Today we’d like to introduce Elgin-based Coach Pickles’ Jelly Bean Sports, an early learning sports instruction, production and research company.
An amalgamation of live and fictional characters integrated into animation, a fun new sports language, video-based learning, technology, preparatory lessons for kindergarten, dual-language lessons, music, storytelling and more! It is quite simply baseball, soccer, basketball and football, reimagined.
Filled with the novelty and the contrast that young children desire and the colorful and high-energy coaching parents require; Coach Pickles’ Jelly Bean Sports keeps sports simple and makes learning fun.
The Company is the creative vision of American educator, writer, and businessman Dr. Brad Kayden (a.k.a. Coach Pickles). A sports anomaly, Jelly Bean Sports is something Gerald Molen famed producer of Jurassic Park once said is destined to be, “the next Sesame Street but for sports.”
Established in 2009, the company’s organic beginnings have involved partnering with NW suburban Chicagoland park districts. It has brought to life a new, high-energy, entertainment approach to sports programming, birthday parties, special events and multimedia. The Company’s endearing value proposition sees sports as a medium to building stronger bonds between parents and children.
It teaches them to:
- speak the same sports language
- celebrate small wins together, and
- enjoy the fun of shared learning experiences
This, as Dr. Kayden explains it, is the Jelly Bean Way.
Coach Pickles’ Jelly Bean Sports fills an early learning gap that has long existed in sports. Beyond its focus on the family, it has focused on perfecting its execution, too often a problem, Dr. Kayden says, in early learning sports programming.
Dr. Kayden’s beginnings in the business found him face to face with coaching that young children were bored with. He says that the traditional coaching approach doesn’t work for young children. It relies too heavily upon trying to conform young children to fit sports. Jelly Bean Sports, he says, has chosen a different path; it, instead, conforms sports to fit young children. It is a shift that seems so simple but is one, Dr. Kayden says, is hard to figure out and why many stick with the more established (i.e. less refined) ways of traditional coaching.
In the case of Jelly Bean Sports, this more simplified and contemporary approach has proven highly effective. Dr. Kayden says changing sports to fit young children, in many ways, begins with quality coaching.
The Company’s high coaching standards keep children in mind and have gone so far as to redefine the sports leadership role. Jelly Bean Sports’ “Coach Performers” must pass a rigorous screening, selection and training process before they are given the Performer title. The objective, Dr. Kayden says, is to help qualified individuals learn to overcome their fear of performing and prove to us that they can bring sports to life for young children, the Jelly Bean Way.
Taught to maximize the fun through the use of humor and silly antics, Coach Performers also rely upon a plethora of training aids to grab kids’ attention and keep it. The Company has mastered the psychology behind teaching young children, 18 months to 7 years, sports. So much so, one Jelly Bean parent would say, “my daughter got more out of her first Jelly Bean classroom experience than she did in an entire 8 weeks session participating in another sports program.”
Great, so let’s dig a little deeper into the story – has it been an easy path overall and if not, what were the challenges you’ve had to overcome?
Although nearly a decade old, Coach Pickles’ Jelly Bean Sports is still very much a work in progress according to Dr. Kayden. But, he would go on to say; early learning sports development, in general, is also still very much in its infancy.
Sports has a long way to go, he says; there is much that many need to learn about today’s more contemporary sports development process before the introductory sports process is consistently done right.
Dr. Kayden explained there was nothing written anywhere, including Google, about coaching early learners when he first started out as a youth sports instructor in 2006.
Inspired by the love of his work with young children, he committed himself to the challenge of better defining the introductory sports process.
Dr. Kayden, only a doctoral student at the time, would parlay his previous business and coaching experience to help him establish his Coach Pickles’ Jelly Bean Sports early learning practice. It would further serve as a proving ground to study young children and sports and it would all eventually lead to his groundbreaking early learning research.
Today, Dr. Kayden is the foremost expert on the topic of early learning in sports. His Jelly Bean Sports practice, published works, coaching videos, applied research, use of technology and innovation inside the sports classroom serve as benchmarks for early learning coaching practice.
Jelly Bean Sports – what should we know? What do you guys do best? What sets you apart from the competition?
What makes Jelly Bean Sports different, according to Dr. Kayden, is its entertainment approach.
Conforming sports to fit young children is not an easy proposition, says Dr. Kayden. It requires a lot of patience, coaching skill, coordination and maybe most importantly, he says, it requires thinking like a kid.
Transforming the introductory sports experience, he admits, has been a process of trial and error. But it has been one that has led to the establishment of an early learning teaching model, proven coaching formula and entertainment approach that has included the introduction of a new, more kid-appropriate, sports language.
The integration of technology has also played a major role, says Dr. Kayden. Technology, by definition, makes anything you do easier. Coach Pickles’ Jelly Bean Sports, says Dr. Kayden, has been built on the idea of using technology to transcend traditional ideologies to innovate sports. He says, we have better defined the introductory sports process and continue, week over week, seeking new ways to make the teaching of sports to young children, easier.
In the end, Dr. Kayden says, what matters most is what parents love about Jelly Bean Sports and that lies in the positive responses its Coach Performers are getting from kids. Our use of humor, coaching performance antics, original characters, animation, new sports language and branded décor all combine to make-up our proven proprietary formula. Collectively, they serve to separate our entertainment approach and us, as a Company far and away, from all others in the market.
What moment in your career do you look back most fondly on?
Dr. Kayden says he is most fond of and proud of the name Jelly Bean Sports. Every week, he says, new people that he meets tell him how much they love the name. The artwork and name, he says, reflect so much of the work that has been done and all the love that has gone into making the introductory sports process more fun and about building bonds between parents and their young children.
Pricing:
- Baseball Prep Programming <$100
- Soccer Prep Programming <$100
- Basketball Prep Programming <$100
- Football Prep Programming <$100
Contact Info:
- Website: www.jellybeansports.com
- Phone: 8478900063
- Email: info@jellybeansports.com
- Instagram: www.instagram.com/@jellybeansports
- Facebook: www.facebook.com/jellybeansports
- Twitter: www.twitter.com/@jellybeansports
Image Credit:
CRed Photos
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