Coaching excellence is often linked to a win-loss record, yet we all know that great coaches should not only be judged by their team's or athletes' performance.
Excellence depends on a variety of factors, and it's helpful to understand these factors as we move into a discussion of our expectations for coaches —and how those expectations and standards can be met through education, training and experiences.
Certainly there are broad characteristics that can help define coaching excellence. Research from the 2008 Beijing Olympics shows that the top factors contributing to a personal best or medal-winning performance were a strong coach-athlete relationship and a high level of athlete self-awareness. These findings are quite simple, but they identify qualities that every coach can work with and towards: technical skills, understanding of the athlete's physical, psychological, and emotional needs through effective communication, and patience, caring, honesty, and respect.
However, a definition of coaching excellence should take into account the following factors: the highly variable roles of the coach in terms of interactions with athletes (and others) in training and competition; the competencies that are required; and the "correlates of excellence observed in academic teachers, coaching's pedagogical cousins (Cote et al 2007).
Most importantly, the definition of coaching excellence should take into account the different coaching contexts, which can be simplified into participation coaching and performance coaching (some researchers have divided these into participation, recreation, and competition).
A helpful way to further divide these contexts and define coaching excellence is to recognize the subsets, or typologies:
—participation coaches for children, ages 4-12;
—participation coaches for teenagers and adults;
—performances coaches for young adolescents, ages 13-15;
—performance coaches for late adolescents and adults, ages 16+.
Obviously, each type of coaching calls for a different developmental model and knowledge, within which the coach prioritizes goals and performance objectives.
It doesn't stand to reason that the coach of a recreational youth soccer team can necessarily transition to coaching an elite youth team; conversely, an elite coach may not make an excellent coach of a high school program, which mixes recreational athletes with some who are more competitive.
The American Alliance for Health, Physical Education, Recreation and Dance (AAHPERD) identifies three levels of coaches, primarily by experience and years coaching: the beginner, intermediate and elite coach.
BEGINNER: Usually parents or volunteers coaching one sport with little knowledge of child development or how to teach motor skills;
INTERMEDIATE: 3-5 years of coaching experience;
ELITE: More than 10 years of coaching experience
Their "National Standards for Sports Coaches" take into account performance in eight domains:
philosophy and ethics;
safety and injury prevention;
physical conditioning; growth and development;
teaching and communication;
sports skills and techniques;
organization and administration;
and evaluation.
The primary function of a coach does not change, whether he/she is a participation coach or a performance coach. Good coaches must be able to set vision and strategy, shape the environment, build relationships, conduct practices and prepare for competition, read and react, and learn and reflect (ISCF 2014).
Excellence depends on a variety of factors, and it's helpful to understand these factors as we move into a discussion of our expectations for coaches —and how those expectations and standards can be met through education, training and experiences.
Certainly there are broad characteristics that can help define coaching excellence. Research from the 2008 Beijing Olympics shows that the top factors contributing to a personal best or medal-winning performance were a strong coach-athlete relationship and a high level of athlete self-awareness. These findings are quite simple, but they identify qualities that every coach can work with and towards: technical skills, understanding of the athlete's physical, psychological, and emotional needs through effective communication, and patience, caring, honesty, and respect.
However, a definition of coaching excellence should take into account the following factors: the highly variable roles of the coach in terms of interactions with athletes (and others) in training and competition; the competencies that are required; and the "correlates of excellence observed in academic teachers, coaching's pedagogical cousins (Cote et al 2007).
Most importantly, the definition of coaching excellence should take into account the different coaching contexts, which can be simplified into participation coaching and performance coaching (some researchers have divided these into participation, recreation, and competition).
A helpful way to further divide these contexts and define coaching excellence is to recognize the subsets, or typologies:
—participation coaches for children, ages 4-12;
—participation coaches for teenagers and adults;
—performances coaches for young adolescents, ages 13-15;
—performance coaches for late adolescents and adults, ages 16+.
Obviously, each type of coaching calls for a different developmental model and knowledge, within which the coach prioritizes goals and performance objectives.
It doesn't stand to reason that the coach of a recreational youth soccer team can necessarily transition to coaching an elite youth team; conversely, an elite coach may not make an excellent coach of a high school program, which mixes recreational athletes with some who are more competitive.
The American Alliance for Health, Physical Education, Recreation and Dance (AAHPERD) identifies three levels of coaches, primarily by experience and years coaching: the beginner, intermediate and elite coach.
BEGINNER: Usually parents or volunteers coaching one sport with little knowledge of child development or how to teach motor skills;
INTERMEDIATE: 3-5 years of coaching experience;
ELITE: More than 10 years of coaching experience
Their "National Standards for Sports Coaches" take into account performance in eight domains:
philosophy and ethics;
safety and injury prevention;
physical conditioning; growth and development;
teaching and communication;
sports skills and techniques;
organization and administration;
and evaluation.
The primary function of a coach does not change, whether he/she is a participation coach or a performance coach. Good coaches must be able to set vision and strategy, shape the environment, build relationships, conduct practices and prepare for competition, read and react, and learn and reflect (ISCF 2014).
The primary function of a coach does not change, whether he/she is a participation coach or a performance coach.
Good coaches must be able to set vision and strategy, shape the environment, build relationships, conduct practices and prepare for competition, read and react, and learn and reflect (ISCF 2014).
WHO ARE TODAY'S COACHES?
The following facts about today's coaches add to the discussion.
Today's coaches are:
Mostly male;
Mostly volunteer (or if paid, underpaid);
Mostly untrained.
MOSTLY MALE: Of the approximately 4.1 million youth sports coaches in the United States, only an estimated 650,000 are women.
Forty-three years ago, 90 percent of all women's collegiate teams were coached by women, according to Acosta and Carpenter's Women in Intercollegiate Sport study. Thanks to Title IX, which has raised the profile of women's athletics (and raised the pay rate--not to commensurate with that of coaches for male teams--but at least more worthy of male coach's interest). Today, that number is 40 percent, according to NCAA Research. Fewer than 300 women coach men's team's nationwide — less than 2 percent.
MOSTLY VOLUNTEER: The Bureau of Labor Statistics calls coaching a “social services” job, with 243, 000 professionals working at a median salary of $29,150. Coaching is not a lucrative profession, except at a very high eschelon that includes coaches of professional teams and Division I programs. Most youth sports coaches are unpaid. Most middle and high school coaches work for a very low stipend. (In Harrisonburg City Schools, the highest paid high school coach is the football coach, who makes more than $5,000; most coaches make about $1,200 for a 3-4 month commitment that works out to about 20 or more hours each week).
MOSTLY UNTRAINED: See "Curricular Issues and Concerns."
MOSTLY UNTRAINED: See "Curricular Issues and Concerns."