Many paths to coaching
Issue: Volume 29 Number 4
Many athletes have a new found appreciation for their coaches if they find themselves making the switch from athlete to coach. Recently there have been a few examples in the professional football codes of high profile athletes making a quick transition to elite coaching, but there are many paths to coaching, one of which is being an athlete in the sport.
The three coaches featured in this article all agree that being an elite athlete has many initial advantages; however this should not preclude dedicated individuals who love their sport, are willing to work and study hard and have the ability to communicate the knowledge to those in their charge.
Martyn Smith did not play soccer at a higher level than the old National Youth League, yet went to two Olympics and one World Cup as the Australian Matildas’ goalkeeper coach.
‘Playing at the elite level does give you an instinctive knowledge of the game,’ he says. ‘The higher the standard of the sport the harder it is to get a foot in the door if you have not played at that level.’
He puts his own success down to a good measure of luck. ‘I worked with Chris Tanzey at the ACT Academy of Sport for five years and when he became the national women’s coach he asked me to be his goalkeeper coach,’ he says. ‘Then, when Adrian Santrac took over, he considered a couple of other candidates but eventually asked me to come back on board and I went to the 2003 World Cup in the United States and the Athens 2004 Olympics with him.
‘I was fortunate because I work for the Australian Institute of Sport (AIS) and they gave me all the time off I needed. There is no way I could be a full-time goalkeeper coach in Australia. I would have to go overseas and then there would be the problem of getting known all over again.’
However he points out that Arsene Wenger, the successful manager of English Premiership club Arsenal, played just one season as a professional, while Chris Coleman, whose playing career was cut short by a car accident, went on to manage Fulham in the Premier League and is now coach of Spanish team Real Sociedad.
Craig Tiley was 23 when he decided his career as a tennis professional was not going anywhere. ‘I simply wasn’t good enough,’ he says. ‘I wanted to get myself established in a career and tennis is a lot of fun, so I chose coaching.’
Currently Tournament Director of the Australian Open, and Director of Tennis for Tennis Australia, Tiley had outstanding success as a coach, breaking a century-old American collegiate record by taking the University of Illinois to 64 consecutive wins over a three-year period, earning an invitation to the White House to mark the achievement.
He says that while former top tennis players are prominent as coaches at elite level, the fact that athlete development is a long-term process often goes unrecognised. ‘For example, in early childhood it is critical that a sound technical and biomechanical base is developed,’ he says. ‘In later years there is more emphasis on the psychological and tactical elements of the sport.
‘The entire spectrum of long-term athlete development requires expert input, advice and coaching from a number of different fields of expertise. Being a great athlete can provide you with a certain number of tools, for instance you would gain the respect of the younger generation for what you have achieved, but it is no guarantee that it will make you a great coach.
‘A former player as coach can be extremely valuable when an athlete reaches a high level; they can talk and expand on their own experiences, and how to handle the pressures of winning and losing in top championships.
‘However not many former elite players are working with 12-year-olds in skills development, yet I could give you the names of a number of coaches you will never have heard of who have been responsible for the development of some of the best players in the world. They do not have the profile, but they are excellent coaches nevertheless.
‘I am of the school that believes being a former outstanding player does not guarantee you will be a great coach. Coaches can come from other fields where they have been outstanding communicators; have an inbuilt ability to be highly organised and think strategically, or simply have a good understanding of player development.’
Growing up in Detroit Ralph Richards played a range of sports until settling on swimming at the rather advanced age of 12. He went on to represent the United States in one international meet and to narrowly miss out on Olympic selection.
He initially saw swimming as a means to an end. It gained him a university scholarship, where he majored in mathematics. After a spell in the military, a Queensland Government recruiting drive saw him come to that state as a high school teacher.
‘There was a pool across the street from the school and I used to do laps there in my lunch break for recreation,’ he says. ‘The local parents were so impressed with my technique that they asked me to coach their children.
‘I had no idea what coaching was all about - I couldn’t even pass on much about the way I had been coached because I never really paid much attention – but I began to study things like movement mechanics and gradually I realised that teaching math in high school was not what I wanted to do.’
Returning to the United States for more study, and an apprenticeship under one of the greatest US coaches of all time, Dr James Counsilman, had its rewards and in the years since he has coached the Australian Olympic team, worked at the AIS and three state institutes and has been the national coaching director before his present post as chief executive officer of the Australian Swimming Coaches and Teachers Association.
He believes a general background in the sport as a competitor is often sufficient for an individual to make the grade in coaching, and that sometimes too much is expected of the elite athlete who decides to coach.
‘It is common for people to become very good coaches at the fundamental or development levels, without necessarily going on to elite levels,’ he said.
‘Elite athletes sometimes become very egocentric because at the level at which they compete they must focus in on themselves – their skills and ability. This is something they have to lose as a coach or they will never be successful.’
