Throughout history there have been many great sporting individuals and teams, Manchester United, the England rugby team, the Williams sisters and the Australian cricket team. However what made these athletes triumphant? One obvious thing comes to mind: they are the best players in there sport. But where would these players be without the correct training and coaching? Before this question can be answered we need to be able to identify the role of coaches and the effect there role has on athletes.
Behind every athlete is a dedicated coach who is there to help the athlete in many different but equally important ways. A coach’s main role is to improve the performance of the athlete. The coach is the person who tells you what you are doing incorrect but more essentially how to improve it. A coach will help their team or individuals in all aspects of there game both physical and psychological. This means that a coach has a big responsibility to help with different issues inside and outside of sport. A good coach is anything from a shoulder to cry on to a driving force behind a good performance.
The United Kingdom Coaching Strategy describes the role of the coach as one which “enables the athlete to achieve levels of performance to a degree that may not have been possible if left to his/her own endeavours” Coaches like athletes are all different and individual in the way they do there jobs in sport. Every coaches aim is the same, to do there best for there athlete so they in turn can give there best performance, but there style and the way that they seek to achieve there goal is different. Some coaches find that shouting at there athlete when they do something wrong is the best way to get there point across. An obvious example of this would be Manchester united manager Sir Alex Ferguson.
This style has suited him very well as he is now one of the most successful managers in football. The problem with this style is that players may feel intimidated by him and find him unapproachable, making them want to stop playing. But some coaches have become very successful by being democratic in the way they express there opinions. Clive Woodward the England rugby team coach is a prime example of this. Although there is the danger that the players could become to complacent or even start taking control of the coach. The best coaches have a mixture of the two styles but they tend to lean more to one side like the coaches mentioned previously.
Within the two different types of coaches there are also three main styles of coaching that they will adopt. Some coaches prefer to tell you exactly what to do in the session. They will give you the drills to do and every time that you do something wrong the coach will tell you therefore not letting you develop bad habits. This style is called ‘autocratic’ and is usually best used with learner athletes new to a sport. This is because a coach cannot let the athletes do anything by themselves as they do not know how to do it properly yet. Another coach may give you a drill or activity to do in a training session and just let you get on with it without comment or correction.
This style is called ‘laissez faire’. In between these two styles is a ‘democratic’ style this allows the coach to alter the session depending on what the athlete feels would benefit them most. This also benefits the coach as they get more feedback and can then concentrate there sessions more on what the athlete needs. This style is best used when the athlete is at a high level in there sport. It is the most common form of coaching as it is most beneficial. As with the different types of coaches the best styles of coaching will incorporate a mixture of all the different styles but will usually sway more to one type.