We introduce the “emotional wellbeing” in Bàsquet Girona with our project COACH +

During this first semester of 2019, we have implemented our COACH + project in Bàsquet Girona, the basketball club of Marc Gasol. COACH + is an initiative to promote healthy habits in sports entities, which aims to raise awareness in both young athletes and their families, as well as coaches and technical staff (role models for players), on the benefits of following a healthy lifestyle.

Journey to the planet of “emotional well-being”

Specifically, during these first months of the year, and according to the needs identified in the club’s teams, we have worked on “emotional well-being“, one of the four pillars of the Gasol Foundation, which is fundamental to achieve balance among the other three: sports and physical activity, healthy eating (already treated last year) and the quality of rest. With the players and families of the U13 team, newly incorporated into the club, they also worked on healthy eating to move forward together in the same direction.

After several interviews with the coaches of each team (from U13 to U18), thanks to their sincerity and collaboration, we were able to detect some areas of improvement within the teams directly related to emotional well-being. These were related to: difficulties when facing a defeat or difficult situations in matches, rivalry versus team camaraderie, low tolerance for frustration, stress and pressure management, difficulty to disconnect from daily responsibilities, low self-esteem and introversion, etc.

The COACH+ workshops

In total, the COACH + has been implemented through 6 workshops aimed at players (1 for each category), 3 workshops with families (grouped in U13-U14, U15-U16 and U17-U18) to encourage and support their children in this vital stage, as well as a session/training with coaches to teach them how to promote better emotional well-being among players, both individually and as a team. These sessions, using invisible training, have resulted in reflections, self-criticism, fun, and teamwork by all. In total, 72 players and their families have participated.

Following our usual procedure for the implementation of our programs, we will soon conduct a post-intervention evaluation session. This will allow us to analyze, after comparing the results with those of the pre-intervention evaluation, the impact of our program and, thus, be able to focus on the improvement again in the following season.

Thanks for making COACH+ possible!

We appreciate the willingness of the Bàsquet Girona and the Montfalgars School for providing us with a well-prepared space to facilitate the workshops. Thanks for the cooperation! See you next year with a new planet to travel to!