Distracted by Coaching Technical Skills?
Would you rather be remembered as a great team mate, or a skilled technician? A "top man" or a top passer? A hardworking and selfless team man, or an individual prodigy?
When Stephen Covey articulated the concept "Begin with the End in Mind", he established a methodology that allowed short term strategies to be examined against long term aims. And exposed that these are often inconsistent.
Most games coaching is clearly built to deliver technical outcomes. Skills, drills, warm ups, conditioned games and cool downs feature prominently. UKCC coaching courses demand these, and penalise non-compliance with failure to achieve coveted certificates and badges. Which adults sew onto their track suits. Universities provide helpful templates for sessions plans, demanding time allocated to institutionally approved session inputs, with pre-determined "teaching points" awaiting delivery. The industry of coaching requires its devotees to bow down before the ideal of recognisable technical competence. Measured against the perfect model, which is clearly identified in the approved literature. The manual mantra. Having a "Level" can be a dangerous thing, if it leads to the delusion that successful coaching is limited to technical proficiency. And that Level Two means more of that than Level One
Even Google agrees. Searches for passing practices provide endless pages of descriptions of activities and supporting videos. There is no room for misunderstanding. Searches for coaching selfless teamwork through sport are almost barren. But this is not consistent with the eulogy virtues of valued team mates and fond recollections of sport. Reflections on former players and colleagues readily acknowledge the significance of personal qualities: courage, determination, attitude and compassion. Coachability and likeability. But these desirable outputs are not matched by the inputs, most of which are obsessed not with personal competence, but by skill development.
The greatest teams are made up not of the best technicians, but the best people. Teamship is not ability dependent: high performance is the preserve of an elite few, often the winners of the early maturation lottery. The universal attraction of sport testifies to the fact that high skill is not the only motivator for sports performance. One of the few things on which adults and adolescents agree upon is that "playing with my mates" is the biggest driver for sports participation. However, coach education is flimsy on the coach's mechanisms for delivering teamship, and making players into desirable team mates.
So, how can selflessness and teamship be coached? Not in a group of four in a square marked by coloured cones. These widely recognised qualities are the poor relations of the industry of coaching. Unworthy of qualification.
Schools and clubs need to be clear about their success criteria for sport. Are the priorities confined to the technical and tactical? Or are memories, moments of magic and selfless teamship equally (or more) important? The programme of coaching, together with its planning, quality control and appraisal, will reflect the desired outcomes. Begin with the end in mind.