February 12, 2020 – The Medina Youth Baseball Association (MYBA) has created a new partnership with the Positive Coaching Alliance (PCA), a national non-profit movement developing “Better Athletes, Better People” by working to provide all youth and high school athletes a positive, character-building sports experience.

The partnership provides the MYBA’s coaches with access to PCA’s training, tools and resources for coaches, sports parents, youth athletes and administrators through live group workshops, online courses, books by PCA Founder Jim Thompson and additional online resources.

PCA has partnered with roughly 3,500 schools, districts, conferences, youth sports organizations and park-and-rec departments to create a Development Zone® culture, where the goal is using youth and high school sports to develop stronger social-emotional learning and leadership and reasoning developmental opportunities.

“We are excited to partner with the MYBA and deepen our impact in the Medina community as we also work with Medina High School through the generosity of the Medina Booster Club,” said PCA-Cleveland Partnership and Development Manager, Ryan Virtue. “Many coaches (at all levels) and youth sports organizational leaders have never received any sort of formal training outside of skills and drills so we look forward to injecting some of our sport and educational psychology and organizational behavior research and best practices.”

“We are proud to team up with Positive Coaching Alliance,” said Bob Jacobs, President of the Medina Youth Baseball Association. “Through our Youth Baseball Program, we are committed to motivating the youth of Medina and the entire community to be active and build confidence in themselves through the game. Our program aligns with the Alliance’s commitment to provide young athletes a character-building sports experience.”

For information about this partnership, please contact either Ryan Virtue (PCA-Cleveland) or Bob Jacobs (MYBA).

Ryan Virtue, Positive Coaching Alliance
Tel: 440-465-6552
E-Mail: ryan_virtue@positivecoach.org

Bob Jacobs, Medina Youth Baseball Association
Tel: 330-461-1593
E-Mail: mybapresident@gmail.com

About Positive Coaching Alliance

Positive Coaching Alliance (PCA) is a national non-profit organization with the mission of creating a positive, character-building youth sports environment that results in BETTER ATHLETES, BETTER PEOPLE.

Youth sports currently involves 40M children, which presents a tremendous platform on which to develop youth character and life skills. Research has shown that in order for youth to accrue these benefits from sports, sports needs to be done in a way that creates a positive youth development culture. PCA ensures sports are ‘done right’ with programming that is research-based and designed to have an impact at three levels in a youth sports organization or school:

• Youth experience improved life skills and character development.  They also perform better!
• Coaches become more positive and increase their focus on using sports to teach life lessons.
• Youth Sports Organizations & Schools see their cultures become more positive and everyone involved has more fun.

Since its founding in 1998, PCA has established 18 chapters nationwide, partnered with roughly 3,500 schools and youth sports organizations to deliver more than 20,000 live group workshops, reaching over 20 million youth. PCA offers interactive online courses and has thousands of multimedia tips and tools for coaches, parents, athletes, and leaders available free of charge on PCADevZone.org. PCA also runs two annual awards programs: a scholarship program for high school student-athletes and a coach award program to recognize youth and high school coaches who strive to win and teach life lessons.

PCA gains support from a National Advisory Board of elite coaches, professional and Olympic athletes, organization leaders, and academics who share PCA’s mission including Cleveland Cavaliers assistant coach, Lindsay Gottlieb and others such as Joe Thomas, Dusty Baker, Carol Dweck, Herm Edwards, Julie Foudy, Phil Jackson, and Steve Kerr. PCA is proud to partner with more than 50 national governing bodies, youth serving organizations and professional leagues and teams including Boys & Girls Club of America, National Basketball Association, Major League Baseball, and US Lacrosse.

About The Medina Youth Baseball Association

The mission of MYBA is to provide a competitive and positive environment for the youth of Medina and to learn the proper way to play the great game of baseball.

MYBA features three different levels of baseball appropriate to different levels of talent and experience:

• Rec League  3-18.
• Hot Stove 7-18.
• Sting Travel Baseball 7-18.

For more information about the MYBA, please visit https://www.medinayouthbaseball.com/.