Game Changer: Phil Lawler's Crusade to Help Children by Improving Physical Education

“It’s about enabling each student to maintain a physically-active lifestyle forever. It means emphasizing fitness and wellbeing, not athleticism. It eliminates practices that humiliate students. And it assesses students on their progress in reaching personal physical activity and fitness goals. A [quality] program exposes kids to the fun and long-term benefits of movement – it’s really that simple.” —Phil Lawler

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Engaging and inspiring, Game Changer: Phil Lawler’s Crusade to Help Children by Improving Physical Education charts Lawler’s tireless mission to refocus physical education to a wellness-based model that encourages fitness for lifetime. Game Changer captures the passion of this legend within the field of physical education who believed that every child—regardless of athletic ability—should be given a chance to find an activity they can embrace and enjoy for a lifetime.

The renowned Dr. Kenneth Cooper of Cooper Aerobics Center names Phil Lawler the "Father of the New PE." Game Changer offers an inspiring and informative glimpse at the life of Lawler and his “New PE,” the wellness-based approach to physical education that has energized an important revolution in the world of education.

Full of ideas, tips, and strategies, Game Changer provides both the information and motivation to develop, implement, and support PE and community programs that encompass all children, not just the athletically inclined. Messages from leaders within the physical education field provide lessons learned in the development, leadership, promotion, and on-going advocacy of wellness-based PE programs.

Game Changer takes readers through Lawler’s beginnings as a “stereotypical” PE teacher and coach and his dawning realization of how physical education class can be a positive tool to encourage a lifetime of health and physical activity. As Lawler’s work received a boost from the mounting research connecting physical activity to academic and behavioral improvements, “the New PE” gained momentum nationally and abroad. Readers will be inspired by Lawler’s vision and commitment, despite his own health challenges, to improving the health and fitness of children throughout the world.

Though his battle with cancer cut short his own work, Game Changer carries the torch of Lawler’s “New PE” by providing information and tools to assist physical educators in developing more inclusive PE programs that emphasize developing, attaining, and renewing personal fitness goals across the lifespan.