Why ‘Relentless Positivity’ Now Dominates America’s Youth Sports

From Silicon Valley, a Philosophy of “Positive Coaching” Has Caught on Across the Country   

California has failed to contain the excesses of its technology executives. But Californians have made progress in curbing the worst impulses of another group of would-be dictators: Little League coaches.

For the past two decades, Silicon Valley has been the headquarters for a national nonprofit, the Positive Coaching Alliance, that is changing how youth sports are coached. Based in Mountain View, Positive Coaching Alliance has synthesized research—much of it with Stanford roots—in everything from business leadership and marriage counseling to physiology and organizational psychology into a uniquely Californian philosophy of “relentless …