Within the youth sports environment coaching has traditionally been seen as an activity whose only objective was to improve athletic performance. Most of the coaching activity has been concerned with developing the athlete’s physical, technical, tactical and mental skills, with a very high percentage of the coaching time consumed with the physical and technical.
Recently the emphasis on the athlete’s development has shifted to embrace the holistic development and well-being of athletes that is, their personal, emotional, cultural and social identity.
The successful integration of this approach relies on the transparent inclusion of these performance attributes into the athlete development curriculum. Successful integration relies on the ability of the coach to introduce and develop these in the practice and competition environment.
Alongside friend, colleague and now US resident Linda Low, I was thrilled to co-facilitate a Masterclass at the USCCE National Coaching Summit in Orlando and explore this issue with Coach Developers from across the USA and Canada.
This workshop examined how sports coaching providers and coaches can identify and integrate the Four C’s of confidence, competence, connection and character (as identified within the US Quality Coaching Framework) into their coaching programs.
