Releasing the coaching imagination

Sport coaching is an activity that is informed by and synonymous with rationalistic decision making and evidence based practice. The growth of sport sciences and the positivistic assumptions inherent in disciplines such as... [ view full abstract ]

Sport coaching is an activity that is informed by and synonymous with rationalistic decision making and evidence based practice. The growth of sport sciences and the positivistic assumptions inherent in disciplines such as biomechanics and physiology have influenced this development. Indeed, it is not unusual within these disciplines to conceive of coaching as a technocratic, systematic and staged process. This perspective is most apparent in areas such as performance analysis where coaches seek to objectively review past performance and use data to inform present-day coaching practices. Even in areas, such as pedagogy and psychology, which recognise coaching as a relational and socially situated act, coaches have repeatedly been encouraged to critically reflect upon past endeavours to inform present practices. Thus, both these diverse paradigms have encouraged coaches to explicitly bring past experiences to their present-day practice.

This presentation seeks to move beyond a consideration of coaching through the past and present tense, by advocating that coaching is primarily a pedagogical act. As such, coaches (and coach researchers/educators) should not solely be concerned by what athletes have done and are doing, but also by what they may become and what they may achieve. Additionally, coaches need to consider what challenges athletes may face and what support athletes may need. To that end, this theoretically informed presentation postulates that coaching research needs to reappraise the value of future thinking within the coaching process. In so doing, it is argued that coaches’ present-day practice should not solely be informed by evidence from the past, but also by considering what may be. From this premise, it is posited that evidenced based knowledge, coupled with creativity and experimentation, may best help coaches and indeed sport scientists to support athletes. Accordingly, coach educators such as myself, may need to encourage practitioners to release their imagination.