Star WNBA Athletes bring adidas’ ‘Sideline Essentials’ to Tampa Youth Skills Clinic during Women’s Final Four

Seven WNBA icons, led by President of adidas Women’s Basketball Candace Parker, surprised Tampa-area high school athletes on Saturday by showing up at adidas’ girls basketball skills clinic to provide motivation and guidance to the next generation of hoopers.

Part of the brand’s mission to highlight the importance of positivity in sport, Aaliyah Edwards, Aliyah Boston, Chelsea Gray, Kahleah Copper, Nneka Ogwumike and Satou Sabally spent the day between the women’s Final Four and National Championship coaching local athletes and demonstrating the power of blending competition with positivity and support.

adidas’ star-studded WNBA roster took the court with coaches from Elite Is Earned to demonstrate key shooting and ball handling mechanics for the attendees as they rotated through basketball activities. The high school athletes were then split into teams to compete in various minigames and in live play, with each group paired to a specific WNBA partner — who were tasked with ensuring the competition served only to elevate everyone’s game rather than discourage them.

“The recent growth of women’s basketball has brought a wave of new athletes and fans into the sport, but with that bigger stage comes added pressure for young athletes to perform,” said Parker. “The next phase of my basketball journey is to encourage and develop this new generation of hoopers to believe in themselves and each other, embrace the opportunities ahead of them and carry the game forward.”

During the skills clinic, adidas’ WNBA partners, including Parker, embodied adidas’ “Sideline Essentials” — research-backed positive behaviors that people on the sidelines should adopt to help encourage up to 20 million more athletes to play sport more regularly. These helpful behaviors include:

Standing By Their Side — Staying close and identifying critical opportunities to offer encouragement that turns around negative thinking.Letting Players Play — Understanding when saying less is doing more and offering supportive reinforcement (cheering, clapping) instead of tips for improvement.Game-planning Gestures — Establishing a language of gestures that can wordlessly remind athletes during play that they’ve got this.Focusing on Effort — Celebrating an athlete’s effort vs the outcome to bolster self-worth and facilitate long-term improvement.Being the Support Act — Using post-game and post-practice chats to encourage athletes, saving detailed analysis or constructive criticism for later.

The brand’s “Sideline Essentials” have been created in response to its recent global study, which uncovered the “Sideline Effect,” the impact of negative and positive behaviors from the sidelines. The finding, which surveyed more than 12,000 athletes across 24 countries, revealed that 4 in 5 amateur athletes regularly experience unhelpful behavior from coaches, parents, supporters and teammates.1 In partnership with sports psychologists and figureheads, the brand highlights common behaviors that many view as helpful but can act as a source of pressure and push many young athletes to quit.

To counter this, adidas created its “Sideline Essentials,” which have been developed with sports experts, validated by the findings from the research and endorsed by sporting icons including Parker and Anthony Edwards. The “Sideline Essentials” reveals how coaches, parents, supporters and teammates on the sidelines can tackle the most common negative behaviors. They provide high-impact, positive actions that could mean the difference between millions of athletes heading out onto the field or quitting altogether.

adidas’ skills clinic comes on the heels of the brand’s recent March Madness film, the latest chapter of the brand’s global campaign, You Got This. Executive-produced by Parker, the film is centered around the campaign’s belief that we all need someone to make us believe. It taps the brand’s women’s basketball roster to show that even competitors can leverage their tenacity and shared respect for the sport to improve their own game and elevate the game as a whole.

In an unprecedented era of the women’s game, adidas is proud to continue to celebrate its partners and all the student-athletes in this year’s tournament who are elevating the sport to new heights. Find out more at adidas.com/yougotthis.

References

1 adidas commissioned international research conducted by Focaldata surveying 12,438 16-29-year-olds of varying participation levels in sport in November 2024, across 24 markets (Argentina, Australia, Brazil, China, France, Germany, Greece, India, Israel, Italy, Japan, Mexico, New Zealand, Philippines, Portugal, Saudi Arabia, South Africa, South Korea, Spain, Thailand, Turkey, UAE, UK, USA)

About adidas:

adidas is a global leader in the sporting goods industry. Headquartered in Herzogenaurach/Germany, the company employs more than 62,000 people across the globe and generated sales of €23.7 billion in 2024.