Ciera Jones - an Up2Us Sports Coach at partner program Friends of Baseball in Portland, Oregon - was named a 2024 National Winner of the Positive Coaching Alliance Coach of the Year Award presented by TeamSnap!

Coach Ciera has served as an Up2Us Sports Coach at Friends of Baseball since March 2023 thanks to funding from AmeriCorps.

As part of the nomination process, Up2Us Sports’ Pacific Northwest Program Director Jesse Katz-Klug shared this about Ciera:

“Ciera is one of those people who has put herself in the right place and fully found her groove. With an extensive academic background in youth sports, she recently made the transition into direct service with Friends of Baseball. Not only does she have a constructive demeanor with group management and delivering feedback, but she is one of the most creative educators I’ve worked with. She incorporated science experiments into the physics of pitching and batting, and had a whole camp focused on girls’ leadership. Throughout the week, she did little polls to find everyone’s favorite position, a strength they are proud of, what they see in strong women, and ultimately a portrait photo. On the last day, she had created Player Cards for each participants with their info (“stats”) on the back.

In another instance, she organized a field trip for her teams to go see a collegiate softball game. On top of that, she also organized a campus tour with women administrators and Deans, got permission to go on the field and meet the teams after the game. She goes above and beyond, and her girls benefit immensely because of it. Even at the game, girls had the option to color, run around a section of the bleachers, or watch the game. For those that were watching or more engaged, she was explaining the rules in real time – while other girls practiced/mimicked the pitching or batting technique behind home plate.

Overall, she preaches healthy competition – that you can be intense without being aggressive, and that the game should always be fun. I’ve only see her work with more beginner skill levels, so she has a bunch of fun games to work on mechanics and skills (dropping a tennis ball onto a basketball to practice reflexes and hand-eye coordination). She gives encouragement more often than praise, and always has a community circle to begin and end the sessions. She encourages mistakes, and even talked through batting averages to outline how many times the pros “fail” before they get it right. She understands the kids that she works with, and works to build trust and understanding between and among teammates. Ultimately, I think you would be hard-pressed to find someone who encapsulates the Double-Goal Coach more completely. Ciera’s experience in the classroom, with softball and sports-based youth development, and in the Portland community have allowed her and her participants to thrive in all the ways we hope for.”

You can read more about Ciera here.

Congratulations, Coach Ciera, on receiving this well-deserved recognition!