Around the world, there is a growing movement to improve sport coaching education. In recent years, the International Council for Coaching Excellence (ICCE) has begun to address questions related to the education, training and development of sport coaches through the publication of the International Sport Coaching Framework (ISCF) and the Sport Coaching Bachelor Degree Standards (SCBDS). In the United States, because sport coaches can undertake a wide variety of coaching-related educational opportunities, the United States Olympic Committee has taken steps to address the disparity in training through the publishing of the Quality Coaching Framework (QCF). All of these documents provide valuable information about the best principles for educating and training sport coaches. While principles, standards and theories provide valuable overarching information about how to organize education, specific information about what topics should actually be taught in education programs is still lacking. In this manuscript, utilizing principles of participation versus performance sport and professional knowledge, intra- and interpersonal skills, information about what and when to teach important sport coaching topics is proposed.
The pursuit of mastery in coaching is an ongoing journey, requiring a commitment to life-long learning (Gallimore, Gilbert, & Nater, 2014). The purpose of this paper is to share the insight of five professionals (i.e., educator, sport ethicist, administrator, sport researcher, and a coach), participating in a panel session at the 2016 U.S. National Coaching Conference, on pursuing mastery as a coach. The term mastery is often associated with expertise. To be considered an expert, a coach must also be effective (Côté & Gilbert, 2009). Coaches that have achieved this level of effectiveness are often referred to as master teachers. Across the session the views of the panel members emphasized the pursuit of mastery as an ongoing journey of continuous learning. Insight from the panelists is compared with literature in coaching science and recommendations are provided for coaches and coaching educators on how to deliberately pursue mastery as a coach.
PurposeServant leadership is primarily focused on the empowerment and moral development of followers (Burton et al., 2017). Within sports research, little is known about how servant leadership interacts with organizational culture in teams. Thus, the purpose of this study is to assess the servant leadership of one head baseball coach and examine the degree to which servant leadership affects the program's culture.Design/methodology/approachData were collected for this case study of an NCAA Division III head baseball coach throughout one academic year. Sources included 12 interviews (ranging from four minutes to 92 min), observation of practices and games, textual analysis of documents and websites, as well as the coach's reflection journal. Data were analyzed using a six-phase process of thematic analysis (Braun and Clarke, 2006).FindingsThe participant exhibited the following servant leadership behaviors: empowering, helping subordinates grow and succeed, behaving ethically, and conceptual skills (Liden et al., 2015, 2008). In addition, the program maintained a culture featuring a few distinct artifacts, very clear espoused values, and three deeply held basic assumptions. The findings suggest that the head coach used servant leadership not to create or change culture but instead to amplify the existing culture of the baseball program.Originality/valueThere is strong evidence of a link between servant leadership and team culture, which is context-bound. At the Division III level, servant leadership behaviors can be used to embody a program's culture. Furthermore, through this embodiment, servant leaders can perpetuate an effective, functioning team culture, particularly within intercollegiate athletics.
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