By Bo Hanson – 4x Olympian, Coaching Consultant & Director of Athlete Assessments

The December ’09 – January ‘10 period has been a busy time for Athlete Assessments.  In total, we have travelled to the USA and presented keynote presentations at five Coaching Conferences, worked with the USA National Rowing Team and several Division One Colleges.  We also recently presented at the Australian Football League Coaching Conference in Australia (and are due to present to the Australian Swim Conference on the Gold Coast in May).  What was inspiring about being at the different conferences was listening to fellow presenters and hearing of their perspectives on coaching.  What was also interesting, was seeing how each sport approaches coaching education and the role of the coach.

The most recent conference we attended was for AFL.  More than 550 coaches attended and, for the first time, included referee/umpire coaches.  The AFL is very proactive in recognizing the role coaches play in creating positive game day environments.  As a growing sport in Australia with more than 720 000 participants, recruiting and retaining referees has become a major challenge.  The demand for referee appointments is growing at 89% yet the number of actual referees is only increasing by 13% per year.  In addition, approximately 25% of referees drop out due to abuse from players, coaches, parents and fans.  Hence the need for coaches to be aware and educated as to their role in creating an environment which is positive for referees to work in. Without referees and umpires, the sport cannot be played and cannot grow.

The AFL is also promoting the fact that coaches are a key selection criteria for young athletes in choosing which sport to play.  In our keynote conference presentations we also show a study which was undertaken by the American Football Players Association in which it was found that 90% of players stated the coaching staff was critical in them determining which college to attend.  Another statistic which highlights the critical role coaches have is how 25% of AFL Players drop out of their sport due to issues with their immediate coach. Once again, if a sport is to grow, a large part of that growth relies on the skills and characteristics of the coach.

These statistics are echoed in the business world, where it has been found that of those employees who leave their job, 75% do so due to a poor relationship with their immediate manager. The business world demands their managers understand how to use technologies such as personality profiling to keep their employees engaged and know how to work best with their team.  They are also often subjected to 360 degree feedback and evaluation.

With these statistics in mind, the AFL conference hosted in excess of 50 coach education sessions over the 2.5 day conference.  Of these 50 plus sessions, roughly half were dedicated to non technical coach education.  That is, roughly half were “x and o” sessions and the other half were topics such as the keynote we presented on “Athlete Centered Coaching”.  Other non x and o sessions, were titled, “Inclusive Coaching Strategies”, “Understanding Learning Styles”, “Facilitated Questioning Techniques” and several sessions dealing with “Coaching Philosophies”.  From our perspective, this is very encouraging to see.  It is well recognised, that the major challenges coaches face today in their roles are “people management” challenges.  Certainly in a survey Athlete Assessments conducted in 2008 of a general coaching population, it was found their three top challenges were understanding their athletes’ personalities, managing work life balance and understanding team dynamics.

In summary, the role of the coach is being recognised by more and more sporting bodies as critical to the future survival of their sport.  The fact is, there is significant competition amongst the sports to attract the most talented athletes.  It makes a lot of sense, that to attract and retain these athletes, coaches are to be given every opportunity to improve their non x and o skills to enable them to be better leaders and people managers.  Athlete Assessments exists to assist coaches to meet these challenges.  We can help you.  Discover more information about the AthleteDISC profile for athletes and CoachDISC profile for coaches or contact us to find out how we can help you further develop your coaching.