The Athlete-Coach Relationship

Behind every successful athlete is a successful coach, or more importantly a successful athlete-coach relationship. Simply pairing the “best” athlete with the “best” coach does not always result in a winning combination. The question I’ll attempt to answer in this week’s article is what are the characteristics of a successful athlete-coach relationship?

 

All mature athletes can look back over their career and highlight the coaches that they felt they had good or bad relationships, and more often than not the positive results, or success, were achieved with the coaches that good relationships were formed. Of course success and failure needs to be defined, and this is most crucial step of forming a positive relationship with your coach.

 

At the initial stage of every athlete-coach relationship goals/objectives need to be defined, these goals also need to have a time-frame attached to them. Once the goals are set action plans need to be determined. It is very important that the athlete and coach are actively involved in both processes.

 

At this stage of the relationship both the coach and athlete need to be honest with themselves and each other to maximize each others strengths (expertise). The athlete is relying on the coach’s expertise in designing training plans, and coach is relying on the athlete’s ability to be self-assess their own characteristics/personality. If this stage of the relationship is flawed it will fail.

 

The initial goal setting and action plans are subject to change as the season progresses, however, each change needs to be carefully reviewed by both parties. When the original goals are being met trust in the relationship starts to form, therefore, it is important that the goal setting is REALISTIC and OBTAINABLE. Using sub-goals is a great way to obtain early trust as “mini” objectives are achieved.

 

The early stages of the relationship, if it is built on honestly and trust, will form a very solid foundation. As the relationship grows and develops open lines of communication need to be made available, this further enhances trust and respect. Most relationships fail because the athlete and coach do not dedicate time to building them.

 

Craig Dalrymple owns/operates PURSUIT Training & Rehabilitation. Visit www.PursuitTraining.com or call 604-574-2895 for more information on his sport conditioning and soccer training programs.

Craig Dalrymple

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