Athletes First, Winning Second 385q1h

Athletes First, Winning Second – the cornerstone of a winning philosophy. Learning Outcomes By the end of this session, and following the associated reading students should be able to: • begin to conceptualise a coaching philosophy • determine your personal coaching objectives Introduction One day, if you ever become involved in leading sports teams as a coach or captain, you will be placed in apposition where difficult decisions will have to be made. These may be connected with selections, substitutions or tactics any of which may influence the outcome of the contest and may also have traumatic effects on an individual player. What principles will guide the decisions you make? What are the objectives of coaching? According to Martens (2012), there are three major objectives of coaching: • winning • helping young people to have fun • helping young people to develop physically, psychologically and socially. As an aspiring coach you will need to prioritise these and you may sometimes need to choose whether you will try to pursue victory at the possible expense of an athlete’s well being or longterm development. What price will you be prepared to pay to win, especially when society measures success by winning outcomes. Why become a coach? • to help young people through sport • to earn a living • to demonstrate knowledge • to seek public recognition and fame • to socialise with others who enjoy sport • to have fun • to be in authority • to travel? Which of these is most important for you? During competition you will be vulnerable to pursuing your own goals at the expense of your athletes. The reasons why you want to become a coach will influence the type of coach you become. What are society’s objectives for sport? Society makes inextricable links between and highlights the benefits of young people engaging in sports and activities in order to help them develop physically, psychologically and socially. As a coach, society expects you to prioritise this aspect of your work, and to provide young people with fun and rewarding activity experiences, yet judges you on the shorter-term objective of winning. Reflect on how these values are manifested within professional sport. For example, society clearly values winning by rewarding winners rather than recognising all participants equally. Coaches’ jobs depend on win-loss records and often unsuccessful sports programmes lose their funding from central revenue.

1

Recent government rhetoric has highlighted the desire for school physical education programmes to be based on competitive sport and team games more specifically, harking back to the principles and beliefs of ‘Muscular Christianity’ which were propounded by Thomas Arnold and adopted by Public Schools. Yet there must be a place for recreational sport as well as competitive sport within modern society where all three coaching objectives can be met. Problems arise when the aims and values of competitive sport are imposed by those facilitating recreational sport; where coaches pursue competitive objectives in recreational sport programmes, often at odds with those participants who want to learn a new sport, socialise and have fun. What do you understand by the idiom athletes first, winning second? Athletes First – Winning Second is the philosophical foundation of the Bill of Rights for Young Athletes and is a motto which encourages coaches to base every decision and every behaviour on what they judge to be in the best interests of the athlete before what may improve the athlete’s or the team’s chances of winning. As Martens (2012) puts it: ‘what’s important is not how many games you win, but how many young people you help to become winners in life’ (p.20). What about winning; isn’t that important too? Vince Lombardi, former head coach at Green Bay Packers is credited with saying ‘winning isn’t everything, it’s the only thing’ and many competitive coaches adopt this attitude. The sentiment of this approach is more productively viewed by adopting a philosophy of ‘winning isn’t everything, but striving to win is’. Perhaps we should always try to to privilege the pursuit of victory and the dream of achieving the goal above the goal itself and encourage young people to believe that it is the challenge that is worth pursuing and the positive benefits that the required commitment brings regardless of the outcome. ‘When athletes give their best, when they commit themselves to pursuing excellence, win or lose, they are successful’ (Martens, 2012, p.22). What are the benefits of adopting such a philosophy? When winning is kept in perspective, young people who enjoy participating in sport exhibit a number of desirable personal qualities. They strive for excellence, are happy to make mistakes to promote and enhance learning, they respond positively to constructive advice and the pursuit of victory becomes fun. Conclusion Whenever you become involved in sport as a player or a coach there will be an underlying set of beliefs or a philosophy which guides your participation. This should be influenced by a basic code of ethics that is transferable to a moral code for life. Accept your responsibilities, accept others and accept yourself in order to maximise your chances of having fun and developing a winning team where you can help athletes to develop physically, psychologically and socially. Key Reading: Martens, R. (2012) Successful Coaching (4th Edition) Chapters 1 and 2 (pp.3-26).

2