Recently, I read an article from the Harvard Business Review on why disagreements were so vital for a thriving culture. It really made me stop and think about my experience working with teams. At what […]
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Tag: Coaching
One Thing That a Coach Can Work on Today
As a coach, I always had about 100 tasks, ideas, things that I needed to work on, or discussions that I wanted to have every day. I wanted each practice to be the best for […]
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Competence: It’s more than just doing the job
In a recent article by the Harvard Business Review (2020), 40% of recent graduates did not feel “job ready” and potential applicants would not even consider applying for entry level positions. They cited a lack […]
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Feedback: How to optimize learning and confidence
Carol Dweck is acclaimed for her work on Growth Mindset. It has provided material for educators and coaches for years. However, there is one area of research that I want to bring back into focus […]
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The Power of Perception: The Impact on Culture
This can be a tough pill to swallow, but the reality is this: The people we lead know us better than we know them. Why does this occur? Especially for so many well-meaning leaders out […]
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What Started as a Small Lie
No, I am not talking about players flopping on the field here. There was a World Cup qualifying match between Argentina and Brazil on Sunday. The match lasted a little more than seven minutes. The […]
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Delegating Tasks
By the title of this article, you may just want to skip to something else, but please take the time to read how there are plenty of coaches, general managers, athletic directors, and front office […]
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Coach With an Expectation That You Will Not Receive Anything in Return
Coaching is not easy at any level. When someone is coaching a recreational youth team, there are athletes who are dependent on your role, their parents who want the best for their child, others who […]
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The Color of Success
It was quite exciting for Australian swim fans when Brendon Smith came from nowhere to proclaim himself a real threat in the men’s 400m individual medley. His excellent performance in the heats saw him finish […]
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Could it Just Have Been a Poor Match Between an Organization and a Coach?
I received a call from a coaching colleague this week, we will call her Tracy. Tracy and another coach were hired a few months ago to lead different teams in a world-renowned organization. Tracy was […]
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Coaching is More Than Just Knowing the Game
Coaching is about sport, it’s about educating, but it’s also about leadership. At the center of sport, the coach is uniquely placed to influence the athletes and set the standard for behavior. At the grassroots […]
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All’s Not Fair
It’s imperative that there is an even playing field at all times in competitive sports for the game to be fairly played. When errors were made during player interchange in St Kilda’s round 15 demolition […]
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Not All Beer & Skittles at the Top!
Steve Smith lost his position as Captain of the Australian Cricket team in 2018 following the infamous ball-tampering scandal. The former captain says he was not involved in planning to tamper with the ball during […]
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All Work No Play
What happens when a person is all-work and no-play? They become disengaged, disenfranchised, and basically burnt-out. This is as true in the sportsperson as it is in any other profession and the best way to […]
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The Sports Coach as a Leader: Aligning Personal and Organizational Cultures
American swimming coach Megan Oesting has been sacked after being in post with SwimMAC Carolina for only 9 months. Differences in her management style and cultural stance have been cited as the main reasons. According […]
Read More What’s Actually Going on in Front of the Coach?
I was astonished last week when learning that Simone Emanuel https://swimswam.com/after-exhausting-year-olympic-champ-simone-manuel-out-of-100-free-final/ had been diagnosed with Overtraining Syndrome. I was left wondering how a nation such as the US (famed for its domination in swimming at […]
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The Team Fixers
It’s apparent that the coach exerts a major influence on the cohesiveness of the team when looking at the recent history of the New South Wales Waratahs. To their detriment the team has been coach-less […]
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Sports Coach: The Road to Mastery
The road to mastery is a long and winding road that requires, not only technical knowledge and understanding, but these two components applied over time. We have all met sports coaches that race through qualifications […]
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Trust the Coach That You Just Hired
I recently had a colleague reach out to me about a coaching issue that she was having. She was hired as a head coach of a youth sports organization during the pandemic and was waiting […]
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Swipe Right Delete
There exists in any swim club a small fraction of swim mums and dads who will have coaches running for the nearest rock under which to hide. None more so that those with swimmers aged […]
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Trust is a Two-Way Street
As an athlete, I had many coaches who just expected athletes to trust them because they were the coach. I also had coaches who showed that they deserved trust. The coaches that showed or proved […]
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Empathy, Comradery, Humanity
Sunday morning, I saw a CNN breaking news post on Twitter that Danish midfielder Christian Eriksen collapsed on the field during the Euro 2020 match against Finland in Copenhagen. He was given medical attention on […]
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In the ‘Pies Best Interests
The Magpie’s have had a horror time of it lately, The Do Better Report which was released in January this year, found the club guilty of ‘systemic racism’ while under Eddie McGuire as President and […]
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What Would Coach Carter Say?
Club Swimmers (albeit the under 18yrs) here in the UK were super excited to have the Covid restrictions lifted back in April and none so more than I. A year on the sofa researching areas […]
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Told You So: The McKinley High Crisis
Being right is not always a comfortable place to be. It can positively stink to be correct at times, especially when being right means avoidable harm has come to a young athlete. Way back on […]
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It’s Okay to Let Your Athletes Take Safe and Reasonable Risks
Athletes need opportunities to learn and be creative. A strict coach that does not want athletes to deviate from extremely focused technique or practice plans does not allow athletes to be creative and learn. If […]
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The Woke Coach
An emotionally intelligent organizational culture remains positive even through changes and challenges. Far from just being a corporate buzzword, it is an important skill needed by leaders, mentors, and coaches to elicit the best from […]
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If You Do Not Get Caught, Is It Really Cheating?
A former Pittsburgh Steelers coach made a comment during a recent interview with Ed Bouchette of The Athletic: “It’s only cheating if you get caught”. This coach, Bill Cowher, was discussing taking competitive advantages into […]
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Five Mistakes Parents Will Make This Summer as Sports Begin Again
We continue to look at avoidable mistakes each of the stakeholder groups in sports will make as sports begin again. This time by looking at challenges this season- and beyond- will pose specifically to and […]
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Overtraining
When I was a young coach, I used to push athletes to their limits and beyond during practices thinking that it was the best way to physically prepare them for competition. It was a learned […]
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Theories of Motivation: The 3 Big Myths
If the sardonic artist Harland Miller was to design a book cover to highlight an uncomfortable truth about motivation it would state something like: ‘Motivation Ain’t All It’s Hyped Up To Be.’ Most publications you […]
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All Is Not Lost
Have you ever coached a team in a game where their brains or hearts were not in it? Maybe your team looked lethargic while playing or in a fog. Or has a team that you […]
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Getting Comfortable In the Status Quo
I had a coach recently reach out to me to ask if I had any suggestions for her, as she felt stuck in her coaching journey. Upon some great discussion and learning for both of […]
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The 5 Essentials for Becoming a Professional Sports Coach
The road to becoming a professional sports coach is a challenging one. There are many amateur sports coaches operating today without any formal qualifications. There have been, mainly in the past, some sports coaches at […]
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Is Nepotism a Necessary Evil?
I recently heard a podcast from two former NFL players discussing Tim Tebow’s return to the NFL, nearly a decade later. Their comments summarized were that Tebow only got the job because 1. Who he […]
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Coach – Protect Yourself!
Most people will now be aware of the ethical mess that some National Governing Bodies (NGBs) get themselves into when the media publicly denounce sports coaches accused of abusive behaviour. In the UK we have […]
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“The First and Greatest Victory is to Conquer Yourself”
“In every adversity there lies the seed of an equivalent advantage. In every defeat is a lesson showing you how to win the victory next time.” – Robert Collier Melbourne Victory FC were fortunate to […]
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Too Many Cooks With Untrained Intentions
On 5 April five swim coaches from the same swim club all resigned from their posts – just one week before Club Swimming re-opened in the UK. The coaches had all been suspended and were […]
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Emotional Connections in Sports Coaching
As we all know the best sports coaches are the ones that are able to create strong relationships with their athletes and hence help facilitate great performances from them. As a leader they inspire, motivate […]
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That’s the Way We Have Always Done It
Have you ever had a coach, teacher, parent, boss or anyone else ever tell you that “we have always done it this way”? After decades or centuries, some things really do not change. Is it […]
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Sports Coach: The Dangers of Hubris
There is no doubt that self-confidence is an important factor regarding successful outcomes in sport, both for the coach and for the athlete. Having complete trust and confidence that a goal can be achieved is […]
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Spring into Fall Ball: The Importance of Spring Football in Player Development
FBS spring football is in full effect with Powerhouse Clemson hosting its spring game this past Saturday. After a yearlong hiatus due to COVID, it is exciting to see traditional spring football back. The games […]
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Are All of Your Organization’s Actions in the Best Interests of the Athletes and Team?
Yesterday, Culture in Sports participated in our first webinar. It was with Drexel University’s School of Education’s Sport Coaching Leadership Program. It was a great opportunity for us to share what we are currently working […]
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The Coaching Relationship; Avoiding Toxicity
A few hours after this article drops, Culture in Sports will be presenting its first webinar in conjunction with Drexel University’s School of Education’s Sport Coaching Leadership Program. The title and subject matter of this […]
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You Can’t Hoot with the Owls at Night and Fly with the Eagles in the Morning
Have you seen Ted Lasso yet? If not, you should. It’s not really about what you expect it to be. Sure, the show chronicles a folksy American football coach from Kansas going to England to […]
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Are We Burning Kids Out?
Youth sports are a staple of American culture, often viewed as the surest track to developing talented athletes. It makes sense — more practice time and more gameplay lead to better skill and fitness. For […]
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In Search of Contextual Fit
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 […]
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Are Too Many Diversity Boxes Just Being Ticked With No Thought To Inclusion?
There is much talk in business communities in the need to change their practices to attract more employees from diverse backgrounds as well as women – particularly within traditional male dominated industries. More women than […]
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Tough Coach, Caring Coach
It is self-evident that the most effective sports coaches have a major influence, not only on their athletes but also on the sports organisation in which they coach. For sports coaches, especially those classed as […]
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Teasing Out the Talent from the Chaos Within
Talent may not always have character and attitude,however attitude and character will always contain some level of talent. Bill Sweetenham (elite swim coach) swimmingscience.net 23 October 2017 Take a deep look at the eyes of […]
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Out With the Old, In With the New?
If you do what you’ve always done, you’ll get the results you’ve always got. Sometimes, that’s great, when your past results are winning. How long should leaders stay in their position of power? Some very […]
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How High: McDermott Sets the Bar
Not many athletes use the psychological tactic of a ‘rating system’ as a means of performance enhancement, in fact according to coach Matt Horsnell, most competitive athletes would find the system has the other effect […]
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‘Perfection’ Belongs in the Dictionary and Not in Training Sets
Far too often I witness, in training sets for swimmers, instructions along the lines of ‘ … swim the whole of this section with ‘perfect’ turns or ‘perfect’ form’ and as I make my daily […]
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Remember We Are Human Too …
We feel and we perceive like any other normal functioning human being. We are the ever inwardly optimistic brigade of finding the next olympic hopeful with heads swirling in big dreams and emails and parent […]
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Lost in Others’ Whys
When we are young our days are explorations of anything new. We do stuff because we think it looks like fun; our older brother/ sister does it; dad/ mum says it would be go for […]
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Rite of Passage: Kids in Sports
Participation in sports not only helps to develop coordination, physical agility, health, and flexibility, but also to develop friendships, comradery, and the traits necessary for observing fair-play and learning how to lose gracefully. Introducing children […]
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Jalen Johnson, Journalism, and Business Decisions
“It takes courage not only to make decisions, but to live with those decisions afterward.” – Coach K Who is Jalen Johnson? He’s a top prospect with the Duke Blue Devils who was going to […]
Read MoreTreating Teammates Horribly
The National Basketball Association (NBA) season has officially started, and James Harden is in the news again, even before the Houston Rockets played their first game. Shams Charania, of the The Athletic, reported on an incident during practice on Monday where […]
Read MoreWhatever James Wants: A Toxic Culture Surrounding One Player
Russell Westbrook, who was recently traded to the Washington Wizards, recently spoke about the #organizationalculture of the Houston Rockets. Tim MacMahon of ESPN wrote an in-depth piece of the extremely #toxicculture at the Houston Rockets where he shared the extents of the #toxicity. #Toxic organizations can be extremely successful, […]
Read MoreThere Needs to Be a Better Way To Protect Athletes
A little over a month ago, I wrote about how an athlete’s innocence was taken away from her at 13 years old and how US Figure Skating Association‘s Hall of Fame member John Zimmerman and Silvia […]
Read MoreCaring for Someone Should Never Translate Into Mental, Physical, or Emotional Abuse
Juliet Macur of the #newyorktimes wrote a great article about a decision that USA Gymnastics made earlier this year: They suspended a coach for eight years for repeatedly putting her #athletes‘ #mentalhealth, #emotionalhealth, and #physicalhealth in jeopardy. This decision by USA Gymnastics shows they are aware of […]
Read MoreTaking Innocence Away From a Child
I saw this article (https://www.usatoday.com/story/sports/olympics/2020/09/29/sexual-abuse-olympic-skater-morgan-cipres-under-investigation-retires/3573251001/) a few weeks ago and then heard nothing else about it. Morgan Cipres, the French Olympic skater who sent two lewd photos of his genitalia to a 13-year-old American female […]
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Coaches and Trainers, Please Stop Holding Practices
Coaches and trainers need to do the right thing and stop holding practices. If coaches still choose to hold practices, then maybe article could be used to persuade them. An athlete’s mental, physical, and emotional health and safety should never be compromised for training or competition.
Thank you Dr Jon Rudd and Christian Klaue for your contributions to this article.
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