When discussing great coaches in tennis (and other sports), we have spent a number of years researching common traits and behaviors of the best in the world. These are coaches working with the best professional and olympic athletes. These are coaches who are paid to produce results. The world of high performance coaching is vastly different than many other areas of coaching and it is many times challenging to find the right coach (if you are an athlete), or determine if you are truly a coach built to work at the highest levels of sport. The information below are some thoughts from the research literature on the topic and finish with some quotes from some top coaches.
When interviewing and studying great athletes, it is valuable to determine from their perspectives what makes a great coach. Here is some information from a study titled: It’s Not What They Do, It’s How They Do It: Athlete Experiences of Great Coaching.(Becker, A.J. It’s Not What They Do, It’s How They Do It: Athlete Experiences of Great Coaching. International Journal of Sports Science & Coaching. 4(1), 2009, 93-118)
Six major dimensions characterizing athlete experiences of great coaching:
1.Coach Attributes
2.The Environment
3.Relationships
4.The System
5.Coaching Actions
6.Influences
Coach Attributes
•The athlete participants expressed an appreciation for playing for great people who willingly served in a variety of roles that went beyond the playing field. Athletes viewed their coaches as teachers, mentors, and friends. Consistent with previous research, they also viewed their coaches as parental figures
•Great coaches are seen as experts
•The athletes described how their great coaches were not afraid to make mistakes, show faults, or admit that they did not have all the answers. “They don’t act like they are better than you or above you
•Participants viewed their coaches’ knowledge as one of the more obvious requisites for achieving greatness: “If you don’t know what you’re doing, you’re not going to be very good at it”
•passion emerged as a key characteristic
•inspirational and enthusiastic – These qualities were particularly important when the athletes experienced performance lulls or fatigue.
•athletes described their coaches as genuine, honest, and loyal.
•The athletes described their coaches as committed and disciplined.
•Ultimately, the athletes described their great coaches as perfectionists. This was evident in the way that they carried themselves, but also in the way that they were organized:
•The professionalism, consistency, and integrity that coaches exhibited were some of the more prominent qualities that helped gain these athletes’ admiration, trust, and respect.
Environment
•Athlete Centered
•“This game is about you. It’s not about me. When I was playing the game, it was about the players, not about the coaches”. This appears to be an important aspect of great coaching, because coaches that “put their players first are the [ones] that in the end get better results for themselves”.
•Athletes discussed how their coaches made themselves accessible, but also approachable.
•These findings parallel previous research on Olympic athletes, who reported that good coach-athlete relationships are “characterized by mutual trust, confidence in each other’s abilities, good communication (especially good listening skills) and a sense of collaboration or working together”
•Practice Environment
•Athletes described the practice environment as being well planned, highly structured, and game-like: “Everything had a purpose”; “We practiced situations that were likely to occur in games”
•The practice atmosphere that these athletes described was intense and competitive.
Relationships
•The relationships that athletes experienced with their coaches were professional, but also personal
•When coaches display a genuine interest in their players (not only as athletes but also as individuals), they establish relationships that often extend beyond the sport environment.
•However, there were also boundaries
•The personal relationship that athletes developed with their coaches was also predicated on trust, confidence, and respect.
•The athletes discussed how their coaches “gained respect out of love, rather than fear”
Coaching Actions
•Included seven general themes: Teach, Communicate, Motivate, Respond, Prepare, Perform, and Disregard the Irrelevant.
. •each coaching action was mediated by its content, method, and/or quality
•It became evident from these athletes’ experiences that greatness is not about what coaches do, but rather how they do it
•For example, all coaches teach. Great coaches teach the details. All coaches communicate. Great coaches communicate honestly. All coaches prepare. Great coaches prepare meticulously. All coaches develop expectations. Great coaches develop high expectations and do everything in their power to help athletes achieve them.
•Coach communication methods were both direct and indirect
•The quality of these coaches’ communication was described as clear, consistent, and honest
•Rather than telling players what they wanted to hear, they would tell them the truth: “Coach would never say something false. He wouldn’t give you false compliments”
•Athletes described how their coaches motivated them to learn the game, work hard, and become the best players they could be
•“practices were harder than the actual matches”
•athletes described their coaches’ preparation as consistent
•Coaches responded with displeasure when athletes were goofing off, not paying attention, or being lazy: “Coach had zero patience for people who wouldn’t work hard and he made that very clear at the beginning”
•They also had no tolerance for mental mistakes
•The athletes expressed how their coaches showed disregard for anything that was irrelevant to the team’s primary mission, goals, and/or objectives
•These athletes described their coaches as being able to see the big picture and as a result, they “would let the little things go sometimes”
•The interesting thing about coaching is that you have to trouble the comfortable, and comfort the troubled. – Ric Charlesworth, former Australian national women’s field hockey coach. •
•The key is not the will to win. Everybody has that. It is the will to prepare to win that is important. – Bobby Knight, former Indiana men’s college basketball coach and Basketball Hall of Fame member. •
•What do you do with a mistake: recognize it, admit it, learn from it, forget it. – Dean Smith, former UNC men’s college basketball coach and two-time national champion. •
•Talent sets the floor, character sets the ceiling. – Bill Belichick, New England Patriots head coach and five-time Super Bowl champion. •
•Champions behave like champions before they are champions. – Bill Walsh, former San Francisco 49ers head coach and three-time Super Bowl champion. •
•Treat a person as he is, and he will remain as he is. Treat him as he could be, and he will become what he should be. – Jimmy Johnson, former Dallas Cowboys head coach and two-time Super Bowl champion.
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