This statement serves as a philosophical guide for behavior, policy, and decision making of Mountain West Youth Football. It is not the policy and procedures document of Mountain West Youth Football. All parents and coaches should strive to adopt this philosophy to enhance the youth sport experience of the child.

Core Beliefs

• Each athlete has potential; develop it.
• Each athlete is capable of doing something to positively affect the team; help them to discover what that is.
• Each athlete has a strength; identify and enhance it.
• See what the athlete CAN do and figure out how to utilize that skill rather than focusing upon what they CAN’T do.
• Develop self-efficacy of every athlete by
  • documenting accomplishments
  • helping them to develop an adversity quotient
  • teaching assertiveness
  • demonstrating the power of listening
  • emphasizing existing talents
• An environment of trust leads to more risk taking, innovation, and creativity and will be reflected in greater productivity by the students/players.
• Do no harm, physically and psychologically. Put the well-being of the participants first.

People Values

• It is the teacher/coach that makes the difference
• Trust and respect each other; be a serving leader
• Open, honest, timely, clear, and emotion-free communication.
• Do not rip a player in public; try not use the player as an example--either good or bad
• Use specific praise regularly; use general praise sparingly
• Keep students/athletes involved
• Motivate positively; our most valuable skill is our ability to motivate

Performance Values

• Overtly recognize small successes and good tries as process to improvement.
• Recognize and teach the difference between discipline and procedures-- and punishment.
• Conform to requirements, procedures, standards, and policies.
• Strive to continuously improve; this is the ultimate definition of success, not wins/losses
• Objective, competency/performance-based, evaluation of student/athletes.
• Be able to answer these two questions for each player:
• Where/how/what does he/she need to improve?
• What happens if he/she doesn’t get better?
• Reinforce that performance is evaluated and judged but it is not and cannot be an indicator of  personal worth
• Correct performance immediately, and specifically; criticize the performance, not the person, if they are not doing what you want.
• Develop discrepancy in those student/athletes who say they want something, but seem to be doing something else.  Teach them how to develop discrepancy in their own beliefs
• There is more to the game than the score.
• Performance is a function of ability and motivation.