About

He started his teaching career in Pitman High School in New Jersey in 1964 and began coaching cross country in 1965. In 1966 he began teaching at Cheltenham High School where he taught English for the next thirty-five years. He also taught  a course in Educational Psychology to teachers for many years. 2016 was his 51st and final year as head coach. He now serves as a volunteer assistant.

 Tom has helped many of his runners and some of his teams qualify for the state championship. His teams have won 70 percent of their meets over the past 45 years. His last two teams were undefeated in league play and his 2016 team won both the American Conference League Championship and the Suburban One Sportsmanship Award. His coaching mentor has been Track and Field Hall Of Fame Coach Tom Donnelly of Haverford College. Tom has also coached high school basketball and track and a variety of youth sports when his own children were growing up. In  addition he was a P.I.A.A. basketball referee and baseball umpire for many years. He has been involved in organized sports his entire life including four years of playing collegiate basketball.

Tom resides in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania with his wife, Marge. He has three children, Nicolle, Sean and Tom and two stepsons, Ron and Joe Silberstein. Ron died on December 25, 2015.

Tom Sexton taught English for 37 years and learned early on that the more students felt respected, valued and appreciated by their teachers, the more motivated they were. This approach brings out the best both in the teacher and the students. Tom taught a course in Educational Psychology for over 10 years to teachers entitled Invitational Education which stressed the importance of positive reinforcement.

Tom knew from his own coaching experience that this same approach was effective with athletes yet he saw quite a bit of negative reinforcement in the world of coaching. Tom had his share of authority figures use this approach with him and he never found it to be motivational. When coaches would insult him or his teammates, Tom would simply turn them and their words off but would continue to work hard in spite of these coaches and their misguided approach. It always bothered Tom to see a young person have to stand there and take verbal abuse, embarrassment, insults, personal criticism, public humiliation etc. from a coach as the kids had no voice.

In 2004, Tom decided to create a similar course to the one he was teaching to teachers for coaches entitled Characteristics Of Inspirational Coaches. He began sending out surveys asking people to answer two questions: What did your coach do that was helpful and what did your coach do that was an obstacle to your development? Tom did not want his course to be based solely on what he believed. Therefore, he wanted to include the testimony of former and current athletes. He collected hundreds of stories, some inspiring and some disheartening. One thing that quickly became obvious was that coaches certainly leave their mark on their athletes in a positive or negative way. People had strong feelings about their coaches and could recall what their coaches said and did ten, twenty and even fifty years ago.

From 2004 until 2007 Tom read extensively on the lives of successful coaches and also read and reread the survey responses looking for recurrent themes, patterns etc. to see if he could draw any valid conclusions. He did draw two. The first one was that there is a coaching strategy that will keep most athletes motivated most of the time. The key ingredient in this strategy is how much athletes feel the caring and support of their coaches. This is what helped athletes the most. The biggest obstacle that stood in the way of the athletes’ motivation was how coaches made their players feel disrespected. Time and time again athletes as a group felt that being disrespected was always an obstacle to their development and motivation.

In 2007, Tom came upon an excellent book entitled Beyond Winning—The Timeless Wisdom of Great Philosopher Coaches by Gary M. Walton. This book contained the story of a truly legendary coach named Doc Counsilman who has the best win and loss record of any coach in the history of collegiate swimming. He coached at Indiana University from 1958 to 1990 and he based his coaching strategy on Abraham Maslow’s hierarchy of needs. Counsilman tried to meet certain basic needs of his athletes such as the need for safety, self-esteem, affection, a sense of belonging etc. He treated his swimmers like gold while having very high standards for them and his record speaks for itself. His teams were so successful that Life Magazine did a feature article on Doc and his program in 1954.

Tom thought to himself, “Now I have a face for my book as Counsilman promoted a coaching strategy I knew was effective, according to my own fifty years of coaching, according to the results of my survey results and according to the reading I had done of the lives of certain successful coaches.”

After reading the article, Tom Googled Doc Counsilman. After a series of phone calls, he was fortunate to make contact with a man named Dave Tanner, a very successful high school swimming coach in Bloomington, Indiana. Dave swam for Doc for four years and was his assistant for two years. More importantly Dave Tanner was like a son to Doc, visited daily in a rest home in Doc’s final years and truly loved Doc. Once Dave and Tom began to talk and exchange countless e-mails, the writing of Creating a Team like no Other really took off. Dave was thrilled that Tom was writing a book about Doc and he provided Tom with story after story and so much valuable information about Doc. Tom states that his book could not have been written without Dave Tanner coming into his life.

After reading and researching from 2004 until 2007, Tom had an abundance of material to work with: survey stories from current and former athletes, stories about Doc Counsilman, notes on Maslow’s hierarchy of needs, additional notes based on Tom’s own extensive reading, and Tom’s own stories from fifty years of successful coaching.

What followed from 2007 to 2014 were seven years of writing and rewriting, and organizing and reorganizing. Tom was fortunate to find three excellent editors along the way who kept reminding him that his manuscript needed more work. Tom finished Creating A Team Like No Other in August of 2014.

Tom truly believes that his book can help coaches create the right environment so that true team formation takes place, which will result in high motivation and individual and team success. This book can help coaches avoid problems like hazing, coach-athlete confrontations, poor coaching behavior, and conflicts with parents, administrators, etc. Coaches who employ the strategies in this book will also enjoy their coaching more as they will be approaching their coaching from a more positive perspective.

Tom’s challenge is to get his book in the hands of coaches so they can consider a more positive and respectful approach with their athletes.