by Emily McCullough, Alix Cran
If you’ve coached, or been coached, you know that sports are a place to experience great joy and excitement, as well as sadness and frustration. More importantly, sports (at all levels) rely on coaches to support athletes throughout this emotional journey.
But who supports the coaches? Studies show Sports coaches experience frustration, anxiety and stress due to performance demands and scrutinyWhich makes sense because coaches are fundamental to all levels of sports, playing a mediating role between athletes and the larger sports organizations they are involved with.
Coaches are responsible for planning practices, managing athletes during competitions, making sure they are up to date on their Safe sports training and fulfilling any additional commitments specific to their club or organization, to name a few.
In the context of youth sports, coaches are also responsible for the parents of their athletes, which involves additional communication and justification of their coaching decisions.
Also, coaching does not stop when practice is over or competition is over. It is a 24-hour job that carries the needs of their athletes throughout the day and into other areas of life.
If you’re not a coach, it’s easy to say, “Well why don’t you put some boundaries in your coaching work?” Easier said than done.
As most coaches will attest, coaching is an emotionally-driven and immersive job where you start caring for your athletes on and off the court or field.
widely, care It involves responding to someone’s needs, which seemingly never ends in sports. Athletes not only need to take care of physical needs (warm-up, cool down, rest, water, nutrition, work equipment, etc.), they also have emotional needs (mental health, emotional well-being, etc.).
Physical demands are easy for coaches to address because, for the most part, they look the same for every athlete. However, psychological demands are much more specific to each athlete.
For example, when giving feedback about a skill performance, a player’s coach may need to be soft and kind, saying, “That was a really great effort, why don’t we try it this way…”
On the other hand, another player may need a more direct approach: “I know you know how to do it! You did it great last week! Let’s go!”
The latter method may seem harsh out of context, but some athletes do not perceive it as harsh. Part of the coach’s job is to find out how Communicating with each of their athletes to ensure they feel cared for and supported.
The first method will not work for all athletes and neither will the second.
In youth sports, coaches must (in a way) take care of their athletes’ parents. Anyone who has coached youth sports knows that there are many types of parents, from hand-off to constant questioning.
Whether coaches like it or not, communicating with parents and making sure their needs are met regarding child athletes is a huge part of the job that isn’t discussed enough.
In team sports, managing play time is a significant part of coaching and applies to youth, university/college or adult sports and team sports. Every athlete wants to play. That’s why they’re there! And when they don’t get that chance, whose fault is it? Coach!
The problem is that sports are a zero-sum game. Regardless, some athletes will be on the field and some on the bench.
The problem is that sports are a zero-sum game. Regardless, some athletes will be on the field and some on the bench. And it is unrealistic to expect athletes, especially at the youth level, to be content with their position on the bench, even if it is in support of the team’s overall goals.
As a coach, this is difficult to manage. Disgruntled athletes can severely affect team dynamics, making it difficult for coaches to care for all of their athletes.
Some coaches use data to show why an athlete isn’t playing, which may or may not work. Sometimes coach Spend more time and energy communicating why the athlete is not playing. And sometimes the coach blames the athletes for their attitude, claiming that the athlete was fully informed of their role at the beginning of the season and that they need to see the “big picture” for the team.
The last option may seem particularly careless; However, coaches who opt for this approach shouldn’t be judged too harshly – they’re just trying to take care of themselves in a system that doesn’t take care of them.
We rely on coaches to care for and support our athletes, but who cares for the caregivers? Certainly not the sport’s system.
In Canada, the professionalization of coaching is contested. Although the Coaching Association of Canada (CAC) may offer grants to coaches Chartered Professional Coaching (ChPC) designationUnless they work in professional sports, coaches are often not viewed as professionals. This is partly why there is such a strict range of coaching positions, all of which have different financial and resource support depending on the institution or institution.
This is more obscure at the youth level where many coaches are volunteers who may receive a small honorarium for their work at the end of the season.
Recently, the context of sports and sports organizations has adopted the language of “self-care”, which may sound great but is also a problem.
First, coaches can only engage in self-care if they have the time and space to do so. As mentioned above, most coaches are overworked and underpaid, so where/when does this self-care occur?
Second, promoting self-care shifts caregiving responsibilities from sports organizations onto the already burdened shoulders of coaches. This can make self-care a checkbox item that is recognized in policy and/or announced by sport leaders and administrators without any real action or change.
So, where do we go from here?
Current research supports this The mental health and well-being of coaches needs to be examined more closely To provide appropriate support for those charged with caring for our athletes.
However, identifying this problem, which has been the lived experience of thousands of coaches over time, is a small step but certainly not enough.
If we take these new ideologies seriously Safe sport At the age, we cannot only focus on the well-being and care of the athletes. This is a system-level issue, where coaches need to be included and recognized as needing care.
Therefore, we call for working within the framework of Safe Sport to prevent the division of key sports groups (athletes, coaches, officials, administrators, etc.). Not only does this allow the system to privilege the safety of certain groups over others, it further erodes solidarity between groups of people who can work together towards the common goal of a safe sport system.
Only when we can look at the sport system as a whole can we collectively repair what isn’t working and see the kind of change we all want.
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Previously published with on healthdebate.ca Creative Commons License
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