Northern Virginia Screaming Eagles Softball Coach Denise White Wins Positive Coaching Alliance’s Double-Goal Coach® Award Presented by Liberty Mutual Insurance

February 22, 2011, Stanford, CA – Northern Virginia Screaming Eagles Softball Coach Denise White has won Positive Coaching Alliance’s coveted Double-Goal Coach Award Presented by Liberty Mutual Insurance for her positive impact on youth athletes.

The award – named for coaches whose first goal is winning, and whose second, more-important goal is teaching life lessons through sports – carries a $250 prize, a trophy and mention within the websites and newsletters of Positive Coaching Alliance (www.PositiveCoach.org) and the Liberty Mutual Responsible Sports program (ResponsibleSports.com).

“Denise wins on the scoreboard, and more importantly, she wins by creating a positive, character-building sports experience for youth athletes,” said Jim Thompson, PCA’s founder and executive director and author of several books on youth and high school sport coaching and sports parenting. “Ultimately, the youth athletes Denise coaches are the real winners, and as those athletes become tomorrow’s leaders, our society as a whole wins.”

White has built her program for under-12 players on the principles of Honor, Respect, Devotion and Team. Elements include community volunteerism, such as collecting crayons for a non-profit child development facility, wrapping holiday packages for overseas troops and laying wreaths at Arlington National Cemetery.

As life altering medical challenges such as cancer have afflicted multiple family members of Coach White’s players, she helps them face those challenges. “We’ve been working through this as an organization, helping the girls know this is part of life,” White said. “It goes beyond what we’re trying to teach on the softball field. These are life lessons that everyone is going to have to go through. We feel it is going to help the girls in the long run as future leaders.”

“All of the winners of this prestigious award exemplify responsibility, which is the characteristic we at Liberty Mutual value most,” said Greg Gordon, Liberty Mutual’s Senior Vice President of Consumer Marketing. “That’s why we are committed to supporting PCA’s Double-Goal Coach Awards program. It is tremendously important that these fine coaches be held up as examples to be emulated.”

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 ResponsibleSports.com to help children reap the full benefits of playing a team sport.  The online community incorporates podcasts, 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 nearly 9,000 live group workshops nationwide for more than 475,000 youth and high school sports leaders, coaches and parents.  Workshop attendees have helped create a positive, character-building youth sports environment for roughly 3.5 million youth athletes.

PCA’s partnership network includes more than 1,700 youth sports organizations, cities and schools. In 2011, PCA will conduct roughly 1,300 live, group workshops across the U.S., while assisting tens of thousands of other individuals via online workshops at www.PositiveCoach.org.

PCA trains coaches to be Double-Goal Coaches, whose first goal is winning and whose second, more-important goal is teaching life lessons through sports. PCA also cultivates Second-Goal Parents, who focus on life lessons through sports and helps produce Triple-Impact Competitors, student-athletes who work to improve themselves, their teammates, and their sport as a whole.

PCA has the support of dozens of elite coaches and athletes on a National Advisory Board that includes Los Angeles Lakers Coach Phil Jackson as National Spokesperson, the Houston Rockets’ Shane Battier, Cincinnati Reds Manager Dusty Baker, Olympic Gold Medalists Summer Sanders and Julie Foudy, former NFL coach Herm Edwards, and Boston Celtics Coach Doc Rivers, all of whom appear in PCA’s online courses.

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.

Contact:
David Jacobson, Positive Coaching Alliance
Phone: 650-210-0808
E-mail: david_jacobson@positivecoach.org