Hey everyone.
I have just returned from 5 days at the IHF womens World Championships in Denmark where I was doing some commentary work with Eurosport. Whilst there I witnessed one brilliant example of coach education in practice. Its a little long-winded, but i'll try and give a descriptive account of what I saw and take it away from the Handball context and into a coaching one. I think it brings a lot of the work we have been doing into perspective - coaching effectiveness, coach education, coach-athlete relationship, coaching behaviours, etc.etc.
60 year old Yevgeni Trefilov, a highly successful Russian Handball coach who has won the World championships with Russia on four occasions, was considered the most agressive, obnoxious Handball coach on the planet, using bullying tactics & insults to scare his players into performing. He's been recorded giving death threats to his own players, and using physical violence as recently as 2012. (Check this out..
It was filmed back in 2012, the last time he coached the National team - if you speak Scandinavian then you'l unde
With coaching effectiveness one of the key themes on this course, I think im joined in concluding that you can count the holistic benefits of this old school extreme-autocratic coaching style on one hand at best. I've learnt that general, an effective coach creates a positive learning environment for players, makes all players feel important and valued, and motivates players through positive reinforcement. The lasting positive effects of creating this sort of environment are endless.
Well, a couple of years back someone in Russia agreed, and Trefilov was given an ultimatum - to change his behaviour or leave. At 60 years old with 4 world championship gold medals you'd forgive him for using one of his insults, before disappearing into the wilderness with his head held high.
This week Trefilov returned as the head coach of Russia after 2 years out of the game, and confessed to being a 'changed man' after going back to school and studying the art of coaching. In an interview, he said that whilst studying he learnt that his Handball knowledge and expertise in isolation, but without an ability to actually apply this expertise, was useless. We see it all the time across sport; e.g. how many times have we seen an ageing professional football player "fast-tracked" through their coaching badges, only to be out of their first management job 6 weeks later?
After failing to achieve any success since 2011, Russia currently find themselves top of their group at the 2015 World Championship Finals, and with their new look coach are now being tipped to go all the way. I hope they do.
I think this scenario makes me appreciate this course and the value of CPD even more so than before. I think its sometimes easy to forget about the holistic values of sport and focus on immediate result orientated success. Trefilovs Russia had achieved a lot of it, even if it came at an expense. For example, squad turnover and dropout ratio was sky high every major Championships - an educated guess puts that down to the unenjoyable, highly aggressive atmosphere in and around the squad.
I'll be using this example again in the future im sure!
