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Youth Sports Coaching Best Practices for Delivering Feedback

Coaching a youth sports team involves tailoring feedback for each player, delivered constructively. Therefore, coaches benefit from employing some best practices.

A coach will give different advice and empathize with players depending on their motives for playing. Some athletes join for skills development or purely recreational purposes. Coaches should help them improve so they will have more fun playing. If an athlete expresses interest in competitive play, either currently or in the future, only then should a coach provide resources about reaching a competition-worthy skill level. Other players join youth sports to cope with mental health challenges, providing a constructive outlet for their emotions, so coaches should frame sports from that perspective.

Though these player motivations differ widely, utilizing positive reinforcement learning will benefit them effectively. Identifying and encouraging players’ good habits will lead to greater happiness and skills development than fixating on mistakes. How a coach behaves around their players will not only impact how they play but their behavior in daily life.

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A Look at Some Popular Variations of Traditional Italian Pizza

While pizza is a popular dish in the United States with regional variations existing in New York and Chicago, among other cities, it originated in Naples, Italy, during the 1800s. The name derived from a misinterpretation of the Greek word "pitta," while the dish was created using leftover dough from baking bread. Early on, people typically topped the dough with common farm ingredients like tomatoes and olive oil. Raffaele Esposito, in 1889, is believed to be the first person to add mozzarella cheese and fresh basil.

Esposito named his pizza variation the Margherita after King Umberto I's wife, Queen Margherita of Savoy. This remains the most simplistic yet commonly-served variation of pizza. In Italy, it is served round and on a plate unless sold on the street, in which case, it is served in slices. It can also be sold "al taglio" by weight and in square slices.

While you won't find pineapple or other common American toppings on pizza served in Italian restaurants, many popular pizza variations have toppings like sausage, potato, eggplant, and canned tuna. Pizza viennese, which also originated in Naples, is a variation that includes two of the most common ingredients - tomato sauce and mozzarella cheese - topped with sliced Vienna sausages. This is a popular pizza choice among children in Italy and is sometimes topped with fries.

Pizza patatosa is a classic variation that features thinly sliced potatoes on top of tomato sauce and mozzarella. The potatoes can also be cut into wedges and, in some parts of Italy, are fried or mashed as opposed to baked. The potatoes are usually smothered in olive oil and sprinkled with rosemary, thyme, and other aromatic herbs.

Eggplant is a popular Italian ingredient commonly used to make eggplant parmesan or eggplant caprese, which is grilled eggplant topped with tomato, mozzarella, and basil. It can also be added to a mozzarella and tomato sauce pizza to create pizza melanzane. The eggplant can be roasted, fried, or sautéed before being placed on the pizza. Cooking the eggplant first gives it a soft yet meaty texture that complements the rich sauce and mozzarella. Once cooked, Oregano, basil leaves, and olive oil can also be added to the pizza.

Tuna isn't an ingredient the average American would put on their pizza, but it's a core ingredient in pizza tonno e cipolla. This variation, originating from the Napoli region, includes tomato sauce, mozzarella, sliced red onion, and canned tuna. It can also be topped with capers and oregano.

Although these variations can be found throughout Italy, none are as popular as Pizza Napoletana. This must be made in a certain way with no deviation as it is protected by a Traditional Specialty Guaranteed certification. The dough, which is made of wheat flour, water, yeast, and salt, has to rise for 24 hours before being molded into a 3-millimeter thick disk. Once the ingredients are on, the pizza is baked in a wood-burning oven at about 900 degrees Fahrenheit for 90 seconds. UNESCO added this baking style to its intangible cultural heritage list in 2017.