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To improve the performances of athletes, the capability of coaches must be enhanced beforehand1.
It is more important to cultivate ‘good coaches’ than ‘good athletes’ because a sports coach who understands special training and continues to study new knowledge can train a lot of good athletes.2
The above research on sports coaches indicates the direct relationship between the ‘coach’ and ‘the performance of players’ in sports competitions. Then, the question we need to ask is: What makes a good coach?
Sports coaches assume the role of leader but at the same time he/she is also a manager and disciplinarian, and a teacher and trainer.
Leaders explore innovation and respond to changes with a broader perspective, philosophy and independent view (full of personal character and appeal), to create shared vision and long-term value for athletes and teams, pointing out the real question, deciding the direction and leading athletes towards the goals and accomplishment of their mission. During the process, leaders elaborate upon the individual influence on the group, handle difficulties and disputes, encourage, motivate and support the ones being led (teams and athletes), improve motivation to produce the ‘interaction with positive effects to facilitate goals’ in a variety of sports situations. Therefore, leaders pursue excellence and success while guiding people to do the right thing.
Under the premise of the leader’s philosophy, managers and disciplinarians, as promoters to facilitate goals, not only need to govern people (including themselves and athletes) but also various other matters (discipline and risk). They have to be familiar with the internal and external conditions of teams as well as the environment they are in, master the characteristics of teams, motivate members’ initiative in terms of specific sports, physical training, skills, tactics, personal quality of athletes (personality), society and culture. They must have good planning and decision-making abilities to cope with difficulties and actively resolve complex problems, whilst being dedicated to facilitating goals with effective organisation, planning, co-ordination, support, control and supervision.
As teachers and trainers, the mission and achievement of coaches are to help athletes acquire knowledge/skills of specific sports, enabling athletes to apply them in practice and achieve victory in a complicated competitive situation. Thus, coaches should have a comprehensive specific and ancillary knowledge of sports plus the skills and ability to judge techniques, as well as constructively use specific theories and knowledge – namely, techniques, tactics, physical and mental requirements, social (interpersonal communication) and ethical requirements, the nature of competition and adversity management, referee rules, sports management, pedagogy and various relevant scientific knowledge.
Coaches have to apply the results of scientific research in training, combining the actual combat in competition to fully prepare athletes for various abilities in terms of concentration, co-ordination, speed, muscle strength, explosive force, muscular endurance, lactate endurance, aerobic endurance, altitude training. Utilising the knowledge of psychology for sports coaching as a tool can assist athletes to relax and recover their concentration and confidence for competition, to trust the leadership practice of coaches, to control themselves not to be distracted and to insist on competition mission. Other mental devices include: goal setting, confidence, psychological resilience, understanding attitude and stimulating motivation, representation, relaxation, concentration, stress management, arousal management, adversity management for competition, self-talk, trust and cohesion, communication skills (listening and expressing clearly), training and behavioural control, and the importance of fairness, in the scope of training, competition and daily routine.
Coaches can materialise the three abovementioned roles in different modes of coaching styles through the establishment of teaching and training programmes. According to purpose, nature, time, procedures, resources and approaches of implementation, various programmes can be formulated by the functions from large to small scale: from yearly, quarterly, monthly, weekly and daily to each exercise, training of each item, competition situation and daily life of athletes. They must bear in mind that they should ‘never leave a man behind’ for co-ordination and consideration whilst conducting both special training and training programme on a tight schedule.
Coaching is indeed a difficult task. Solid techniques and teaching knowledge, firm personal conviction, sufficient mental ability and the spirit of the times are the prerequisites of a professional sport coach.
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