Tag: Coaching

FTSV Appreciates Our Coaches

(FTSV Appreciates Our Coaches Punished: 11/13/2025) First Tee – Silicon Valley (FTSV) held a coach appreciation event on Saturday, November 8th, with games, prizes, and dinner.

The event brought together adult coaches from our three program locations – Baylands Golf Links in Palo Alto, Rancho del Pueblo Golf Course in San Jose, and Gavilan College Golf Course in Gilroy. The night was a great and fun bonding/celebratory event. Games were played, raffle prizes were awarded, and food and drinks were provided throughout. More importantly it was a great to have everyone together, strengthening our coaching community. We have around 250 coaches (volunteer and paid). With how big our territory is, it is important for us to bring our coaches together – whether that is through our quarterly trainings or big celebratory events like this one.

“We are HUGELY thankful for all of our coaches, who give back to kids and teens with their time and their wisdom from life experiences. They are the connectors between the kids and teens and all our life skills curriculum, so their role is critically important. Then, when we multiply this by our high number of coaches, we increase the chances that all our participants will benefit from high-quality mentoring. Thank you, Coaches!” said George Maxe, FTSV President & CEO.

Being a coach in First Tee – Silicon Valley is an incredibly impactful thing to do.

Character building is a long-game, a never-ending process, that is developed through mentorship and experiences.  Simply by spending their time coaching and guiding others, our coaches are changing lives for the better.

The world is always in need of high character individuals, and being a coach provides the opportunity to help build high character leaders for the future.

Additionally, not only are coaches impacting others, they are building a community for themselves full of hard working, kind, growth-minded people who want to spend their free time doing something for others.

Interested in becoming a coach? Please visit our VOLUNTEER PAGE.

No golf experience necessary!

PCA FTSV Training

(PCA FTSV Training – Published 9/9/25) On September 6th, First Tee — Silicon Valley hosted two coach trainings led by Positive Coaching Alliance (PCA) trainer, Peter Wood. This was the 3rd time that our two organizations came together to deliver a coach training. The first instance occurred in 2020 and was the pilot training/collaboration that led to a national partnership between First Tee and PCA.

PCA’s content, training, and resources are now shared nationwide, throughout First Tee ‘s network. Both First Tee – Silicon Valley and PCA share common coach philosophies centered around process-focused coaching, participant empowerment, and a positive and supportive team culture. The topic this time around was how to support positive athlete behavior through responsive coaching.

Successful coaching requires a balance between having high expectations for behavior and providing high support. When challenges present themselves in class it is imperative that a coach have empathy and understanding of where their athletes are coming from, while also having a clear behavioral prevention plan. Coaches should work WITH their athletes instead of being punitive, neglectful, or permissive when faced with behavioral challenges. To this point, we are grateful that PCA shared their resources and worked with our coaching team on behavioral prevention and intervention techniques. Additionally, they provided strategies for coaches to identify participant stressors and practice self-regulation. A great coach is a prepared coach who takes the time to understand their student. We are grateful PCA helped prepare our 19 paid instructors and over 50 returning volunteer coaches this past Saturday.

What PCA is saying about FTSV

Working with PCA has been a shining example of teamwork. “Chris and I work quite seamlessly together in putting together curriculum for FTSV coaches’ training,” says Senior PCA Trainer, Peter Wood. “That is a testament to the common visions and values that both PCA and FTSV share in our respective work. Much of that shared vision and set of values manifest itself in our focus on helping young kids develop into great older kids, and adults. We care a lot about the kids acquiring a good set of technical skills to be able to enjoy and play golf, but way more important than that is to help kids absorb invaluable life lessons in their athletic pursuit. This is the charge of youth serving organizations coaches around the country, and it’s a very cool thing when two large national organizations like PCA and First Tee join forces to try to make this all happen- a worthy pursuit if there ever was one.”

Click here for more information on joining FTSV as a volunteer coach.

Join us as a Volunteer Coach!

Join us as a volunteer coach! Has it been a goal of yours to get more involved in your community? To contribute in a positive way to others? To learn more about yourself, and improve your leadership, communication and problem-solving skills? If so, come join us at First Tee – Silicon Valley!

FTSV Coaches work together as a team in our classes to help participants develop their life skills, all while setting their own personal goals for what they want to improve during the season. Coaching with FTSV is an opportunity to not only help others, it’s an opportunity to help yourself. Throughout the season, coaches reflect on how classes are going and discuss different coaching strategies for delivering material, all while providing one another constructive feedback and advice.

FTSV Life Skills: Goal Setting

One of the life skills that First Tee teaches is Goal Setting. Our participants practice creating short-term and long-term goals, making sure that they are specific, time sensitive and do-able. With these skills, FTSV participants have been able to accomplish some pretty incredible feats in school, in their communities, and on the golf course. Our coaches practice their Goal Setting in a similar way, setting specific goals for themselves and what they want to practice while coaching. FTSV believes that everyone can benefit from clear goals and a growth mindset, participant and coach alike. Let’s level up together!

Our coaches and volunteers play a CRUCIAL role in FTSV’s ability to succeed. As a nonprofit organization, we rely on community members determined to make a difference to work with us, delivering our fun life skill curriculum to the participants. We strive to maintain a 4 to 1 student to instructor ratio, so every volunteer and coach makes it possible to grow and accomplish this goal. Not only will you be contributing to changing lives and growing character, but you will also continue to develop and hone your own mentorship and leadership skills, while being a part of something bigger than yourself.

Ready to join us as a volunteer coach?

Does this sound like a good fit? Join us as volunteer coach and mentor! Please visit our volunteer page to apply. Email [email protected] if you have any questions. We look forward to seeing you on the course!

Published: 05-08-24