The Sentinel’s Club Goals

The following are the three (3) primary goals for all the Sentinel’s programs. Everything we attempt to do, either through the design of the program or through the behaviors we use to execute the program, will be mapped toward achieving one or more of these goals:

• Physical and Emotional Safety ‐ The club manages environments in which each child feels “safe” to attempt different skills during practice and match situations;
• Player Development ‐ Our primary focus is to support and encourage each child’s individual progression from one skill level to the next;
• Participant Accountability ‐ Each family is accountable for defining their level of commitment toward their own child's level of development.

Physical and Emotional Safety

This goal is designed to provide an environment where players feel comfortable to make mistakes. We believe that skill mastery comes from making thousands of mistakes. If the program is focused on competitive winning at all times, then players will feel pressured to always do what is safe and not what develops long term skills. If a coach or parent is always criticizing a player, then they will not want to try new things. The idea here is to set clear direction for the player on how to perform the skills and then facilitate an environment where they can try without fear of reprisal.

Player Development

All children have an equal right to participate but all children do not possess equal ability or commitment. That’s what makes children unique. They all bring different attributes to the fields at different times in their development. This goal is focused on helping each child identify their current ability level and to understand the steps necessary to improve to the next level – whatever that level might be. This means that our program should provide options for the highly skilled player that will allow him/her to improve as well as the more novice or less skilled player.

Participant Accountability

It takes a lot of hard work and effort to play at a highly competitive level. It also requires a certain ability level. A player might be naturally skilled in some areas and another player might have to work really hard to achieve the same ability level. Both players need to be provided with an opportunity to improve to the next level. This means some players will be asked to play on certain competitive teams while others might not. From a player perspective, we are looking for that player to understand that if a player wants to play on such a team, s/he is accountable for completing all of the desired player behaviors. Likewise, we expect the same of our parents and coaches. There are certain identified behaviors for each that we believe must be performed in order to achieve the desired results of the program.   We attemp