Many UK readers may have seen the report quoted in the Times Newspaper
yesterday on the subject of Profesional Coaching in sport.

I have put some thoughts together on this:-

I have grave reservations about over professionalizing sport. Do we
want to follow the path set by the former countries of the old Eastern
block, in particular East Germany? When the position, pay and status
of athletes and their coaches is based entirely on results, the
temptations for abuse can become over whelming. We only have to look
the resent revelations coming out from the USA track sprinters or the
Russian rowing team to see what can happen.

Thanks to lottery grants and, where they are in a media friendly
sport, sponsorship our Elite level sportsmen are now able to give up
work and dedicate their life to their chosen discipline. The money
allows them to train more often and, most significantly, rest between
sessions. Clearly they need coaches who are available when they wish
to train and thus if the athletes are professional in all but name,
their coaches must be professionals. But outside this elite level do
we need more professionals and can we afford to dispense with
volunteers.

Very few athletes and players can even begin to dream of competing
professionally. With the scientific knowledge and testing that now
goes on, most who dream of rising to such heights fall at the first
fence because they are told by the experts that their legs are too
short or their feet are too big and if they are not going all the way
to the top, are the new breed of professional coaches proposed in the
Sportnation report, that was published yesterday, going to be
interested in them.

For most of the population who take exercise, sport is a hobby and
undertaken as a form of relaxation. This might sound a bit odd when
one sees perfectly sane people running 26 miles through the streets of
London or turning out on a wet muddy field to kick, hit, carry and
catch a ball of some shape or other. We have to recognise that for the
vast majority it is about personal goals. We do it for the challenge,
the comradeship, our health and a sense of achievement.

Our sport is, in the initial stages of learning, technically rather
physically, quite hard to master. It therefore requires a high number
of coaches, particularly at the junior and beginner level. Being a
water sport, it is inherently hazardous and thus coaches have a very
specific duty of care in matters of safety. In order to deliver this,
most rowing clubs in the UK rely entirely on volunteer coaches. This
dedicated band of people, often retired athletes do it to put
something back into a sport that they love. For the report quoted in
yesterday's Times to describe volunteer coaches as mere helpers is an
insult to the time, dedication and professionalism put in by some of
these people.

The professionals need professional qualifications. The level of
knowledge in physiology, nutrition, psychology as well as the
technical aspects of any sport has moved forwards in leaps and bounds.
The UK coaching certificates (UKCC) has set a standard across all
sports by which a professional coach can be judged. These
qualifications do not come cheap. It can cost hundreds of pounds to
get on the course for one of these nationally accredited coaching
awards. This is fine if coaching is what you do and someone else is
paying.

If coaching is what you do in your spare time, there now seems to be
little scope for increasing your knowledge in any structured form. I
am old enough and have been coaching for long enough to have benefited
from a coach education structure that recognised that all coaches
needed to be valued and it was thus tailored to the specific need for
the sport and not some cross sport fudge. The unpaid volunteer who
just wants to increase his knowledge occasionally is now being frozen
out and many of the coaches I talk to feel that the ARA no longer
values the work that they are prepared to put in.

It is my impression the ARA has jumped into bed with UK sport, in
order to gain political points and grants, without considering what
the majority of the sport needs. Having bought into the UKCC levels of
coaching, the ARA has specifically refused to consider developing a
Level 1 type qualification, set at about the level of the old
Instructors Award. Instead the lowest structured course available is
the Level 2. This course, whilst excellent for dedicated and partially
experienced coaches, is for more complex and time consuming than many
assistant/volunteer coaches need.

If we are to have more professional input to coaching in this
country, I would suggest that my own club might serve as a model.
Here, we are big enough and fortunate enough to be able to employ a
highly qualified profesional coach (from Australia). He is the club's
chief coach and when crews are being selected, he has the final say.
But, to assist him there are group of experienced volunteers who put
in what time they can. One of his roles is to manage these assistants
to make the best use of the time that they can make available. He also
able to undertake many of those time consuming tasks such as setting
rigging. Many of our crews will, after their 6:00 AM training session
be told to leave their boat on tressles so that, during the day, he
can re-rig or repair the boat such that the crew need waste no time
when they turn up after work for thir evening session. Because he is a
full time coach, he is also available to coach the club's elite level
athletes when they train during the day time.

I would expect all coaches to be professional, that is whether they
are paid or not, they undertake there duties as a coach in a
professional manner. If one looks at the management of the most
professional sport in the country, football, one can see examples
where the professionals are complete amateurs. Money is not the
complete answer.

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