Written by It can be said of most human beings, including sports coaches, that they never fully achieve a complete fit with any role they have chosen in their life. It is always under construction – a process of becoming. Although some of the greatest amongst us come very close, being completely at home in a role remains an elusive dream. The reason that a utopian Shangri-La for sports coaches is impossible to locate, is due to the complexities and ever changing social fields in which they attempt to satisfy their personal needs.
Sports coaching, in addition to being a results driven business, is also needs driven. Whilst athletes have needs and take centre stage in athlete-centred coaching, sports coaches also have needs. The need for meaning, belonging, mastery, achievement and recognition are strong primeval drives. In addition to these deeply embedded ghosts of the past willing the unconscious mind, the sports coach also needs the opportunity and freedom to use their abilities.
The search for contextual fit begins with a search for meaning or purpose. In choosing to enter into sports coaching, for whatever reason, they find that they enjoy the experience. Positive feedback from the sporting context signals to them: “Hey, do you know what – you are quite good at this.” This meets a sports coach’s needs in two ways – first, it resonates with their competitive nature and secondly, by building relationships with athletes and other coaches it satisfies their need to belong – they become hooked.
When running coach education courses for Swim England I used to say to candidates, in jest I should add, that sports coaching ought to carry a government health warning like smoking – ‘sports coaching can seriously damage your health.’ On a serious note, however, there is a danger that when formulating a contextualised self and social identity the sports coach might self-abuse by neglecting the self. Because the role is so rewarding the coach may over invest in their athletes such that their own identity is left out in the cold.
Although selflessness is often quoted as a desirable trait in leaders, there is a need for the sports coach to consider their own well-being. Rest, Recovery and Relaxation (3Rs) are just as important to sports coaches as they are to athletes. Therefore, they need to maintain a balance between selflessness and selfishness such that self-identity is maintained in harmony with a growing social-identity. All sports coaches know that the role is so rewarding and absorbing that it can also feel like a calling in life.
Sean Kelly the National Performance Director for Spanish Swimming encapsulated the sentiment at a coach tutor forum. Discussing a young girl learning to swim he commented:
“I got her on her back, talking to her the whole time. Next thing she’s kicking her legs on her back and her face lit up… I thought I’m pretty good at this and the thrill I got out of that – well I knew right there and then that’s what I’m going to do – I just knew it.”
The development of a contextualised self-identity creates in turn the search for belonging to the collective of sports coaches, mastery and recognition in order to achieve a contextualised social-identity and be recognised by peers and athletes. They want to be seen as an effective sports coach that adds value. Former GB Swimming Coach Russ Barber recalled one of his first successes as a coach:
“I was like: oh my God! I was as surprised as anybody… with only 15 metres to go in his 50 metres Butterfly I just knew he was going to win… Just that whole feeling of… bloody hell! It was a combination of real pride in him… a real pride in myself and the satisfaction of other coaches coming up and saying you’ve done a great job mate.”
With success comes the need for more success and sports coaches that are hooked, develop a growing self-awareness that to achieve more they need additional technical, sports related knowledge and badge of competence. So the journey towards mastery begins. With an opportunity resourced by the sports organisation and the freedom to coach athletes, the sports coach focus turns towards developing their coaching skills and knowledge.
Gaining mastery takes time and whilst the need is there the attainment requires extensive experience and considerable technical knowledge. There is a danger, however, that a sports coach can become trapped in competence – that is, they can fail to learn from their experiences and are happy to just follow rules set by others. Explicit knowledge gained from reading books, attending courses and talking to other sports coaches helps gain competence, but the unconscious micro-level learning gained form experience is needed for mastery.
It is very common for authors, attempting to explain mastery, to talk of sports coaching as an art rather than a skill. Some also posit that coaching sports is primarily about the ‘soft skills’ needed for building effective relationships and persuasion. This, however, underestimates the extent of skills accrued through experiential learning. Whilst developing effective relationships with athletes and influencing them is of critical importance, other abilities, such as talent spotting and skills analysis, are equally important and cannot be easily explained – they are mainly felt.
The intuitive side of sports coaching derives out of an emotional attachment to the role. Feelings that this role is for me, as Douglas Adams describes in his Puddle Theory – “fits me rather neatly, doesn’t it? In fact it fits me staggeringly well” – brings meaning and purpose to the sports coach’s life. The emotional connection with the role and to the relationships with athletes, and other sports coaches, is an essential element in learning. As the England footballer Jack Charlton remarked: “You remember things for the rest of your life if it is filled with emotion.” Every experience then becomes an opportunity to learn both consciously and unconsciously in all of the skills needed to achieve a contextual fit.
Finally, the sports coach operates in a number of complex social fields each with its unique culture. The training venue, competition arena, sports organisation, national governing bodies, sports institutions and the society in which they live are all determinants of whether a sports coach feels at home. The alignment of values, beliefs, norms of behaviours, influence relationships, rituals, routines and symbols all contribute to their feelings of attachment. The one thing we do know is that you will not find a more worthwhile and meaningful experience than being a sports coach who has mastered their role and helped athletes achieve their dreams.