building your coaching brain trust
TRANSCRIPT
Building Your Coaching Brain Trust
Will Kirousis, MS, CSCS, CISSN
Who am I?• Will Kirousis, MS, CSCS, CISSN• Live in MA with my wife Rosemary and twins Em and William.• Focused on coaching AG cyclists, triathletes, runners and other endurance
athletes.• 20 years of coaching experience, 16 of those as a full time endurance
sports coach.• Coached AG athletes to world championship and national championships
podiums in 6 disciplines between triathlon, cycling and mountain running.• Enjoy coaching folks from beginner to elite – anyone wanting to and open
to growing!
Today’s Targets
What are coaches and how do they evolve
Value of your philosophy
Broad strokes – context and bias
Opening the door for, and firing up growth
Where do we look for knowledge?
Growing within and beyond our sport
Evolution: Athlete Coach Better Coach
Who/What are coaches?• Immediate thought tends to suggest narrow, technical, and rational
understanding of a given profession.• This makes it easier to “quantify, measure and mandate” (Jones &
Potrac, 2015).• Prioritizes routine rather than thoughtful actions.• Klechtermans personal interpretive framework – guides peoples
actions and relations but is updated due to the interactions we have with people and events.• Glasses analogy
Coaching Roles
Coach
Teacher
Strategist
Sport Scientist
Sport Psychologist
Admin.Recruiter
Promoter
Trainer
Nutritionist
Professional self understanding• Professional self understanding – the way we understand our selves
relative to the specific interactions and experiences we have.• Self image, self esteem, job motivation, task perception, future
perspective.
Subjective educational theory• “Personal system of knowledge and beliefs and individual uses to
guide his/her practice.”• Noting knowledge and beliefs, former = formal education, continuing
professional development, reading of research; latter = idiosyncratic and based on experiences.• Ultimately, using questions to better understand how to take action is
very helpful towards making the best decisions.
Intertwined• Professional self understanding sums what the coach hopes to
achieve (goals) • Subjective educational theory focus’s on the knowledge required to
reach the coaches goals.• They are interwoven!
Who you are as a coach is expressed via your philosophyMy Philosophy (short form): I will coach through an autonomy supportive environment which ensures athletes who have entrusted me to help them grow are able to love the process of preparing for and competing in sport.
My Philosophy (long form): I will coach through an autonomy supportive environment which ensures athletes who have entrusted me to help them grow are able to love the process of preparing for and competing in sport. I will work to help athletes that I coach to see competition as a gift and opportunity to experience the skills they have developed, a chance to further improve their ability and a chance to learn more about their sport and themselves. I will work passionately to develop my knowledge and skills related to training, competition, nutrition, equipment, tactics, lifestyle/wellness, physiology/mechanics, teaching, and psychology ensuring I possess tools which can help me coach best. I will communicate kindly and positively, while challenging athletes to seek answers and grow from new information and ideas. I will respect the athletes I coach while staying open to the lessons each athlete can teach me. Finally, when challenges arise, I will stay patient, and will use those challenges as opportunities for the growth of both the athlete, and myself.
I hope this discussion makes you uncomfortable…
You are biased… I am too. Lets change that!
Be a hunter Be a builder Be curiousBe open
Rid of bias, we are ready for growth.
Failure is a:
With Bias gone, we can grow - how?• Self reflection• Feedback from athletes /
coaches / other professionals• Self audits• Active learning
https://www.connectedcoaches.org/spaces/10/welcome-and-general/blog/JohnMC/100/using-critical-reflection-to-become-a-good-coach
Example Self Reflection questions• List 5 of my strengths as a coach• List 5 of my weaknesses as a coach• What are the 5 situations which challenged me most over the past
year?• How did I manage and resolve those situations?• How did my approach to coaching reflect my coaching philosophy?
Athlete/coach/professional
Self Audit:Are you doing what you think you are doing?
Individual communication with other coaches – in and out of your sport.
Symposiums, seminars, webinars or clinics
Professional reading
Professional Reading
Read. Books. Broadly!• Psychology/sociology• Personal growth• Leadership• Business organization/management etc.• Education (KEY)• Philosophy• Biography/autobiography• Medical science• Physics• History• Culture
Sample of web sources that may be “out” of your normal review’s that could be helpful.• http://www.athleticscoaching.ca/default.aspx?p=home• http://www.shapeamerica.org/standards/coaching/coachingstandards.cfm• http://www.positivecoach.org/• http://www.aspetar.com/journal/Default.aspx• http://www.hmmrmedia.com/• https://footblogball.wordpress.com/• http://thepsychologypodcast.com/• https://www.connectedcoaches.org/spaces/10/welcome-and-general/blogs• https://www.edge.org/• http://selfdeterminationtheory.org/• http://americanhumanist.org/Humanism• http://www.sportsci.org/
Experimenting with ideas and methods on oneself/athletes… N = 1
Consider courses/education: Are you weak in an area? Tackle it!
Professional / self development: Priority 1 for coaches.• Create strategies which work for you: daily, weekly, monthly, yearly.• Use your self review, and explore/study areas which challenge your
beliefs. Work to break down bias.• Explore areas you feel you “own” – expand your strengths.• Work on weaknesses, but don’t let them overpower you.• Recognize the work of those who have come before you – their work
contains many answers!• Always remember, coaching is a profession. Treat yourself and your
fellow coaches as fellow professionals – we are all in this to HELP OTHERS!
Be well rounded – Just like you want your athletes to be!• Coach burn out is a real thing. Creating a “hard – easy” structure for
your professional year is vital, just like it is for successful training.• Manage your life in a way that facilitates time away from sport
through the year to help keep you fresh and energized.
Suggested Readings / References
Birchfield, R. (2014). The rise and rise of coaching and mentoring. Management. 32-33.
Becker, A. J., & Solomon, G. (2009). Its not what they do, its how they do it: Athlete experiences of great coaching. International Journal of Sports Science & Coaching, 4(1), 93-119.
Chase, M. A. (2010). Should coaches believe in innate ability? The importance of leadership mindset . Quest, 62, 296-307.
Cote, J. (2006). The development of coaching knowledge. International Journal of Sports Science and Coaching, 1(3), 2006.
Dweck, C. S. (2015). Growth. British Journal of Educational Psychology, 85, 242-245.
De Bono, E. (1995). Serious creativity. Journal for Quality and Participation, 12.
Dewey, J., (1982). The philosophy of John Dewey J.J. McDermott, (Ed.). Chicago, IL: The University of Chicago Press
dos Santos, S., Figueiredo Marques, Mesquita, I. M. R., dos, S. G., & Rosado, A. F. B. (2010). What coaches’ value about coaching knowledge: a comparative study across a range of domains.. International Journal of Applied Sports Sciences, 22(2), 96-112.
Gilbert, W., Cote, J. & Mallett, C. (2006) Developmental paths and activities of successful sport coaches . International Journal of Sports Science and Coaching, 1(1), 60-76.
Hicks, R. & McCracken, J. (2009). The coaching mindset. Physician Executive, 64-66
Janssen, F. J. J. M., Westbroek, H. B., & van Driel, J. H. (2014). How to make guided discovery learning practical for student teachers . Instructional Science, 42, 67-90.
Kelchtermans, G. (2009). Who I am in how I teach is the message: Self-understanding vulnerability and reflection. Teachers and Teaching: Theory and Practice, 15(2), 257-272.
Occhino, J. L., Mallett, C. J., Rynne, S. B. & Carlisle, K. N. (2014). Autonomy-supportive pedagogical approach to sports coaching: research, challenges and opportunities . International Journal of Sports Science & Coaching, 9(2). 2014. 401-410.
Passmore, J. & Oades, L G. (2014) Positive psychology coaching – a model for coaching practice . The Coaching Psychologist, 10(2), 68-70.
Raedeke, T D., Warren, A. H. & Granzyk, T. L. (2002). Coaching commitment and turnover: a comparison of current and former coaches. Research Quarterly for Exercise and Sport. 73(1), 73-86.
Raedeke, T. D. (2004). Coach commitment and burnout: a one-year follow-up . Journal of Applied Sport Psychology. 16, 333-349.
Reade, I., Rodgers, W. & Spriggs, K. (2008). New ideas for high performance coaches: a case study of knowledge transfer in sports science . International Journal of Sports Science and Coaching, 3(3), 335-354.
Roussin, J. L. & Zimmerman, D. P. (2014). Inspire learning not dread, create a feedback culture that leads to improved practice. Learning Forward, 35(6), 36-47.
Simeeton, N. J., Williams, A. M., Hodges, N. J. & Ward, P. (2005). The relative effectiveness of various instructional approaches in developing anticipation skill. Journal of Experimental Psychology: Applied, 11(2). 98-110.
Spence, G. B., Oades, L. G. (2011). Coaching with self-determination in mind: using theory to advance evidence-based coaching practice. International Journal of Evidence Based Coaching and Mentoring, 9(2), 37-55.
Van Deurzen-Smith, S. (2014). Creative inspiration and existential coaching . Existential Analysis, 25(1), 79-90.
Wininger, S. R. & Birkholz, P. M. (2013). Sources of instructional feedback, job satisfaction and basic psychological needs. Innovative Higher Education, 38, 159-170.
Questions?Will Kirousis
www.tri-hard.com
Con Petire: “To search together”