Multi-skilling crucial for the modern coach
Issue: Volume 29 Number 2
Most of us who have worked at our jobs for any length of time will be able to testify how they have changed over the years – coaching is no exception.
It is not just the advances in knowledge and technology that allow every aspect of an athletes’ performance to be dissected in minute detail, or the medical developments that can cure an injury in days rather than months. Society has changed and with it the attitudes towards authority. The coach’s word is no longer necessarily law, and respect, once freely given, now has to be earned.
‘Respect’ was the first word mentioned by the Managing Director of the Perth Wildcats National Basketball League club, Andrew Vlahov, when asked to name the most important qualities he would look for in choosing a coach.
‘Someone who is in charge of high-performance athletes has to have the respect of the group if it is going to respond to his direction,’ he says.
Beyond that? ‘A whole range of different things,’ Vlahov says. ‘Probably the second most important quality is the need to communicate. Executives choose staff these days not so much from written resumes but from their ability to get points across in one-to-one situations.
‘In the heat of a game a coach has to be able to convey the message clearly and concisely to the right people at the right time and in the right way.
‘A head coach has also got to work with far more people than was the case in the past – physios, doctors, psychologists, masseurs, you name it. They all provide crucial services and they all have their view on the team and the athletes. It is the job of the coach to understand and try to accommodate this.’
At the Queensland Academy of Sport, Executive Director Alex Baumann has developed an innovative method to test potential coaching recruits. ‘We ask them to make up a DVD showing them in action in five specific coaching areas,’ he says.
‘While not expecting a made-for-television standard of production, we encourage them to be self expressive and not stick to any rigid formula. The upshot is we have a second instrument to judge them by in addition to the standard addressing of the selection criteria.
‘I feel it is far more valuable to see them in action, and it is a good exercise for the coaches themselves, because they can step back and judge their performance as others see it.’
Baumann says the demand for top quality coaches is high and the pool ‘fairly shallow…as a result we do select some coaches on their technical capacity who might not have fully developed their leadership and management skills.
‘We have an education process within the organisation which enables us to both teach and mentor new coaches, and interestingly enough all the coaches we selected at the beginning of the latest cycle 18 months ago have picked up leadership and management qualities quite well.’
The role of head coach of Swimming Australia is different from that in most other sports Chief Executive Officer Glenn Tasker believes.
‘We have about 3500 qualified coaches in Australia,’ he says. “I would say about 3000 are making some or all of their livings from their work. I doubt if any other sport in this country could say that.’
Swimming Australia directly employs four head coaches in charge of various disciplines. ‘One of the most critical factors for us is credibility,’ Tasker says. ‘Like all sports at the elite level we deal with a lot of egos, whether they be from athletes, coaches or administrators, so the coaches we select must have the runs on the board – to have proved themselves in action.
‘Unlike many other sports, our head coaches don’t actually coach athletes. Their job is to organise the coaches under them. ‘
Coaches immediately under the head coach usually have a mix of athletes ranging from national squad members to juniors or up-and-comers on the verge of state championship qualification. ‘Our head coach has to be able to go in and give advice and present ideas; make sure the right support is being given by the state swimming association or academies or the Australian Institute of Sport.
‘Problem solving as an essential quality because 90 per cent of a head coach’s role involves preparing for the 10 per cent of the work when the team is actually away, because that’s the sport’s shop window.
‘As well as having unimpeachable coaching credentials they have to be administrators and mentors; they have to be politically astute, know the foibles of the people they are dealing with and the nuances involved in balancing one state against another.’
At amateur level, the selection of coaches can be very different. The treasurer of the Gungahlin Angels softball club in Canberra, Gerda Lawrence, says initial contacts usually come through word of mouth. ‘Then it’s largely a gut feeling…who is going to be right for the positions we need,’ she says.
‘For instance, you would not put someone who was particularly gung-ho or pedantic in charge of a C-grade or social side – nor do you want a lackadaisical coach in charge of A-grade.
‘We like coaches with a strong will to win, but not win-at-any-cost. I have never been happy with coaches who have taught underhand methods to junior players – perhaps not quite cheating, but certainly gamesmanship.’
Lawrence says the club has to be continually aware that it is dealing with volunteers. ‘Of course we would like them to be involved in other activities, such as promotional work and recruitment, but they only have so much time to give and you have to work around that.’
The club pools its resources at training sessions. ‘At our level we cannot expect to have coaches who have all the skills, but by training everyone together we can put one coach who is strong at pitching in front of all the pitchers, another one to take sessions in tactics, someone else on diamond work and so on,’ she says
‘In this way we maximise the strengths and minimise the weaknesses of the people we have got.’
Getting enough coaches is a constant battle. ‘Sometimes people who do put their hands up are just not right,’ she says. ‘In these days occupational health and safety comes into it if you are not teaching the kids to throw or slide properly.
‘It is a matter of being constantly vigilant and doing our best to encourage those who will make good coaches, such as experienced players at the end of their careers, to put something back into the game.’
|
