Beyond Winning and Losing

The Coached Experience: Beyond Winning and Losing:

At the recent Professional Association for Directors of Physical Education conference within the workshop titled “Beyond Winning and Losing” delegates were asked to recall some of their positive coached experiences (in no more than three words) and then to recollect stories that have stayed with them from either school sport or participating in sport within clubs.  Their words were displayed around the room on large sheets of paper which were labelled memory walls. Fun, enjoyment, trust, respect, challenge, inspirational, adventure and freedom were the emerging themes from the group. Some of their stories were then shared with everyone, a coach playing guitar on the bus to matches, the trust bestowed on a year group when they wanted to do extra training in the gym, Silky –a nickname that remains still to this day and finally “Hallelujah Jonny Tudor” (the words of the coach when Jonny finally hit a softball in practice)! These deeply rooted memories were spoken with energy, plenty of humour and great enthusiasm. The wish would have been to see their coaches and PE Teachers in the room to hear how these experiences had positively influenced their lives. And the one word that was missing from the lists? No one identified it when the delegates were asked. That word was winning!  Within the debate regarding competition and the desire to succeed within sport appeared to have bypassed what fundamentals coaches may need to focus on and draw that from their own memory walls.

This article aims to reflect the findings from this conference workshop along with additional research by the author to encourage a coaching approach that goes deeper than the aspects of just winning and losing. Poczwardowski, Barot & Jowett (2006) recognise the dangers of not adopting a more holistic view of the coach / athlete relationship. They comment that by focussing on the “athletic performance, invites a risk of misjudging the kinds of influence coaches have on their athletes”.