thanks for the great topic
we live in a small town
with a very small school
K through 12 in one building
graduating classes avg. 23
Class D school
just finding a coach is very difficult.
and like said before some parant take a class and like magic the become a coach
just cause they played some sport they think they know how to get the best out of a team
this year the JV soccer coach never even played soccer or knew the rules.
"the boys know how to play the game "
"Just let them play"
How can anyone think they can play at a winning leval with out a real coach.

My hat is off to coaches that change the outcome of a sport by increasing the fitness, awareness,tactics employed by atheteles


Dirt

Paulo,

Coaches such as those you've mentioned often are discussed as great coaches primarily because of their athletic success, rather than success they've had coaching. People generally avoid looking critically at them as coaches due to that success. Inevitably the ad hominem attacks start as soon as anyone questions what they have to say. Looking at their track record as coaches and the success they've had with other athletes means much more than any personal success they had, even if they were champions.

I'm not saying they are not great coaches, but in the context of this discussion, no great athlete should be assumed to be a great coach, but they often are.

Joel

What about athletes who coach, but apply the lessons they learn from coaches, rather than their own specific training?

I think the real distinction is between coaches who coach like a coach and those who coach like an athlete. Interestingly, I've had coaches who were great athlete, but who coached like a coach, and coaches who were terrible athletes that coached like an athlete.

Personally, I think you're making some blanket statements here that are not neccessarily true.

I do definitely agree with Joel that the great athletes tend to be judged overall by their athletic accomplishments, and people do assume that they are great athletes a result.

I don't think you can overlook the mentors role in forming a coach. An athlete who was self-coached, IMO, will always be a worse coach than an athlete with a proper mentor who eventually becomes a coach. The ability to learn from those around you (and that includes learning from research, etc.), rather than learning just from yourself (i.e. how training and certain methodologies affect YOU personally) would seem to me to be the major factor in determining how good a coach someone will be.

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"Non est ad astra mollis e terris via." - Seneca | rappstar.com | FB - Rappstar Racing | IG - @jordanrapp

You make an excellent point supporting what I have said.

Knowing you well, I realize that throughout your post you're making a case for yourself as a coach. But that's OK, sometimes the posts we write say more about ourselves than the subject discussed.

Of course that doesn't mean that I don't LOVE your posts!

Ironically, I rarely, if ever, call myself a coach. I usually say that I "coach a couple people." In a lot of ways, I don't think of myself as being a coach, given the sort of influence and respect that I think a *real* coach deserves. I haven't been doing it long enough to feel that I'm there.

Of course, I would like to feel good about the coaching that I do, so I am sure that colored the wording of what I wrote. But I'd say that you and Joel are "coaches," whereas I'm more of a coach-in-training or something like that. Maybe someday I'll have my own offices in both a Quiznos and a Swiss Chalet and a Milagro's. But until then, I'll just be happy with what I've got...

I think we need better demarcations, like in the church. Then I can be like a priest-level-coach, you and Joel can both be cardinal-level-coaches, and, of course, Chris Carmichael can be the the pope-level-coach. ;) Oh yeah, and then Dev Paul can be the fringe-separatist-messiah-level-coach! :P Then of course, there will be a great schism, and we will have the Coaches of England and the Coaches of Rome, and there will be many wars fought, and... Oh, I think I'm taking this too far...

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"Non est ad astra mollis e terris via." - Seneca | rappstar.com | FB - Rappstar Racing | IG - @jordanrapp

I just weeded through this entire thread, and I think Rappstar is entirely correct. I was hoping no one brought up the points that I wanted to make, but Rappstar beat me to it.

Anyways, while I've never had a tri coach, I've certainly had many coaches throughout my adolescent years. I was a pretty successful hockey player who got to travel far and wide as a kid, and had several coaches who were both incredibly successful in their playing careers and others who were solely coaches. I certainly think that one can toe the line and be both.

The distinction that Rappstar makes is a very important one - a successful athlete/coach needs to fully understand the dichotomy between the two positions. All athletes are different, and a good coach realizes this. A coach who is blinded by his own athletic pursuits. Personally, I wouldn't understand how to do this if I were a tri coach, but I could handle the hockey aspect. There are people who are commonly referred to as "students of the game" who understand that the game is a sum of all the moving parts. I think this is what makes a good coach, whereas the good/great athlete would only understand specific parts of the whole.

In an age of specialization, I think it's becoming increasingly rare that an athlete can be successful as the athlete and then successful as the coach. We seem to have evolved to a point where an athlete is particularly good at one thing - be it a specific position in a team sport, or a certain discipline in triathlon - and then seek to be somewhat adequate in the other parts of the game. That being said, I think athletes tend to become experts of sorts in one particular area. The great athlete and coach sees the other elements of the game or sport and understands them as well as their own little position.

Paulo, if I could, I would like to take your statement and revise it slightly.

Great athletes can make great coaches, but it is far more likely that a great coach was a good athlete but a "student of the game," to continue my analogy.


Rick

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Existence precedes Essence.

There'll also be a Crusade, where all of you coaches and the rest of us wannabes (who follow the those higher in the hierarchy like lemmings) wage a war against, say, basketball coaches or something.

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Existence precedes Essence.

Paulo, according to your website ....

Paulo Sousa, PhD, is one of Europe’s most knowledgeable and experienced multi-sport coaches. He has been involved in athletics since 1994 as a triathlete and coach, combining professional certification and education with international coaching experience to provide a first-class training program.

.... does the fact that you have been involved as a "triathlete and coach" mean that you've lost all credibility as a coach :)

No, never having won Hawaii takes care of that.

I am and always will be a recreational athlete and the parents I chose are to blame for that.

Damn parents :)

If you go by the never having won Hawaii specification, then there aren't too many athlete/coaches that you can discredit.

Something must have been lost in the translation, I am not out to discredit anyone.

>>Cathy thinks I meant Molina<<

Acutally, no I didn't. And besides, I think the three you mentioned could probably handle your criticism. ;-)

It's the absoluteness of your inital statements. You have since tempered it with this:

>>This discussion is not meant to be bashing the great athletes that are indeed great coaches, because there are cases of that in every sport. <<

It was that whole black/white thing. Life is more grey.

clm

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clm
Nashville, TN
https://twitter.com/ironclm | http://ironclm.typepad.com

This is a good thread.

Can't help but agree with Paulo ... Monty makes a good point too. The discussions remind me of some of my college professors. Some were brilliant and knew their subject extremely well. Some maybe knew their subject too well: They were simply not able to articulate and summarize. Simply put, they wre bad teachers and they lost more students than they taught. Students inevitabally fell into two camps: They idolized the professor (for their knowledge and achievements) or disliked him. One example was a guy I never had but one of the very few journalists to win a Pulitzer in two separate categories: Most students said he was a sucky prof.

I am wrapping up my first season as a high school cross country coach. I must say I am learning much more from the other coaches (and colleague who coach other sports) and from other teachers and from the kids themselves than I ever could from my 10 years of running and 4 years in tri's. It is a huge mistake to try to apply too much of your own experience to others.

But, I believe my own experiences, just going from a 40+ 10K runner to a 36- 10K runner over a few years add a bit to my perspective. The deal is to not let it influence or drive my perspective. The whole tri. thing can't be applied much to them at all: 15-year-olds with a goal to run 3 miles in 17 minutes don't have the attention span/patience and just won't benefit from workouts geared toward races that take hours. At least I realized that very soon.

Coaching and teaching are maybe ever more about communication, personality and psychology than actual knowledge.

Okay, I've been following this thread since I have an internet coach (hi martyg). Should I fire him because he and his wife are really good and then look for a MOP coach? I honestly don't think you mean this, but I'm honestly unclear about your message. Could just be me.

Yes, there are good and bad coaches. I just wouldn't categorize them by their own success in triathlon. I don't think a love and study of the sport comes more easily to those who never succeed (and they get to define success, not me). I'd venture to say that some successful triathletes have become successful because they spent a lot of time studying the sport.

If you're saying that a winning triathlete who starts coaching with the plan to send every athlete the plan he/she is personally following, then I'd agree that this is bad and doing a disservice to the client. I'd bet that coaching is a bell-curve.

Tom Demerly has a good point; how to identify those coaches at the right end of the bell curve. Hell if I know. Absent any real reward/consequences for doing well/poorly, I'd just ask if you're having fun, not getting injured, and improving year to year (relative to your age). Sounds like a win to me.

Case in point, no you shouldn't fire Marty :-) I have heard great things about him actually.

But I'm sure he would be the first to admit that he is not a great athlete. He's a pretty good age-group athlete, well above average (and well above me :-).

NYC? :-) Which one???

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“You can't coach desire.” --Dathan Ritzenhein
http://xtreme4.com/ -- an extreme ride for extreme change: go green

Heh, Paulo, I think Marty would admit that after his Oktoberfest adventure, he now has breasts larger than me! BTW, this would take a gain of 2 or so pounds. ;-)

And to clarify my thoughts about you, I love Portugal. I've even been to the Azores (Terciera)...great bread. I just want to understand your posts. I know you're a great coach and I know you have a lot to add to any discussion, I just don't understand some of them [insert blonde joke here].

I'm keeping Marty and moving on. Hope our paths cross at some time.

here is where you have painted yourself into a corner: the word, "all".

the statement you make above is patently false.

yes, some coaches that were competitive athletes are indeed quite poor. but some are great.

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Where would you want to swim ?

[reply]No, never having won Hawaii takes care of that.

I am and always will be a recreational athlete and the parents I chose are to blame for that.[/reply]


Best. Line. Evar.

My genetic mediocrity puts me in the same spot. I hope one day to break away from my desk job and use triathlon/cycling as a way to put food on my table.

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Mike R

Software Engineer and Mac geek
Aspiring to be front-middle-of-the-pack in 2010.

Paulo, nice thread, and many good insights. While I have no tri coach (I grew through tri in the age of Monty when everyone was experimenting and was self coached), I have found that my "best athletes turned coaches" in track, cross country, soccer, hockey, tennis, baseball, cricket, field hockey, and XC skiing were usually the guys who were not the best but were had to work like maniacs at the technical aspect of their game to be on the same playing field as the very best. Because they picked the "wrong parents", they had to make up for this deficiency by becoming a student of their game, and learning every little trick in the technique and tactics playbook. These seem to be the guys with a bit of an analytical mind who can then communicate it back to the athlete in a way that the truly elite may not simply because the real elite guy never had to figure it out and therefore has difficulty explaining it.

With respect to picking a coach, though, I'll want to pick a coach that has been on the same battlefield that I am heading to. Just like I won't follow a colonel into battle that does not have experience, I'm not keen to follow someone who has not experienced what he is about to impart without having done it himself. This really applies to technical sports like swimming, XC skiing, baseball, tennis or soccer, more so than triathlon. I want someone who has played the game and can tell me what I should feel in my bones when my body is oriented in a certain position and ball or trail come flying at me at 70 kph and I suddenly have to change directions. Moreover, I want someone who can share the psychology of race day execution in the field of battle (a directeur sportif type of guy...). Someone who can tell me how the head reacts when the body is falling apart, and how to right the body when it is veering away from the intended goal. While having a long coaching track record is valuable, that coupled with the real world experience of having been in the trenches really makes an awesome combination. So do you need to have been a triathlete to coach triathlon? YES. Did you need to be elite? NO

Being or having been an elite athlete is not necessary to coach the bulk of age groupers or tier 2 pros. But if you are going to contend for the Stanley Cup, the Olympic Gold Medal, or a world championship, its nice if your coach has already done it himself, or if you coach has coached others that have done it. Then you know that they can impart the nuances of the process of getting there...and often its those small details that the guys with the experience have that can elevate someone to the next level of success:-)

Paulo,

You obviously are incorrect in some areas, and others have already pointed that out.

You are also partially correct. But I'm not sure you are for the right reason (or at least I didn't read your wording carefully enough). Great athletes *generally* don't make great coaches because everything works for the genetically gifted. Thus, they *generally* mistakenly assume that the same protocols work for everyone. There are examples of this in all sports.

For that reason, I take the training advice of the champions with a grain of salt, and pay much closer attention to those who have broader experience and considered alternative viewpoints (and understand how one could defend those alternatives).

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Too f@ckin depressed from various injuries to care about having a signature line.

Sponsored by Blue Shield PPO.

What this thread needed was your asterisks, that made the discussion a lot more clear. Thank you for your *insight*.


Edit: ;-)

Aztec, you are wise (please attach to your signature henceforth).

I am now convinced however that we should not limit ourselves to examining only two types of coaches. Here, I think we should be inclusive of a third category of coaches...."those who read slowtwitch and profess knowledge of the sport and specifically knowledge of proper bike position."



P

"As a coach, it is very easy to spot these athletes/coaches because they say they are coaches, but talk like athletes."

"All the truly great coaches throughout the years were not and are not competitive athletes."

so, nut up and tell us, who are the bad and truly great coaches? otherwise, more spurious bs.

P-

While there are certainly many coaches who are/were athletes who trade on that personal knowledge base and success as the foundation of their coaching, and thus are not nearly as good at coaching as they were as athletes, it's not an absolute.

Likewise, not being a great athlete in X sport doesn't mean that one will be a good coach at it. (even tho they are not 'corrupted' by their own success and therefore trying to get everyone to do things like they did it, cuz it worked for me)

So, just curious - do we collectively think Gordo is a good coach? (OK, so he's never won Kona, but most would concur that he's a top tier Pro athlete) How about Mark Allen? Are they the exceptions that prove the rule, or are they the poster boys for what you are trying to say? My perception would be the former (at least for Gordo, I really don't know much about how/what Mark Allen does in terms of coaching, although I can certainly easily speculate based on his past writings). When Mark Allen Online boasts about having X # of athletes q for Kona, is that a reflection on his coaching, or that there are just a gazillion clients and by default a certain percentage qualified, or that athletes of a certain caliber and willingness to train via the more is MORE massive volume approach that MA is known for are drawn to him, and those folks tend to then perform well?

There are examples in all sports of everything from total couch potatoes who are among the best-ever coaches, to decent athletes who then become coaches , to a small handful of elites who also then became great coaches. I agree with you that the latter is a rarity, but it's not like it never happens.

Probably the best-known cases of "decent athlete, GREAT coach" are Pat Riley and Phil Jackson in the NBA. Both had serviceable pro careers, neither was a star athlete even on their own team, much less in the overall league, yet both have gone on to be at the top of the pro coaching pantheon. By definition, anybody good enuff to make it into the NBA as a pro is obviously a very talented athlete, so how does this tie in to your original assertion?

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float , hammer , and jog