How ERA Skills works
A two-part system: coach training on the curriculum, and software that makes growth measurable.
Pilot spots are limited each season.
ERA Skills is a two-part system for character development in youth sports. First, a coaching program: ERA Skills provides the curriculum and trains coaches to build skills like leadership and teamwork inside their existing practices. Second, the software: players rate themselves and each teammate after sessions, coaches review it, and everything rolls into skill scores and program-level impact reports.
Part one — the coaching program
Every ERA Skills club starts with training, not a login. An ERA Skills team member works with your coaches — in person in the Las Vegas area, over Zoom anywhere else — on the curriculum: how to introduce one character skill at a time, coach it during the practices they already run, and lead the conversations that make reflection stick. Coaches don't get handed an app and left alone; they get taught a method.
Part two — the assessment cycle
The software runs in cycles, each tied to the skill the team is working on. One cycle looks like this:
The coach sets up the reflection.
After a practice built around one skill, the coach opens a reflection cycle for the team from their phone.
Players rate and comment.
Each athlete rates their own demonstration of the skill and each teammate's, with a written comment for every rating. It takes 5–10 minutes on a phone.
The coach reviews everything.
Every peer rating and comment goes to the coach before it reaches anyone else — nothing reaches a player or parent unreviewed. Once reviewed, the ratings roll into each player's skill scores across the 5 skills.
3–4 cycles per season is enough to show measurable movement.
After a strikeout, one player who typically shut down recognized the skill of the week — resilience — in the moment, and stayed in it for his team. His coach:
"A 17-year-old taking the time to stop, realize, assess and improve is truly magic."
How scoring works
Every skill is scored from two angles — the athlete's own reflection and teammates' ratings — with the coach reviewing everything before it counts. Cycle by cycle, those scores show how each player and the team are growing.
Leadership · Teamwork · Communication · Problem Solving · Character
Players see their own scores and their own growth — that self-awareness is the point. What nobody sees: teammates' scores, rankings, or leaderboards. Peer ratings and comments go to the coach for review, and parents see only their own child. Scores exist to help young people grow and clubs prove it — not to compare kids.
What the club sees
Directors get a dashboard built for the program, not the sideline: team and program-level trends, coach adoption at a glance, and season-over-season deltas. At the end of the season, that data becomes an impact report you can hand to parents, boards, and grant reviewers.
See a sample impact reportWhat parents see
Parents join with a parent PIN from the coach — no public signup, no open directory. Inside, they see exactly two things: their child's scores and growth, and the comments their child wrote about teammates. Nothing about anyone else's kid.
What it asks of your coaches
One training session with our team to learn the curriculum, then about 10 minutes per assessment cycle from a phone, with discussion guides included. If a coach can run warm-ups, they can run ERA Skills.
Getting started
ERA Skills starts with a pilot, not a purchase. Qualifying clubs run the full program with one team for a season: the curriculum, hands-on coach training, and 3–4 assessment cycles, ending with an impact report built from your own data. Pilots are application-based, and spots are limited each season because our team trains every pilot coach personally.
Run it with one team this season.
A pilot includes the full program: the curriculum, hands-on training for your coach, and 3–4 assessment cycles — ending with an impact report built from your organization's own data. Because our team trains every pilot coach personally, we take on a limited number of organizations each season.
FAQ
Questions about the system
One training session with the ERA Skills team to learn the curriculum, then about 10 minutes per assessment cycle from a phone. A season needs only 3–4 cycles to show measurable growth — discussion guides are included, so there's no lesson planning.
Each skill is scored from two angles: the athlete's own reflection and teammates' ratings, with the coach reviewing everything before it counts. Together they show each player's growth across the 5 skills over a season. Players see their own scores; coaches and programs use them to guide development and prove growth.
ERA Skills is designed for athletes aged 13–18 (roughly U13–U18), the range where self-reflection and peer feedback are developmentally meaningful. Under-13 participation requires verifiable parental consent.