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Athlete-Centred Coaching

Preface

Athlete-centred Coaching: Developing inspired and inspiring people offers insight on how to enhance athlete learning and development through sport, offered by successful coaches who hold athlete-centred philosophies. Although from a variety of backgrounds, they share similar goals in regard to long-term athlete learning and a quality team environment. All the coaches believe in sharing power with their athletes, enabling athletes to be effective decision makers through focusing on their motivation to participate to the best of their ability. As this book demonstrates, coaches who use such an athlete-centred approach inspire their athletes and, in turn, the athletes inspire each other.

With an athlete-centred approach, athletes take ownership of their learning, thus increasing their opportunities and strengthening their abilities to retain important skills and ideas. This learning also develops athletes' ability to make informed decisions during competitions, an important element in successful performance at any sporting level. It helps athletes to take a leadership role and ownership in enhancing the team culture.

Developing the material for this book involved an exciting project of interviewing and observing the range of coaches who feature in the chapters that follow. I was privileged and honoured to obtain the stories of: Don Tricker, coach of the New Zealand Black Sox (men's softball); Ruth Aitken and Leigh Gibbs, coach and assistant coach, respectively, of the New Zealand Silver Ferns (netball); Ian Rutledge, coach of the New Zealand Black Sticks (women's hockey); Mike McHugh, coach of the Wellington Saints (men's basketball) and assistant coach to the New Zealand Tall Ferns (women's basketball); Team Seagate, world class adventure race team; Lyn Gunson, prior England and New Zealand netball coach; and Wayne Smith, international rugby coach. In addition, it was an exhilarating adventure to research the Riccarton High School Senior Boys' Volleyball team with Mark Norton. All coaches graciously provided insights into their coaching approaches and their philosophies.

Athlete-centred Coaching begins by defining this innovative and successful coaching approach. As well as introducing athlete-centred approaches, the first chapter discusses the benefits of using this term rather than empowerment, which is less valuable due to the nature of the sociological understanding of it. The chapter also compares athlete-centred approaches with their polar opposite-coach-centred approaches-and discusses why coaches should consider using the former. Questioning, Teaching Games for Understanding (TGfU) and team culture are introduced as aspects that are important to enabling athletes to own and take responsibility for their learning. How to develop athlete-centred philosophies and how to relate success (rather than winning) to an athlete-centred approach are discussed as well. The case studies of the coaches have a commonality that all want to develop athletes as people, not just as sport jocks.

In Chapter Two, David Hadfield presents information to show how the athlete-centred approach can be implemented. He discusses how coaches can gain confidence to change what they do now. His major initiative is the query theory approach, whereby coaches question athletes for understanding of technique.

An action research project, involving a case study of the Riccarton High School Senior Boys' volleyball team, is presented in Chapter Three. The coach of this team, Mark Norton, focused on creating a quality team culture for the season in 2003-2004. Acting as a player manager, I followed the team through the season. The chapter represents the story of the season and how focusing on team culture helped the team to meet its goals.

Don Tricker discusses his coaching with the Black Sox and shares his philosophies in Chapter Four. Don is a legend for aiding the Black Sox to become three-peat world champions in men's softball. As an in-depth analyser of people and sport, he offers great insight for coaches to gain an understanding of how to be athlete-centred. His interesting chapter demonstrates how coaches need to be open to change and how the individuals in the team make the team work. Drawing from his business background, Don uses many analogies to demonstrate how people influence an organisation or team.

In Chapter Five, Ruth Aitken and Leigh Gibbs discuss their athlete-centred approach with the Silver Ferns. Their way of coaching enabled the Silver Ferns to become world champions in netball. The secret to their success, like Don's, is the ability to pull a group of individuals together to create an environment where athletes share in the direction and responsibility of the team. Both coaches have come from a teaching background.

The athlete-centred approach of Ian Rutledge, the Black Sticks women's hockey coach, is another athlete-centred coach. Like Don, Ruth and Leigh, Ian believes in creating and maintaining a quality team culture. He believes in taking the physically skilled athletes and binding them together to pursue the same cause and direction. Ian's related analogies and life lessons are an asset to the development of great human beings.

Basketball is Mike McHugh's life passion. He currently coaches the Wellington Saints men's basketball team and is assistant coach to Tom Maher for the New Zealand Tall Ferns. His commitment to the development of his coaching is amazing. His life (as with all the other coaches in this book) has been dedicated to the pursuit of developing fine young people, not just in sport but in life: Chapter Eight presents Team Seagate, an adventure racing team who believe that focusing on their quality team culture helps them to be successful. All team members recount the story of a team who loves to participate in adventure racing, finding it one of the most challenging journeys in life. Their focus on how they enjoy racing and look for life lessons is commendable.

Chapter Nine is Wayne Smith's chapter, slightly modified from my earlier book Developing Decision Makers (Kidman, 2001), and encapsulates his coaching wisdom. Since the chapter was first written, Wayne has been a successful coach at the Northampton Saints from 2001-2003, and is now working again with the All Blacks as an assistant coach along with Steve Hansen, under coach Graham Henry. Wayne rewrote some of the chapter to align it with his current thinking. The athlete-centred approach was a feature of his coaching in Northampton and continues to pervade his approach with the All Blacks.

Lyn Gunson is represented in Chapter Ten. Lyn is an athlete-centred coach who believes that a group within a sports team is a community and develops a team culture based on the notion of community. Lyn has coached both New Zealand and England netball teams, and has a wealth of experience and knowledge to share.

Earlier versions of Chapters Eleven, Twelve and Thirteen have appeared in Developing Decision Makers. In Chapter Eleven, Rod Thorpe presents his valuable philosophy on TGfU, adding the current movement through TGfU. Moving away from the use of traditional drills that are irrelevant to the actual sport, the key factor of TGfU is the game. Coaches design their training sessions to make the drills more game-like so that athletes learn about tactics and skills. All coaches in this book use TGfU in various forms, but what unites them is the general model, which is the backbone to understanding the game.

One of the key components to an athlete-centred approach, including the strategy of TGfU, is that coaches ask questions that encourage athletes to be self-aware and learn about tactics and skills. Chapter Twelve gives practical guidelines for planning and asking meaningful questions. The technique of questioning is addressed as well as the art of asking meaningful questions.

As most coaches work with children at least part of the time, Chapter Thirteen concentrates on sport and children, our future athletes. Issues discussed relate to why children participate in sport, the value of and concerns about competition, and strategies to provide child athletes with a positive sporting experience so that they continue to participate in sport. The influence of significant others (such as parents) is also considered.

Lastly, Chapter Fourteen summarises some of the key ideas raised in the book for coaches who are interested in putting an athlete-centred approach into practice. Team culture is further discussed in relation to how coaches can explicitly work on establishing a great team environment. Part of implementation is self-reflective analysis, a tool that coaches can use to monitor their ongoing coaching. The purpose of the chapter, building on the momentum of the chapters before it, is to encourage coaches to start to use an athlete-centred approach, reflect on how they use it and continue to improve.