Roles of a Coach

Review Of Literature

Roles of a Coach

The role of the coach varies between coaches and is generally based on the objectives of the individual coach (Martens, 1997). Cross and Lyle, (1999) state that the general role of a coach is beyond that of a technical expert and involve a wide range of factors needed to be a successful coach. The main factor is to have a winning competitor or team. To achieve this the coach needs to put on having fun and teaching the morals of the games especially with younger performers, this will help with their mental and social development (Martens, 1997) but as time goes on and the performers become older then the coach can focus on winning and competing to win. Coaching Guru, 2002 says that the coach should provide opportunities for players to demonstrate their natural creativity and ability, by not over coaching them. The coach must also be able to decide which coaching style to use, which will be discussed later on. After this the majority of a coach’s time will be spent on preparation for the session such as skills, fitness, etc…the coach is usually unable to physically compete with the players in there care as especially with younger players the coach will be a lot bigger and stronger than everyone else which may cause an injury to someone else.

Knowledge

It is a common conception that to coach a sport or certain skill a coach must first understand the sport or skill themselves to a certain degree. Therefore knowledge is of vital importance to successful coaching and the best way to gain this is to play the sport that you are coaching (Martens, 1997). These are such managers as Bobby Robson of Newcastle United and Gordon Straken of Coventry City. However experience alone will not necessarily make a good and successful coach, on the other hand many elite level coaches have never played at the highest level possible in their particular sport e.g. Sir Alex Ferguson the current coach at Manchester United and Arsène...