Two dads who raised athletes are providing online options for B.C. students who want to pursue athletic careers.
Bill Green and Shane Harle work out of different school districts, but both offer course options for students from across B.C.
Green’s focus is on helping students attract college or university recruiters, while Harle focuses on the power of goal setting.
Green first learned what it takes for a student-athlete to get recruited by colleges when he was trying to help his son, Taylor, be successful in baseball.
Green was a school principal at the time and had seen many promising student-athletes finish high school without going on to college because they didn’t know how to go about the whole recruiting process.
“So I said, ‘You know what? That’s not going to happen to my son. I’m going to make sure as a parent that I’ve done everything I can to support him in achieving his dreams,’” explained Green.
He coached baseball at the time and asked fellow coaches what he should do to support his son. All of the responses he received were negative — he was either told that it wouldn’t happen or that, if his son was good enough, college recruiters would find him.
Green didn’t buy it and approached university and college recruiters to ask for advice.
“They were all telling me sort of the same thing and it was a proactive thing,” said Green.
He was told that his son would need to reach out to recruiters and in the end, the approach paid off. Green said his son received offers from 91 colleges and universities.
“I got really upset when the first university phoned and said they were interested in him. I got upset because I said, ‘You know what, if I would have sat back and listened to all those negative people out there … nothing would have happened,’” said Green.
Taylor Green went on to play Major League Baseball for the Milwaukee Brewers and is now a scout for the team.
Harle’s son has also seen success after graduating from his dad’s program.
Teal Harle is a freestyle skier who won gold at the 2015 Canada Winter Games, won gold at the 2017 World Cup and is an Olympic hopeful for 2018.
Teal graduated from the program when it was still a school for skiers and snowboarders in Whistler, but Shane Harle has since moved the program online and now helps athletes involved in a variety of sports.
“And the only reason I do it online is because I see a huge hole and parents asked me to do it,” said Shane Harle.
Taking sports education online
Green’s program is called Triple Play Athletics and he partners with School District 71 in Comox Valley to provide PACE (Performance Athlete Custom Education) Athlete Online Academy.
PACE courses are free for B.C. students and allow them to complete PE 10 through 12 online.
Green has also helped developed additional courses designed to help student-athletes get the most out of their high school education.
A good example of this is Planning 10 for Athletes — a redesign of the provincially required Planning 10 course that helps student-athletes plan for the future.
“Basically we looked at Planning 10 and said ‘This is not meeting the needs of these kids, these students athletes,’ so we designed a Planning 10 for Athletes course,” explained Green.
The course meets the same learning outcomes as Planning 10 but is more relevant for student-athletes.
There’s also PACE Applied Skills 11.
“In that course, the kids design their own recruiting webpage,” said Green.
The program also offers a PACE Independent Directed Study for students in Grade 10 through 12, which takes the place of an elective.
Six students from Rossland’s Seven Summits Centre for Learning are currently enrolled in the PACE program, and Green came to Rossland before the new year to meet with them and their parents.
“I met with the students first of all and I have them a mini-look at my workshop,” said Green.
Over two hours he led the kids through a quick planning session and then in the evening he met with their parents and went through a planning session with them as well.
Green offers a $450 planning workshop for students and their parents, which can be taken online or in person if enough people are interested.
Students and parents interested in PACE should contact Green at billgreen6@gmail.com or 250-702-5071. They can also visit his website at tripleplayathleticpromotion.com for more information. Students can sign up for PACE courses any time of the year.
Parents interested in Green’s workshop should contact Andrea Pearce at Seven Summits (250-362-7772). If there is enough interest, Green will make a trip up to Rossland to give a workshop in person.
Shane Harle’s program is called Podium of Life and he partners with School District 72 in Campbell River.
The program also offers PE 10-12 online.
“But I do it a little bit differently and I focus on empowering kids,” said Harle. “And a lot of the kids who know of my program choose it because of the focus it gives them.”
Harle said kids who take PE online typically fall into two camps. Either they are competitive athletes focused on one sport or kids who are not athletes and don’t want to do PE in school. For the latter kids, Harle helps them explore sports or physical activities they may not have considered before.
Podium of Life also offers Athletic Acceleration to help student-athletes.
“It’s a self-designed program that deals with all the stuff that’s not physical. So it’s training your brain,” said Harle.
“So preparation, mental toughness, overcoming anxiety, fighting fear.”
Harle said he has seen many of his graduates go on to compete at the international level.
He also offers an online Video Production course.
“I made another course specially designed for skiers/boarders, because I read their goal-setting sheet and they all say, ‘We want to be pro skiers,’ and I know that to get to become a pro skier there’s two ways: one is you can become the best in the world, the second one is you can become a great filmer,” said Harle.
PE through Podium of Life is free to students in B.C. while Harle does charge for the Athlete Acceleration course. The cost is $249.
Student and parents interested in more information about Podium of Life can contact podiumoflife@gmail.com.
