Rewarding kids for best effort and also helping other kids understand what best effort looks like is a top priority for us at Spike Frog. Coach Dee Dee, Will and Bonnie, coaches for the Junior Frog Yellow Dragons team, have come up with an awesome award for “Best Effort”.  They award a Dragon Medallion weekly recognition award to one kid on the team that gives best effort. 

Coach Bonnie explained “it's not the one that gets the most serves or balls over the net, but it is an award for the hardest working team member that gives their best effort. I love having this special memento to reward someone who has played beyond their regular game, because it rewards them for taking the risk to do something new.” Coach Bonnie also said that the reward is just temporarily theirs and they pass it on to the next Super Dragon at the next game.

We asked Coach Dee Dee how they came up with the idea for the Dragon Medallion. She said that it was born from their own experience with their daughter - seeing her tired and a little bit unenthusiastic at the first game. “I saw several girls on our team who seemed to have lost a bit of their spunk between our practice day and game day. The award seemed like a super simple way to get the kids energized, and when I showed up at the game with it, the players jumped all over it.” The coaches decided in advance that the team member who won the award would get to lead the team cheers for the week and would get to choose an activity at practice, as well as present the award to the next player to win it. “So far, it seems to be motivating some good hustle and enthusiasm on the court!”

Bonnie, Will and DeeDee are all volunteer parent coaches.  We are beyond grateful for the time and energy that our volunteer coaches give to the hundreds of kids in our league each season. We love that the Yellow Dragons have incorporated this idea for recognition with their team and we encourage similar awards for other teams at Spike Frog. If you know of or have any ideas that encourage best effort or Spike Frog’s mission of creating a culture of play, please This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it. those to us. We’d love to hear from you!