Coach McKenna can speak first-hand to the difference Up2Us Sports training has made in her coaching. She joined the Up2Us Sports AmeriCorps coaching program in December 2019 and, through Teens Run DC, serves as a running coach for youth at three schools in Washington, DC. When COVID-19 forced sports programs to transition online, Coach McKenna engaged the trauma-informed, sports-based youth development training she received with Up2Us Sports in order to continue connecting with her student athletes, and to provide them with much-needed support in an uncertain time.
Coach McKenna helped build-out an online program with virtual office hours, daily Zoom or Google Hangouts and a lot of Instagram interactions. She had to adapt as one host site’s formerly in-person lunch program—which focused on emotional and social wellness—went virtual, as did an after-school running program. To get everyone on track with the new schedule, Coach McKenna attempted to contact parents and students over the phone, but often encountered hurdles: many parents did not answer or return her calls. Recognizing that her student athletes would need a supportive coach and solid programming more than ever, Coach McKenna was persistent in her outreach. She discovered that many students are on Instagram, which she now uses to check-in with those who can’t join the daily Google Hangouts. She has found that getting a hold of just one student can help spread the word and get more students engaged. This means more students interacting with their teammates and with a caring adult mentor.
Coach McKenna on a Zoom meeting with some of her youth participants.
Moving from in-person to online has presented challenges, but Coach McKenna continues to draw from her Up2Us Sports training to help bridge the gap. Having learned to track nonverbal cues such as body language, speech patterns and prosody in order to better attune to a student’s psycho-emotional state, Coach McKenna feels more able to “tune in” to how her athletes are doing—something that can be difficult to gauge virtually.
The upside of virtual coaching: everyone is finding creative ways to reinvent traditional activities. One of Coach McKenna’s host sites created a donation-based virtual 5K called QuaranTeens Run DC Virtual 5K in which participants had a week to send in a fantastic post-run picture. The run was free to enter, and all youth participants received a free T-shirt and milkshake coupon.
Working together with youth sports programs across the country, Up2Us Sports coaches like McKenna continue to innovate new ways of engaging with their teams and ensuring that their kids will always have a coach they can count on.
McKenna has been serving as an Up2Us Sports coach since December 2019 at Teens Run DC thanks to support from AmeriCorps.
