The Organizational Roles, Responsibilities, & Tasks Of An Elite-Level Basketball Coaching Staff

The Coaching Model (Côté et al., 1995a), theorized coaches’ major objective as athlete development and their job consisting of three primary components: (a) training, (b) competition, and (c) organization. Despite its... [ view full abstract ]

The Coaching Model (Côté et al., 1995a), theorized coaches’ major objective as athlete development and their job consisting of three primary components: (a) training, (b) competition, and (c) organization. Despite its importance, the organization component has largely been ignored by scholars’ keen focus on training and competition (Côté & Salmela, 1996). The purpose of this study was to investigate the organizational component of an elite-level basketball coaching staff. Via the theoretical lens of Role Theory, this study analyzed the organizational: (a) roles, (b) responsibilities, and (c) tasks of an elite-level basketball coaching staff.

The case study used interviews, field notes, and artifacts. Data trustworthiness was addressed by prolonged engagement and member-checks. Inductive analysis revealed a distinct staff structure enabling fulfillment of organizational roles, meeting of organizational responsibilities, and performance of organizational tasks vital to the operation. Themes emerging regarding the organizational roles of the staff were: (a) Delegator, (b) Recruiter, (c) Promoter, and (d) Coordinator. These roles required meeting organizational responsibilities of: (a) Monitoring Player Academic Progress, (b) Opposing Team Analysis, (c) Player Evaluation, and (d) Program Promotion which mandated performing organizational tasks of: (a) Preparing Scouting Reports, (b) Pursuing Potential Players, (c) Reinforcing Programmatic Tenets, and (d) Responding to Environment Variability.

The study provides new insights into the organizational responsibilities of a coaching staff. Notably, it isolated and analyzed the roles, responsibilities, and tasks of the organizational component. The results appear to support Jones and Wallace’s (2005) exhortation to orchestrate coaching through the provision of an exemplar of a staff managing the complexity of coaching.  Furthermore, the findings support Vallée and Bloom’s (2005) contention that coaching involved more than being the traditional teacher/psychologist. Perhaps coaches and coach educators should reconsider the idea of the coaching act that encompasses the roles, responsibilities, and tasks of coaching’s organization component.