Hawaii Youth Sports Conference a Big Success

Dana Takahara-Dias

More than 150 student athletes, coaches and parents meet this past Saturday at the University of Hawaii Campus Center for a daylong conference on how to facilitate a more positive experience for those youngsters in sports.

FEAHY, Facilitating Extraordinary Accomplishments in Hawaii’s Youth, brought together a variety of guest speakers that were divided into two morning sessions, one for coaches entitled Developing Competitors and the other for student athletes called Becoming a Triple Impact Competitor.

Key note speaker was University of Hawaii Rainbow Wahine basketball coach, Dana Takahara-Dias.

Takahara-Dias is a former Rainbow Wahine player, 1985-1988, under legendary coach Vince Goo brings the same energy and wisdom as her former coach.

The new Rainbow Wahine skipper spoke about her years playing ball which began at age nine. “I believe that there are three areas that made me the person I am today,” she said. “The first came from what I learned from my parents, second was what I learned in school, and third was the education that I received on the field, the courts and on the diamond.”

Takahara-Dias spoke about her secret dream of playing college ball one day for the Rainbows. How she felt on her first days as a walk on freshman at UH and on making the team. “On the first day of tryouts I gave all that I could and practiced as if there was no tomorrow,” she said. “But I still didn’t feel like I belonged and I knew that I needed to work harder.”

By her sophomore year at UH she had been given a full athletic scholarship, then in her junior year she became the starting point guard. At the start of her senior year she was selected by her teammates to be Team Captain.

“What I learned from team sports has brought me here today,” Takahara-Dias said. After graduating from UH and playing basketball for the Rainbow Wahine Takahara-Dias spent 15 years as a special needs teacher.

Prior to signing on as the new UH basketball coach, Takahara-Dias, was working for the City and County of Honolulu as the director of customer service.

“I have a very simple goal as a player and now as a coach and that is to improve every single day,” she said.

Following Takahara-Dias’ keynote address participants were able to hear additional speakers on a variety of topics aimed at enhancing the student/athlete experience.

: Melissa Schad

Laupahoehoe swim coach, Melissa Schad was pleased with what she learned during the daylong conference. “This conference has helped me be a more positive coach and has showed me what an impact coaches have on their athletes.”

“Most of the speakers were primarily talking about ball sports, so I had to think outside the box as swimming is more of an individual sport,” Schad said.

Asked what was the most interesting aspect of the conference Schad replied, “I related well to the speakers stories, I like when they brought something up that was personal because it relates better to my own personal experiences.”

: Kamuela Johansen

Volunteer track and field coach from Waiakea High School, Kamuela Johansen, also came away with ideas that could enhance his coaching. “I wanted to learn how to become a better coach so that the athletes can gain a better appreciation for the sport that I teaching them,” he said.

“I liked the many “do’s” and “don’t” for coaches. There are many verbal and non verbal ways that coaches communicate and sometimes with just a roll of the eyes or a nod of the head that can convey negative feelings towards the player,” Johansen said.

Hilo High freshman, Chris Torrison, who plays soccer for the Vikings, came to learn how to be a better player. “The speakers were helping us with ways we can boost our emotional feelings to help us become a better player,” he said.

“One thing they told us was to look in the mirror and repeat to yourself no one can change you, but you,” Torrison said.

Torrison also provided insight into how various coaches can bring out the best and worst in a player. “I’ve had coaches that yell and it brings us down and we end up playing worse,” he said. “If you’re positive as a player it will also help the team as it can determine if we win or lose the game.”

Numerous speakers were involved in helping conduct the breakout sessions where the emphasis was placed on teaching ways to “honor the game.”

Dexter Irvin, the newly appointed director of Athletics at UH Hilo, along with Doug Conners, Randy Hirokawa, Amy Malinowski and Mason Souza conducted an hour long panel discussion on “How we do youth sports on the Big Island of Hawaii – Our local culture.”

The panel discussion was moderated by ESPN Hawaii Radio personality, Josh Pacheco and kicked off a morning full of motivating and positive discussions geared at helping to enhance youth sports in our community.

The FEAHY conference was hosted by Positive Coaching Alliance who believes that the most important aspect of youth sports participation should be the teaching of life lessons by their coaches.

PCA nationally works to train youth coaches in the positive ways of working with young people in athletics.

PCA Big Island has been providing live, research-based training workshops and practical tools development for several years, according to spokeswoman Jeannie Yagi.

For more information on the PCA go to their web site at http://www.positivecoach.org.