The PE Literacy Playbook

Ray Lewis.

Drew Brees.

Kevin Garnett.

When you hear names like these, what’s the first thing that comes to mind?

Legends?

Of course.

Hall of Famers?

Absolutely.

Champions?

Without question.

But there’s one more thing that immediately comes to mind whenever I think about each of them.

Their voice.

Every one of them had an incredible ability to command a huddle, rally a team, and captivate everyone fortunate enough to be watching from the stands. Before the opening whistle or the opening tip, they understood that leadership wasn’t just demonstrated through action—it was communicated through words.

They knew something that’s easy to overlook.

Words have power.

The right words can calm nerves.

Build confidence.

Create belief.

Inspire effort.

And sometimes, they can change the outcome of a game before the game has even begun.

That’s exactly what inspired one of my favorite literacy assessments, Voices of Victory.

In the assessment, students step into the role of a coach preparing to lead their team into a championship game. Their challenge isn’t simply to write a speech. It’s to craft a message that inspires confidence, builds belief, and rallies a group of teammates around a common purpose. In other words, they’re practicing the very communication skills that have made so many of sport’s greatest leaders unforgettable.

To help students prepare for that assessment, I developed an implementation tool called Huddle Hype Calls. It has become one of my favorite classroom routines because it demonstrates that literacy isn’t confined to reading and writing. Sometimes, the most powerful literacy practice happens when students stand in front of their peers and intentionally choose words that encourage, persuade, and inspire.

At its core, Huddle Hype Calls is incredibly simple.

Before select drills, scrimmages, or challenges, one student steps into the role of coach. Their job is to deliver a brief, 10–15 second motivational message to their teammates before the activity begins. It might be a reminder to stay disciplined, an encouragement to trust one another, or a challenge to finish strong. Whatever form it takes, the goal is the same: use words to elevate the people around you.

When the student finishes, their teammates respond with a class cheer, clap, or call-back before immediately beginning the activity.

That’s it.

The entire routine takes less than thirty seconds.

Now, before I continue, I know what some of you are probably thinking.

“Coach, this sounds like a fun way to get students fired up before an activity… but I thought we were talking about literacy.”

Fair question.

On the surface, Huddle Hype Calls look like nothing more than a quick pre-activity pep talk. But that’s only true if we allow them to stay there.

What makes this implementation tool so powerful is that it can grow alongside your students.

Maybe during the first week, the focus is simply building confidence as students practice encouraging one another with a few thoughtful words. That’s a great place to start. But as the routine becomes part of your classroom culture, you can begin intentionally layering in literacy without changing the activity itself.

Have students spend a few minutes at the beginning of each week drafting the Hype Call they’ll use if it’s their turn to lead. Encourage them to revise it after hearing classmates throughout the week.

From there, teachers can layer in one or more of the following strategies to deepen the literacy without changing the activity itself.

Introduce a Word of the Week and challenge students to naturally weave it into their message. Rather than choosing sport-specific vocabulary, select words that develop the kind of character we hope athletics helps build. For example, if the word of the week is resilience, students might remind their teammates, “Resilience isn’t about never getting knocked down—it’s about refusing to stay there.” Suddenly, vocabulary isn’t something students memorize for a quiz; it’s language they use with purpose.

Focus on one communication technique at a time—perhaps using repetition for emphasis, opening with a rhetorical question, or ending with a memorable call to action.

After each Hype Call, ask a teammate to identify the word or phrase that made the message most impactful.

Suddenly, what started as a thirty-second pregame ritual has become an opportunity for students to write, speak, listen, analyze language, expand their vocabulary, and think intentionally about the impact their words have on others.

The best part?

The activity itself hasn’t changed.

Only the depth of the learning has.

Earlier, I mentioned that Huddle Hype Calls has become one of my favorite classroom routines.

That isn’t just because of the literacy.

It’s because of what begins to happen between the students.

When every student is given opportunities to encourage, inspire, and lead their classmates, something starts to shift. Encouragement becomes expected. Positive communication becomes normal. Leadership is no longer reserved for the loudest voices or the strongest athletes—it becomes something every student has an opportunity to practice.

I saw that firsthand the very first time I implemented Huddle Hype Calls.

It was with a sixth-grade PE class at the beginning of the school year—a group of students walking into middle school carrying all the nerves, uncertainty, and excitement that naturally come with that transition. Some were eager for PE. Others weren’t quite sure what to expect.

Over the course of the semester, though, something changed.

The Hype Calls became more than a literacy routine.

They became part of our classroom culture.

Students expected to encourage one another.

They celebrated each other’s successes.

They believed every classmate deserved an opportunity to lead.

By the end of the semester, I don’t think it was a coincidence that many of those same students were genuinely disappointed that the class was coming to an end. In fact, all twenty-seven students signed a petition asking if they could stay together for seventh-grade PE… and beyond.

I’d love to tell you that Huddle Hype Calls deserve all the credit.

They don’t.

Great classroom communities are built through hundreds of intentional moments over the course of a school year.

But I do believe this implementation tool became one of those moments.

It strengthened students’ ability to communicate.

It strengthened their willingness to encourage one another.

And somewhere along the way, those two things began strengthening the classroom community itself.

If an implementation tool can strengthen students’ communication while simultaneously strengthening the community they’re learning in, I’d call that thirty seconds well spent.