you realize it or not, that voice is shaping your performance both on the field and …
Continue reading Positive Self-Talk on the Field and How It Can Translate Into the Classroom
It’s easy to look at the current conversation around young people and conclude that stress and anxiety are significantly worse now than ever before. The data tells a more complicated story. While it is clear that too many of today's teens are struggling, and about 21% of adolescents today report anxiety symptoms, national data from the early 2000s already …
Continue reading Yes Teens Are Anxious, But That’s Nothing New
I don’t have a classroom anymore. No attendance to take, no daily lessons to plan, no consistent group of students sitting in front of me. As an assistant athletic director and coach, my interactions are more scattered amongst the hallways, gyms, sidelines, quick check-ins in between everything else. At first, I missed that built-in connection. …
What do Barbados, Switzerland, and London have in common? On the surface, they are dream vacation spots. Dig deeper, and you’ll find they are the birthplaces of three distinct, high-energy paddle games: Road Tennis, Street Racket, and touchtennis. For years, my colleague Seth Martin (Lake Tahoe Unified School District) and I have discussed a necessary …
As I’m wrapping up my fourth year after I stepped away from my own classroom and having become a super sub (just a fancy way of saying I sub every day at one school…and I get paid a little more for it), I have gained a unique perspective that I’ll take along with me when …
Are you looking forward to the holidays? How about spring break or the summer or simply Fridays? Or how about just coffee? What about retirement? Do you know teachers that have their retirement date worked out to the year, month, week, day and depending on how things are going in a particular movement, they may …
In physical education, we often focus on what students are doing—running, jumping, throwing, cooperating. But some of the most powerful learning happens when students pause to think about how and why they are moving, feeling, and interacting. That’s where reflection comes in. I’ve been using a simple strategy with my students this school year called “4 for Thought.” It’s a set of …
Continue reading 4 for Thought: Using Reflection to Deepen Learning in Physical Education
Every few years, a new activity captures the interests of our students. Pickleball was hot for a minute, Spikeball was visible in every park and beach. Cup Stacking blew up for a while, and for a short period, each of these activities had their moment. If your community is anything like mine, it would appear …
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