Role of the Coach : Learn and Develop, on lineoutcoach
Develop your coaching...
1. The right mindset
2. Appetite to learn
3. Learn from other sports
4. Practical is best

What is the role of a coach?, on lineoutcoach
- Know your role and do your job
- Player development
- Train to play the game
- Understand the players responsibility
- Provide core life skills

7 skills for becoming an emotionally intelligent leader, on General Leadership
- Daniel Goleman says five areas of emotional intelligence:
1. Self-Awareness
2. Self-Regulation
3. Motivation
4. Empathy
5. People Skills
The 'Big Seven' of the Emotionally Aware...
1. Patience
2. Compassion
3. Flexibility
4. Able to communicate more than just words
5. Trusting and trustworthy
6. Authentic
7. Respectful

The Sports Gene Chapter 2, by David Epstein
- Ackerman = skill acquisition, practice and improvement depends on the task. Simple task = people closer together, difficult = further apart.
- Variance = statistical measure of how much people deviate from the average

The Sports Gene Chapter 3, by David Epstein
- importance of vision and eyesight. MLB players may not have better reaction time than average population, "they do have the superior vision that can help them pick up the anticipatory cues they need earlier, making raw reaction speed less important"
- 2008 Olympic Games study by Laby and Kirschen: softball outstanding depth perception and better contrast sensitivity than any others. Archers had exceptional visual acuity but not great depth perception (target is far away but flat). Fencers very good score on depth perception (make rapid use of tiny, close range variations in distance).
This implies visual hardware is increasingly critical the faster the ball is moving. Good hardware increases download speed of software (practice)
- Future professionals traits also behavioural - practice more but also take responsibility for practicing better
- large and growing body of evidence suggests early specialisation not only is NOT required to make highest level but should be actively avoided

Tom WIlliams Interview, on fifteenrugby
- Good practice to open it up to players and ask them questions
- Primarily on the lookout for attitude in young players as a lot can be taught/learned in time

Steve Hansen on the art of coaching, on NZ Herald
- Coaching is an important balance of tactics/coaching and man-management/emotional intelligence to understand people
- Get to know people's culture to help understand them as individuals
- If you can acknowledge pressure if present then you can start to work out how to deal with it
- So many things can be learned when you lose, so long as you're open to it
- Job as coach is to create environment that inspires players to use motivation to get better = right balance of stimulation and fun

The Brave New Coach, on AFL Community Club
- There is a lack of bravery in coach and player development
- Elite coaches and X Factor players, bravery summed up in areas of Drive, Boldness, Colourfulness and Imagination. Also have accompanying factors of Care, Outstanding Preparation and Resilience
- Just because something has always been done that way, doesn't make it right
- Becoming a Brave Coach:
1. High Risk/High Reward. Accept mistakes. For every mistake, identify one excuse and two plans
2. Devil's Advocate role in all planning
3. Brave in appointments
4. Bold and imaginative coaches
5. Bold and driven coaches. Quality over quantity
6. Imagination. Atmosphere of optimism, smarts and inspiration
7. Feedback
8. Fun
9. Sports Science. Link of emotion to thinking/performance
10. Music
11. Care. Anxiety clouds learning
12. Time. Value those who do extra or different
13. Less training, more improving
14. Food
15. Medicos
16. Expertise. Don't be conservative
- Always try to learn and improve, surround self with best people and best ideas

After a particularly busy few months I knew I had to make time for a new Coaching Conversations opportunity and was delighted to be able to head to St Mary's University in Twickenham to meet Liam McCarthy. Liam lectures on the Physical and Sport Education undergraduate degree programme, and has an MSc in Sports Coaching from Leeds Beckett University. He has also worked as head of coaching for an NGB, four years with England Handball, which gives him a great insight into coach education and CPD. Our conversation allowed me to leave with just as many questions as answers and has prompted me to give serious thought to what I would like coach education to actually include and how it would most benefit working coaches...I'll try to organise these thoughts toward a future blog.
 
The below is loosely paraphrased from our conversation, and doesn't necessarily represent direct quotes:
 
What are your thoughts on coach education in an academic setting and also as run by NGBs? 
I don't really believe that NGBs should or can run coach education in its entirety, should that really be their remit? I’m not totally convinced. With England Handball we worked with 7 Higher Education Institutions (HEI) to recognise prior learning and provide a sport-specific top-up. We saw a better quality of coach come through our programmes; a model which i’d encourage other NGBs to embrace. Where the HEIs delivered what they were best at (coaching pedagogy, game design etc…) the NGB delivered what they were good at (technical, tactical models), providing context.  This works well in other countries too, where many European countries place greater value on what HEIs do for sports coaching; we have a long way to go in the UK i believe.
 
Is that something you think could grow? I'm not sure how many NGBs would want to lose the income from coach ed...
Generally speaking most NGBs weren't that interested to share that link between CPD and a university, which is a shame. We presented the model of coach development at conferences, with little subsequent uptake. I think there is an element of standardisation and control that they wouldn't want to lose either.  The irony for me is, there is a willingness to push complexity, chaos and ‘mess’ in player learning; yet when it comes to coach learning there seemed an obsession with linearity.
 
It may or may not be a contributing factor to their lack of interest, but there seems to be a bit of a disconnect between research and in-the-field coaches. Why is this?
I think the problem is that good research is very specific - it is studying this strategy, in this situation, with these people and looking at if/why it works. Coaches try to apply elements that they come across in research but it doesn't work because the context is different, they therefore disengage. There are plenty of coaches who want research to tell them what to do but that isn't really the aim of research, it is about trying to provide a rich and contextualised narrative of what is going on.
 
Is there any way this relationship could be improved?
Well I think there must be a common awareness that there are no golden rules for coaching, no silver bullet. The aim should be to take bits from research that appeal to the coach, try them out and marry it with past experience - we shouldn't want to have robots producing the same sessions. Learning is inherently messy and I feel we should be happier to embrace the complexity and take some responsibility for that. We need to produce more critical coaches and I often come back to the analogy of Cooks vs Chefs, which i was introduced to by Bob Muir and Andrew Abraham at Leeds Beckett. Cooks can be given the ingredients and a recipe and get on with it. There is a place for this, of course. However, we should want more Chefs who can make the best out of the situation they are presented with. 
 
Is there any way research could better help coaches in terms of accessibility and language?
Well, the language is the language, and I would encourage coaches to take responsibility for grappling with that. I always have google open when I’m reading, and always a pen to scribble on articles; rewriting sentences to make them meaningful for me. Coaches could be better helped with increased opportunity for mentoring and 1-2-1 analysis of their coaching and planning for the future. Leeds Beckett do some inspiring work in this field. I also know of FA initiatives where mentors are out there observing, supporting and reflecting with coaches. This is ace, and something which will go a long way to aid sense-making.
 
I've looked at a Masters in coaching a few times, would you recommend it? My main obstacle now is work and finding the time so I have considered studying an online Masters too...
The Masters I did was excellent as it kept everything in context and provided the chance to have a lot of 1-2-1 feedback. Deadlines for assessment were negotiable, as were assessment titles; the MSc at Leeds Beckett treats you like a professional. I appreciate the time constraints, however I don't think you can go totally online with learning, as tempting as it may be!
 
Are there any common themes you see among the young coaches on your courses here?
We have some brilliant coaches here at St Mary’s University; the programme is over 300 students strong, the majority practicing coaching weekly. We offer a 50:50 spilt on the programme between classroom and practical sessions; further we pride ourselves on having academic staff who are active too.  The students here are at a really interesting place in their education; for me, they enter as dualist thinkers and it’s about getting as many as we can over the line. This looks like producing relativist coaches who are constantly scaffolding knowledge, while understanding all knowledge is provisional! 
 
So what is it that you are looking for to determine if a student has managed to get there?
We use mixed modes of assessment, over a long period of time, to the point where we can really track the students progress.  The moments which make me most proud are when students are able to verbalise and write down their reasoning, rationale and self-critique. All of this being beyond a student delivering a good practical session in the field.
 
Looking back at my time at Bath, I'm not sure if I learned as such or just realised that I had to write in a certain way that the lecturers were looking for...
Our course allows students to learn in context with plenty of practical elements, mentoring, filming of sessions etc. They can really analyse their coaching behaviour in detail that way; using GoPro cameras and even a drone! We also utilise relationships with local schools to have them coach children they've not met before so that it is slightly more realistic than coaching their peers. On one module we are wanting the students to write an ongoing blog throughout so as to get them to express exactly what the content means to them as individuals. 
 
Are there any noticeable trends among the coaches that hint at what sport their background might be? If you didn't know them previously would you be able to watch their coaching and pinpoint that they are a rugby player, or netball, hockey....
That's an interesting question. I'm not sure really, certainly we see plenty of invasion games used in sessions which probably reflects their sporting backgrounds. During their time with us we hope to lessen the emphasis on the 'what' of coaching (from over-emphasis to a level which better reflects sports coaching) and focus more on 'who' and ‘how'.  We work with each coach to enhance their practice, i think that’s really important.  We’re not looking to diminish what coaches are doing, we want to improve it and provoke change where the student recognises it’s needed. This is a really long-term process, and again, why I really believe short NGB courses get nowhere near producing this level of learning. For learning should be about transformational change, not the acquisition of knowledge.