Sports Coaching Cultures: From Practice to Theory

by Robyn L. Jones, Kathleen Armour, Paul Potrac

'The art of coaching is recognising the situation, recognising the people and responding to the people you are working with... that's the big thing, to handle people'. Steve Harrison, Coach, Middlesbrough Football Club. Responding to the fast growing subject in academic sports departments, this groundbreaking new coaching studies text offers a view that focuses the coach as a person and the coaching practice as a complex social encounter. Unlike existing titles in the field which look at coaching as a science, this book examines the personalities, histories, relationships and individual styles of eight coaches at the top of their profession. One-to-one interviews with some of the best-known and respected elite sports coaches include Steve Harrison, Hope Powell and Graham Taylor from football; Ian McGeechan and Bob Dwyer from rugby; Di Bass from swimming; Lois Muir from netball; and Peter Stanley from athletics; and form the basis for subsequent exploration of four key themes in sports * coaching pedagogy
* the coach's role
* the coach's interaction with athletes
* the coach's power. This text will be of significant interest to students of coaching science and sports science, and will appeal to the considerable body of amateur sports coaches with an interest in the styles of those at the top.

196 pages, Paperback

First published January 1, 2003

Reviews

[Eduardo · Rating 4 out of 5]

I really liked the structure of this book as well as its content. The first part of the book (chapters 2-9) tells the stories of eight coaches, which were constructed from extensive interviews. I found myself comparing and contrasting each coach’s style and philosophy against those from the previous chapters. The second part (chapters 10-13) synthesizes the stories of the coaches by looking at them through four different theoretical lenses. I really appreciated how the authors brought each coach to life and then explained how they coach using academic concepts. That structure helps both practitioners and academics understand how the other half lives, letting each read about coaching through a lens that they are comfortable with and a lens they may not know as well. This book invites others to write similar explorations (perhaps in the directions suggested in the conclusion) but perhaps using different theoretical lenses for the latter half.

[Jessica · Rating 3 out of 5]

I read this book for my honors leadership class. We were covering sports leadership and this was the perfect fit. The book includes narrative-style interviews of eight top coaches of rugby, swimming, track, basketball, and soccer. I really liked the book a lot. In the second part, key concepts of coaching are discussed in relation to the interviews. It was interesting to read about the coaches and compare them. They all sounded like great coaches too.