Learning through sport - Play with Purpose

Coach developer work is a field I enjoy. In addition to requests to review training, run demo game-based practice sessions, and review team and club programs, I also get invited to sit in the coaches' box to review game day coaching communication between coaches, and between coaches and players. This later work I have been doing a bit more of recently as part of a coach development role with a state league team. Almost every time I first sit in a coaches' box for the first time, I observe more commentary than analysis of the game. When this occurs, my emphasise becomes with the group of coaches to move them away from 'commentating' towards ‘strategising’. That doesn’t mean all other forms of communicating ‘disappear’, although I suggest ‘barracking’ is a form of communication that adds little value in the coaches’ box and is mostly a distraction form analysing the game, and similarly 'evaluating' as a once off judgement comment is generally not helpful and often...