Athlete Centred Coaching is not "let the players make all the decisions"
I was recently chatting with someone who works in coach development for a national sport about his troubles gaining traction with the idea of athlete centred coaching with high performance coaches. "Shane, they dismiss it as they think it is about letting the players make all the decisions".
The original athlete centred coaching description by Kidman (2005) and Kidman and Lombardo (2010) indicated that athlete centred coaching consisted of three elements: Facilitating athlete self-awareness; teaching games for understanding (TGfU) and a Game Sense coaching approach; and being an empowering coach. To achieve these elements meant the sport coach as educator adopted what I have sometimes described as a 'knowledge navigator', and others have described as 'facilitator', rather than the common description of the sport coach as 'highly directive' and commanding. In Perspectives on Athlete-Centred Coaching Griffin, Butler & Shepherd describe four pedagogical principles for shifting coach styles, non of which involve the players making 'all' the decisions.
The pedagogical 'backbone' of athlete centred coaching , teaching games for understanding by a Game Sense coaching approach, is sometimes mistaken as a form of 'just play games'. As SueSee and I (2016) explained in a deconstruction of a 'typical' game sense teaching episode, often game based coaching such as the Game Sense approach has the hallmarks of practice style interspersed with some discovery style moments. This is because most of the practice decisions are still made by the coach.
What is often missed in conversations on athlete-centred coaching is the description of it as humanistic because it is a relational style of coaching where care and concern for the well-being of the player/s is obvious. In Perspectives on Athlete-Centred Coaching, Kerr, Stirling, Gurgis suggest that at its best, this culture of care comes about when an environment is developed where players feel they can 'thrive'. In other words, this is more than 'leave the jumper in a better place', it is about assisting players to become better versions of themselves - better people, not just better players or club members.
Better people make both better players and better citizens.
The original athlete centred coaching description by Kidman (2005) and Kidman and Lombardo (2010) indicated that athlete centred coaching consisted of three elements: Facilitating athlete self-awareness; teaching games for understanding (TGfU) and a Game Sense coaching approach; and being an empowering coach. To achieve these elements meant the sport coach as educator adopted what I have sometimes described as a 'knowledge navigator', and others have described as 'facilitator', rather than the common description of the sport coach as 'highly directive' and commanding. In Perspectives on Athlete-Centred Coaching Griffin, Butler & Shepherd describe four pedagogical principles for shifting coach styles, non of which involve the players making 'all' the decisions.
The pedagogical 'backbone' of athlete centred coaching , teaching games for understanding by a Game Sense coaching approach, is sometimes mistaken as a form of 'just play games'. As SueSee and I (2016) explained in a deconstruction of a 'typical' game sense teaching episode, often game based coaching such as the Game Sense approach has the hallmarks of practice style interspersed with some discovery style moments. This is because most of the practice decisions are still made by the coach.
What is often missed in conversations on athlete-centred coaching is the description of it as humanistic because it is a relational style of coaching where care and concern for the well-being of the player/s is obvious. In Perspectives on Athlete-Centred Coaching, Kerr, Stirling, Gurgis suggest that at its best, this culture of care comes about when an environment is developed where players feel they can 'thrive'. In other words, this is more than 'leave the jumper in a better place', it is about assisting players to become better versions of themselves - better people, not just better players or club members.
Better people make both better players and better citizens.
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