Wendy Rijnen Glover (Catholic Central High School): The Athleadership Program

The Athletic Evolution Podcast

Wendy Glover is a Health and Physical Education Teacher and Coach. She has dedicated her 22+ year career to approaching teen athletes as future contributors to sport through education, community involvement, and mentorship. She has written Health and Wellness, and Sport Management courses for the Ontario Ministry of Education, and many programs to support the holistic development of the athlete.

Wendy wanted to improve the sport community experience all, this led to her creating an innovative #AthLeadership program to recruit and train teen athletes to be future coaches in the province of Ontario. Through this program AthLeaders gain many industry certifications (e.g. coaching, ethics, sport management), and dozens of volunteer community service hours in areas of sport, individualized for them. Over 400+ athletes have been through this program and have been empowered to contribute to sport in Canada.

In this episode Wendy discusses:

• How the lack of age appropriate sporting experiences for her own children inspired her to action.

• Why the Win/Loss record isn't a good tool for measuring coaches.

• The idea and creation of the Athleadership program.

• What the Athleadership program entails for those involved.

• Giving youth a taste of different experiences to find their aptitudes and enthusiasm.

• Why we should be encouraging young athletes to "pay it forward" to the community and Why "You're not special"

• Why negative or positive perceptions of youth can become a self fulfilling prophecy.

• Being an "Athleader for life" and the importance of developing an identity outside of being an athlete.

You can find keep up to date with Wendy via her Twitter account: @developathletes .

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