This guide introduces and explains the basics of coaching, such as coaching philosophy, sport psychology, sport pedagogy, sport physiology, sport medicine, parent management, and sport law.
The modern day youth sports environment has taken the enjoyment out of athletics for our children. Currently, 70% of kids drop out of organized sports by the age of 13, which has given rise to a generation of overweight, unhealthy young adults. There is a solution. John O’Sullivan shares the secrets of the coaches and parents who have not only raised elite athletes, but have done so by creating an environment that promotes positive core values and teaches life lessons instead of focusing on wins and losses, scholarships, and professional aspirations. Changing the Game gives adults a new paradigm and a game plan for raising happy, high performing children, and provides a national call to action to return youth sports to our kids.
Why do sports captivate people? They allow us to watch human beings achieve peak performance, but, beyond physical strength and skill, what's really impressive is an athlete's mental prowess -- their will to succeed, engagement with their environment, and self-confidence. In Life as Sport, sport psychologist Dr. Jonathan Fader shares the skills that he teaches professional athletes--to enhance motivation, set productive goals, sharpen routines, manage stress, and clarify thought processes--and applies them to real-world situations. Dr. Fader's book is the product of thousands of hours of conversations with athletes from various teams and sports: power forwards, tennis phenoms, power-hitting outfielders, and battle-scarred linebackers, as well as hedge-fund managers, entrepreneurs, A-list actors, and dozens of other elite achievers in sports, business, and performing arts. It offers a compendium of stories, theories, and techniques that have been helpful to players, coaches, and executives in professional sports. What emerges is more than just a set of techniques, but a life philosophy that anyone can live by: an internal code to help translate our talent and drive toward the highest plateaus of performance. Dr. Fader designs his strategies to be studied, learned, practiced, and improved. He offers his readers the same exercises that he uses in every session with a professional athlete. These exercises help you to get truly engaged, whether you are designing a new business plan, working to inspire a team or individual, or even falling in love. This is what it means to truly live life as sport--to approach it with the same immediacy, wonder, and engagement that athletes feel at their peak during a game. Life as Sport helps you to pursue your own goals with an enriched intensity -- not only because it creates new potential, but also because it helps you unlock what was always there to begin with.
Connect, engage, motivate, and inspire using top coaching techniques Coaching Up! is about inspiring those who matter to you to achieve peak performance. Whether you are a coach, a business leader, a civic activist, a teacher, a counselor, or a parent, this book will offer you a powerful, highly effective way to connect to the people you care about and move them forward toward their best selves. In sports, coaches have developed ways of connecting with their players quickly in the "heat of the battle," inspiring them to perform to their fullest potential and "leave it all on the field." Interestingly, although these techniques have not been codified, great coaches have independently developed remarkably similar models. This book aligns these techniques and distills their essence into a fundamental skill set that anyone can use to connect with, support, and inspire his or her colleagues, teammates, friends, and family members. At its foundation, great coaching is based on a solid set of techniques that can be applied to all areas of life. Essentially, those skills boil down to forging authentic connections, providing genuine support, and offering concise direction. While our everyday pressures may be less intense than those of a championship, the long-term game is even more important. Why not borrow from the best to develop the skills and abilities to win every day? Inspire and motivate people to higher performance Improve communication in high-stakes situations Be more effective both professionally and socially Getting inside the way great coaching works gives you an unparalleled glimpse at the core of inspiration. A great coach can make the difference between a mediocre player and a world champion. What would that difference look like if you could inspire every colleague in your business? Everyone who matters to you in your personal life? You can be the source of empowerment and motivation that helps the people around you reach higher, go further, and achieve more. Coaching Up! gives you the game plan—and shows you how to run the plays.
Applying Educational Psychology in Coaching Athletes discusses how to improve coaching success and athletic performance through the application of teaching principles and theories. Delving deeper than an explanation of what athletes learn and what coaches teach, Applying Educational Psychology in Coaching Athletes offers insight into the how of athletes’ learning and coaching by considering • principles of psychology that drive the emotions, motivation, expectations, self-worth, and relationships of athletes; • application of principles of psychology to the motor learning process; and • use of principles of educational psychology to improve sport expertise and coaching success. A three-time U.S. Olympic coach and veteran collegiate coach, Huber infuses his own experience in applying theories of educational psychology in working with individual athletes, as well as world-class national and international teams. With an engaging presentation and strong practical applications, Huber assists coaching students and practicing coaches in utilizing educational psychology as a platform for improving coaching skills. Applying Educational Psychology in Coaching Athletes introduces the idea of the developing coach as both teacher and learner, and how coaching principles and a strong coaching philosophy provide a foundation for effective management and decision-making. By considering the theories that drive successful coaching, developing coaches gain focus, motivation, and guidance as they learn how a thoughtful coach provides the structure and discipline to make athletes more successful on the field of play. Throughout the text, Huber focuses on how athletes learn, considering theories of motivation, behaviorism, cognition, and humanism, and the interplay between emotions and motor learning and performance. Each chapter opens with a coaching related anecdote that readers can relate to in order to highlight the significance of the theory under consideration. After careful explanation of each theory, Huber details concrete examples, guidelines, and specific applications for coaching. In addition to summary information, each chapter concludes with ‘Your Coaching Toolbox,’ which focuses readers on ways to incorporate their newly gained knowledge into their interactions with athletes. Applying Educational Psychology in Coaching Athletes is unmatched in its depth of insight into the teaching and learning process in sport and how to put it into practice. By examining how athletes learn and coaches teach, the text helps coaches understand how to maximize athlete performance and increase their athletic success.
The pursuit of human performance goes beyond sport. Whilst we might most readily associate sport with the quest to perform at the highest levels of competition, this is not exclusive to sports teams and athletes. Striving for excellence and dedication to continual improvement are hallmarks of high performing organisations, teams, and individuals across all realms. Following this logic, forward thinking individuals have started to explore processes and principles from elite sport and coaching, with the aim of applying high performance practices within their own domain. Just as there are traits that unite high performers across sectors, there are common themes and challenges shared by all those who aspire to excellence in performance. With 'Prepared' we use the lens of elite sport to illuminate universal truths and illustrate the key lessons that we can apply to our chosen domain (including sport): - the critical ingredients for a performance environment, - the dynamics of performance management at the level of the organisation, team, and individual, - the essentials of navigating the complexity of coaching humans, - the key principles and critical lessons from the process of preparing athletes for the crucible of competition, - and finally, the meta-abilities that will allow us to sustain the highest levels of performance, manage ourselves, and navigate the challenges we will inevitably face along the way. This is a book for all those who have an interest or involvement in human performance in the widest sense. Whilst the content remains highly relevant to those in sport, within the text we explore the parallels to other domains, and thereby derive unique insights for leaders, teams, and professionals in all sectors. Throughout the journey the reader is prompted to reflect and connect the dots at the culmination of each chapter to help relate the information presented to their own context.
Great coaching is an art form. It involves so much more than mere knowledge of the sport and ability to deliver the message. Is that message being received? Are the athletes excited and engaged when participating? This title reveals to any prospective coach the keys to a high-quality way of coaching athletes of Kindergarten through High School.
A bold new theory of leadership drawn from elite captains throughout sports—named one of the best business books of the year by CNBC, The New York Times, Forbes, strategy+business, The Globe and Mail, and Sports Illustrated “The book taught me that there’s no cookie-cutter way to lead. Leading is not just what Hollywood tells you. It’s not the big pregame speech. It’s how you carry yourself every day, how you treat the people around you, who you are as a person.”—Mitchell Trubisky, quarterback, Chicago Bears Now featuring analysis of the five-time Super Bowl champion New England Patriots and their captain, Tom Brady The seventeen most dominant teams in sports history had one thing in common: Each employed the same type of captain—a singular leader with an unconventional set of skills and tendencies. Drawing on original interviews with athletes, general managers, coaches, and team-building experts, Sam Walker identifies the seven core qualities of the Captain Class—from extreme doggedness and emotional control to tactical aggression and the courage to stand apart. Told through riveting accounts of pressure-soaked moments in sports history, The Captain Class will challenge your assumptions of what inspired leadership looks like. Praise for The Captain Class “Wildly entertaining and thought-provoking . . . makes you reexamine long-held beliefs about leadership and the glue that binds winning teams together.”—Theo Epstein, president of baseball operations, Chicago Cubs “If you care about leadership, talent development, or the art of competition, you need to read this immediately.”—Daniel Coyle, author of The Culture Code “The insights in this book are tremendous.”—Bob Myers, general manager, Golden State Warriors “An awesome book . . . I find myself relating a lot to its portrayal of the out-of the-norm leader.”—Carli Lloyd, co-captain, U.S. Soccer Women’s National Team “A great read . . . Sam Walker used data and a systems approach to reach some original and unconventional conclusions about the kinds of leaders that foster enduring success. Most business and leadership books lapse into clichés. This one is fresh.”—Jeff Immelt, chairman and former CEO, General Electric “I can’t tell you how much I loved The Captain Class. It identifies something many people who’ve been around successful teams have felt but were never able to articulate. It has deeply affected my thoughts around how we build our culture.”—Derek Falvey, chief baseball officer, Minnesota Twins