Posts Tagged ‘Coaches’

ISPA Helps a Start-up

Monday, April 19th, 2010

This is a nice story how we can help our professionals:

In a conversation with an ISPA professional, Rob Fisher, an ex-minor league (USA) baseball player, now coach and soon to be special education teacher and author, he mentioned how a fellow coach and he were going to be starting up a coaching business of their own. He asked my advice on getting started and we had a lengthy conversation. Near the end of our conversation he casually mentioned that, “Geez, I have to get a brochure together and I don’t want to pay a designer, graphic artist and printer. We have so many start-up costs already.” You could hear the stress in his voice.

I interrupted him and let him know that ISPA has a format for a brochure that was professionally done and because he is an ISPA credentialed professional we would be glad to share resources with his new business. His response: “Oh my God, thank you a thousand times, that takes so much pressure off me!”

This is what we do for our professionals, we help build careers. We have so many benefits to being credentialed with ISPA, some of which are are spontaneous and happen organically just like with Rob.

Dr. John E. Mayer, President

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Workers’ Compensation Rehabilitation Certification

Tuesday, April 13th, 2010

The ISPA, in conjunction with ATI Physical Therapy, is in the process of finalizing its newly designed Workers’ Compensation Rehabilitation Certification to the world! This Certification has been almost a year in the making and includes an examination that tests on the various areas of knowledge needed to rehabilitate injured workers. This Certification has also been designed to cover many different occupations within the healthcare field! This includes, but is not limited to, Physical Therapists, Athletic Trainers, Personal Trainers, Rehabilitation Specialists, Strength and Conditioning Specialists and Physicians! This landmark certification is the first and only of its kind! The ISPA is very proud of this achievement and is looking forward to its release and impact on the world of healthcare!

For more information, please contact the ISPA at info@theispa.org.

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ISPA-Professional Spotlight for April

Thursday, April 1st, 2010

The International Sports Professionals Association is pleased to announce its Credentialed Professional for April is Edgar Tham.

Edgar is Singapore’s pioneer Sport & Performance Psychologist, he has worked with more than 40 different performance domains (e.g., sports, music, performing arts, military, business, trading, etc) from the schools to world championship levels since 1993. He was employed by the Singapore Government as its very first local sport psychologist in 1995.

Edgar was the team consultant and traveling psychologist to numerous national teams preparing for the SEA Games, Asian Games, Commonwealth Games, Olympic Games, Paralympic Games and World Championships since 1993.  As a Registered Psychologist with the Singapore Psychological Society, Edgar is listed in the International Who’s Who of Professionals (2000) for his specialized work in peak performance psychology. He is the author of “In The Zone: The Mindset for Peak Performance in Sports,” “Psychological Rehabilitation: Mental Skills for Healing & Recovery” and co-author of “The Ideal Performance State” with Dr Daniel Weigand, President of Achieve Acumen, Inc, USA.  In 2007, Edgar developed a new high-performance SPORTS Coaching Model for executive coaching in MNC’s and business corporations.

He is long-time lecturer for the Singapore Sports Council’s National Coaching Accreditation Program in Mental Skills Training since 1996, and is a part-time faculty member of several overseas undergraduate psychology and sport science degree courses offered in Singapore.

Congratulations Edgar!

ISPA-Management Team

He is long-time lecturer for the Singapore Sports Council�s National Coaching Accreditation Program in Mental Skills Training since 1996, and is a part-time faculty member of several overseas undergraduate psychology and sport science degree courses offered in Singapore.

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Publish or Perish

Thursday, March 25th, 2010

Many professionals are desperate to find outlets for their publishing needs. I hope you remember that the ISPA has a publishing division that can serve as such an outlet. Whether it is a book or monograph or a CEU course, consider publishing with ISPA/NP2 Publishing and reach a global audience. Details are provided inside the web site.

Dr. John E. Mayer, President

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Opportunities for You!

Tuesday, February 2nd, 2010

ISPA Professionals:::::::

The response to our PR blasts has been very positive. We are here to help you build your career in many ways, thus we will continue to eBlast special opportunities that come our way. Please note, when we send you these media PR opportunities just respond to the request asked for. Do not, pitch these media contacts  on your special project or next great idea. Nothing turns them off more than feeling like they are being “worked.”

This special bonus from ISPA has led to many great advances for our professionals.

Dr. John Mayer, President

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Burning Fat in Winter Workouts

Friday, January 29th, 2010

I researched a great tip to pass on to your clients:

The age-old question is, ‘Do we burn more fat exercising outdoors in colder weather or in hotter weather?’ I have heard professionals banter back and forth on this issue for as long as I been a gym rat. During this brutal Midwestern winter I decided to do some research on this and I gave up with the definitive answer. I found the definitive study on this in the journal, Sports Medicine 1991 issue. The study was conducted at the Naval Medical Research Institute. They found that fat metabolism was actually slowed down in cold weather. They hypothesized that the slow down in metabolism could be linked to the constriction of blood vessels in the peripheral fatty tissues when exercise is done in the cold. The study also found interesting results on breathing outside. (Don’t we all feel that are breathing is so much deeper and cleaner when we run in the cold weather?) They found that indeed, upon initial contact with cold weather the volume of air inhaled and exhaled in the first minute is higher but soon after continuing to exercise (run) in the cold it returns to rates comparable to what it is when we exercise (run) in warm weather. (Hmmmmm……) They also found that heart rate is generally lower in cold weather exercise.

This is great information to pass onto clients at all levels when they ask this question of you. Now you have the definitive response and the research to cite. Run with it. (Excuse the pun.)

Dr. John Mayer, President

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Leach, Leavitt, Pitino, and Han – Lowering the Ethical Standard

Friday, January 8th, 2010

Coaches have been receiving quite a bit of publicity lately regarding their own actions on and off the job. For example: Texas Tech football coach Mike Leach and the accusations that he locked player Adam James in an electrical closet for three hours because of his inability to play due to a concussion; University of South Florida football coach Jim Leavitt and the accusations that he grabbed player Joel Miller by the throat and hit him in the face during halftime of a game; Louisville basketball coach Rick Pitino’s alleged sexual relations with Karen Sypher in a Kentucky restaurant and later funding her abortion; San Gabriel High School girl’s basketball coach Jannie Han, whom suited up for a JV exhibition game. What kind of examples are these coaches setting for the athletes and prospective players that look up to them as role models and leaders? The message they are sending is “it’s OK as long as I don’t get caught”. No wonder young professional athletes today get into as much legal trouble as they do. Their role models throughout their athletic careers (whether they be direct or indirect) have imposed this attitude of being “untouchable” and that they can do whatever they want…as long as they don’t get caught – a dangerous attitude indeed.

These are exactly the kind of attitudes and actions that ISPA looks to eliminate in the world of sports today. We are looking to dignified,  ethical coaches across the globe to step up and establish a new ethical standard for coaches today. Speaking as a coach myself, I feel a reform is in order and long, long overdue.

Andrew A. Teunis – Director of Business Development, ISPA

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Calling All Dignified Coaches and Personal Trainers!

Thursday, January 7th, 2010

The International Sports Professionals Association has just launched an initiative to reach out to all dignified, stand-up professionals in the Coaching and Personal Training fields! We are calling on all Coaches and Personal Trainers to apply for membership in ISPA and join a respected and recognized group of certified professionals looking to improve the world of sports today! We invite YOU to investigate what ISPA has to offer and discover for yourself why ISPA is the largest international professional credentialing association in the world. Below, we have listed some of the benefits to joining ISPA:

  • Career building – we help build YOUR career
  • ISPA brings publicity to your career
  • This certification allows one to command a higher premium for services
  • Membership will help expand your client base
  • Listing on the International Register
  • Publishing opportunities
  • Exclusive CEU training opportunities
  • ISPA is a member of the Institute for Credentialing Excellence
  • Cross-training opportunities
  • Monthly newsletter
  • Interactive blog
  • Access to our comprehensive website and tools
  • Innovative and passionate staff and members looking to improve the world of sports as we know it

At ISPA, we are looking to make a difference by raising the bar in regard to the ethical and moral standards that professionals are held to today. We encourage you to apply today, and we look forward to having YOU as a member of our distinguished association.

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We lost! Who can we blame?

Tuesday, November 17th, 2009

It seems that us professionals, who serve athletes, come under much scrutiny when the teams (or individuals) we work with do not win. It is very popular these days to fire coaches when a team does not perform. Typically this process starts from the bottom up, a hitting coach may be the first to go and if the team keeps losing not even the head coach is safe. My hometown team the Chicago Bears is one such team where speculation is that coaches are going to start losing their jobs. This begs the question who is to blame? Is Lovie Smith, head coach of the Chicago Bears, to blame? Or are the players who have played less than inspired football to blame? Clearly a great coach can guide a team to victory and a bad coach can steer a team into troubled waters. Poor coaching decisions can hurt a teams chance to win (i.e. Patriots coach Bill Belichick’s decision to go for it on 4 and 2, this is purely an example of a poor decision not a bad coach). However, at the end of the day a coach is only as good as the talent that surrounds him/her and while a great coach can squeeze the most talent out of his/her players there is only so much that a coach can do with substandard talent.

Perhaps, we should not be so quick to blame the coaches and take a step back and evaluate the talent on the field and ask the following questions. 1) What is the talent of the players? 2) Are the players playing to their fullest capabilities? If the players are extremely talented and playing to their fullest capabilities and a team is still losing then it is time to stare at the coaches and say, “what the heck is going on here!”.

Even if the players are the problem the chances that they will get fired before the coaches are slim. More on this tomorrow!

Justin Mayer, Executive Director-ISPA

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Coaches Need Credentials-Think ISPA

Friday, October 23rd, 2009

Last night I spoke to a group of coaches on bullying and teasing. What impressed me about this group was the wide variations in the range of knowledge about working with young people in athletics. It reminded me and energized me that our mission at the International Sports Professionals Association-ISPA is a valuable one. COACHES NEED TO BE CREDENTIALED to assure that they keep continuing to learn and also adhere to high standards of ethics to work with young people.

Here at ISPA we credential coaches. Coaches should also keep in mind that this credential is important for their career advancement. Even if you are a volunteer coach it is important to be credentialed. Look through our web site for more details.  www.TheSportsProfessionals.com

Dr. John E. Mayer, President-ISPA

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