DISCUSSION BOARD

My name is Christine Nash and I am based in St Leonard's Land at the University of Edinburgh. My sporting background is quite varied - I was an international hockey player, orienteer and athlete. I went to University in USA on a scholarship but got injured, hence my entry into coaching. I can explain later, if anyone wants to know how I ended up coaching swimming!! I coached swimming at an age-group club as well as a university in the US and returned to Scotland and coached the national team here. 

Since we are probably all watching some excellent World Cup Rugby at the moment, I thought I would relate a rugby story. While I was in US I was asked to coach the University Rugby Team (male) - the rationale - I was the only person that had ever seen a rugby match! Needless to say I declined.

As you might expect my ideal coach is female, Pat Summitt - I would be interested to know how many of you have heard of her. We will be looking at her story in some of the courses so I will not give too much away here. As a Chelsea fan, I am also a great admirer of Jose Mourinho - probably quite contentious as well. However, if you consider his long-term record with a number of clubs in a number of countries.......

I would like all of you to enjoy the course, engage fully with the discussions and ask as many questions as you can.

Hi everyone!

My name is Chris Duncan. I am based at Edinburgh Academy, where I work as Director of Hockey at the school and live nearby in Stockbridge. 

My sporting background concentrates heavily upon hockey. I am a senior international player for Scotland and have played at all age group levels whilst growing up. Coaching was something I got into when I first went to University. I took a part time job coaching and instantly fell in love with the fulfillment that seeing individuals develop provides. I am fortunate to be an assistant to Scotland's Under 16 National side, which is another extremely enjoyable experience. My ultimate goal when I have finished playing is to coach at international level and succeed.

I have 2 examples of what I would call the "ideal coach". Firstly, Herb Brooks, an ice hockey coach who masterminded "the miracle on ice" in the 1980 Olympic, which saw the USA emerge victorious over a dominant USSR team. Brooks had the nerve to do things differently and made changes to unite his teams, which others wouldn't. He set his teams up on three principles - speed, conditioning and discipline. 

Secondly - Pep Guardiola. His approach to the game is simple. The respect he commands from players because of his knowledge, research and understanding is incredible. His attention to small details and the manner in which his teams play is refreshing to watch.

My goal from this course is to analyse my coaching style, the way I plan and approach sessions and develop a method and model which allows me to develop players & teams in the manner that I think about inside my head! I am looking forward to assessing just how effective a coach I am and hopefully uncovering a number of weaknesses which I can address.

Hi

My name is Daniel Scott, I'm based in Perth. I'm a strength and conditioning coach, working mostly with rugby players but with some swimmers, hockey players and track and field athletes in the mix as well. My sporting background is nearly exclusively in rugby, I've been playing it competitively since I was 14/15. As a strength and conditioning coach rugby is a great sport to work in as the relevance is obvious to those involved and so buy in from players and coaches is a lot easier.

My (semi) interesting piece of information is last season I joined Heriots rugby club (current Scottish premiership champions) to see if I could cut it at a higher standard of rugby. In the second pre season match I got concussed. Physio wouldn't let me train until my symptoms had gone away which ended up taking 4 months. I ended up missing the season. So if I'm a bit slow I 'm blaming it on that.

My idea of an excellent coach is Gil Stevenson and Stuart Yule. They're both S&C coaches, Stuart is head of S&C at Glasgow Warriors, I got to intern there for a bit over a month. It gave me a chance to see the amount of hours he put in outside of the coaching hours. Seeing him actually coach was enlightening, he never said anything that he didn't need to. When something was relevant to the whole group he would bring everyone together and communicate it clearly and simply, letting the players get back to the session quickly. Gil has taught me nearly everything I know. One of the things that makes him such a good coach is how he educates his athletes about what he is doing with them. By teaching them why he is doing something and the relevance to their sport he improves the buy in from the athlete. The other thing I learned from him is the importance of your understanding of what you're doing with an athlete and how you communicate it, the cues you use make a big difference.

I hope to gain a deeper understanding of coaching and through that improve my coaching ability. I also hope to learn about the Uni environment for future courses.

Hello, I am Mark, I live in France and am a ballet teacher and work in the school of the Ballet du Nord in Roubaix. I danced professionally for 20 years with the Australian Ballet Company, Béjart Ballet Lausanne, Bayerisher Staatsballet, Munich and finish dancing with the Ballet de l'Opera National du Rhin in Mulhouse.

I have taught professional dancers to children of 7 years old, but prefer adolescents as I seem to be able to understand them easier, sadly I do not have enough patience with professionals even though they are more suited to my experience as a dancer. I have taught in different countries and cultures form Australia, France, Germany and China. Each culture had a different work ethic.

I have had some wonderful teachers who have inspired me to go forward, these were the people who pushed me to go further without damaging my self-esteem, they motivated their dancers they never critiqued they corrected and praised.

The world of dance and ballet which is the domain I am in is lagging behind sport when it comes to the coaching process, as teachers we often teach how we were taught. I was taught sometimes in a climate that did not promote a good motivational climate and sometimes when I teach especially when there are too many students in the class or when the class gets rowdy I fall back in the performance way of teaching.

I am looking forward to understanding how to motivate the students.

Hi my name is Grahame Cotterill I am a semi retired former teacher who now works as an Archery GB Coach Educator/Verifier. I also teach first aid in its various forms. I coach at Leeds University Archery Club. I am studying SPRT 10048 Managing the Coaching Process as a way of getting myself a bit more up to date with current thinking in coaching. I live in West Yorkshire. I have volunteered at Commonwealth Games - Manchester, Glasgow, Paralympics- London, Trnsplant Games - Sheffield, and European Archery Festival - Telford. I do not have a single coach to admire. I have met many coaches at club, region, national and international level from all over the world who do amazing things with athletes. Within archery I think highly of Helen George senior coach Archery GB who works with our para athletes.

Hey.

My name is Scott and im currently based out in the Faroe Islands, where my time is split working between their National Handball Federation and a professional club. 

I played a few sports as a child - though court sports were where I spent most of my time. I enjoyed Basketball, badminton, squash, and of course Handball. When London won the bid for the Olympic Games in 2012 I was identified as having Olympic Handball potential and shipped off to Denmark where I'd live and train to become an Olympian. After 4 years abroad I returned to receive treatment for an injury, at which time i started my formal education as a coach. I studied my undergraduate (coaching development) at Liverpool John Moores and im on course (fingers crossed) to complete my EHF Master-coach education by mid 2017, the highest standardised qualification for European Handball coaches.  

Im fortunate to have had some experience within the NGB sport having held a number of roles for the English and British Handball Governing Bodies, as National youth head coach (16, 18, 20yrs), as a coach educator, and more recently as the National Performance Manager responsible for all things 'talent' between the ages of 14 to 20. 

I left my performance post at England Handball Association recently to hop back on to the coaching ladder which fair to say I enjoy a lot more than sitting behind a desk whilst others do the fun stuff! 

My idea of an excellent coach is a constructivist who is able to nurture a growth mindset in young athletes. Anyone who takes time to develop creative thinkers with the freedom to express themselves (even if that sacrifices results) has my vote as an excellent coach. As a young athlete preparing for an Olympic Games I have been unfortunate enough to have been on the receiving end of the 'peak by Friday' coaching mentality and it wasn't pretty; dropout, stress, athlete hierarchy, injury - all things we dont want to see in youth sport.  

I can see that there are a lot of diverse sports on the course, and I look forward to drawing the experience of others to impact my own coaching. I look forward to being a fly on the wall in my own coaching and using the opportunity to develop my own coaching practice.