THE SPORTING LIFE: UW Sports psychologists Frank Smoll and Ronald Smith will rub shoulders with baseball hall-of-famer Reggie Jackson tomorrow when they conduct coach effectiveness training and parenting workshops at the Kravis Leadership Institute at Claremont McKenna College in California. The event is designed to explore the role of parents and coaches in developing leadership in athletics. The UW professors will conduct a workshop for coaches in the morning and a session for parents and young athletes in the afternoon. Jackson, who hit more than 500 home runs during a distinguished career with the New York Yankees, Oakland Athletics and others, will be the guest speaker at the workshop’s luncheon. Also participating in the program will be Fran Prozzolo, psychologist for the world champion Yankees.

WEB CHAMPS: The UW’s Computing and Communications got quite a boost recently when the University’s Web site came up first on a Web site usability survey done by the WebCriteria subsidiary of ZDNet, an organization that ranks Web sites. The organization dispatched Max, an automated usability agent, to universities and found the UW employed “a design that’s quick for home users and easy to understand.” They went on to say that the Web site’s navigational structure is “fast and intuitive, and the careful use of text makes pages quick and informative.” ¶