I was recently asked to talk to a group of students about high performance sport. We discussed all the “usual” topics: talent identification, sports science, elite coach development and sports medicine.
One of the students asked me, “Is there a difference between Medicine (as in general practice medicine) and Sports Medicine as it exists in high performance sport”? (more…)
Having visited more than 30 countries in four continents in the past few years and spent time with sports leaders, coaches, athletes, sponsors, sports scientists, sports academics, sports medicine practitioners, sports administrators, government funding agencies and other sports professionals in many of the world’s leading sports systems,five world wide trends in society
(and by extension in sport) have become very clear and are screaming so loud that they can no longer be ignored.
Ignore them at your peril. (more…)
Leadership in sport is something about which everyone has a view but few understand. As leadership in sport has evolved we have seen the philosophy of leadership shift from centralised (i.e. the head coach and captain) to decentralised (i.e. leadership teams, leadership groups etc). Where is leadership heading in sport? Answer…..There wont be any…that is, leadership will be driven by each individual in the team with each person taking full responsibility for their actions and inactions. This article discuss sports leadership and challenges coaches, players and sports administrators to look at their current model of leadership with the aim of changing it in the future.
Greatness is something that all high performance coaches crave. They pursue it with passion and strive to be considered one of the coaches who achieved success at the highest level of their sport. But what is greatness? Where can you find it? What does it look like? And can you measure it? This article discusses greatness in coaching and presents ten fundamental characteristics of greatness to help every coach realise their potential and fulfil their destiny.
I have been lucky to be involved in high performance sport for the best part of 20 years.
I have been very very fortunate to work with Olympic Gold Medalists, World Champions, World Record Holders, Premiership Title Winners, World Cup Winners…champion athletes, teams and coaches in many different sports and in several different countries.
Quite often, when I do professional speaking or training with corporate or sporting groups, someone in the audience will ask, “What do all the winners have in common” or “From your experience, what things do all the great athletes, teams and coaches do that makes them the best”.
There are indeed some things all the great ones have in common: The Top 20 Tips on Being the Best: 20 years of experience in 500 words! (more…)
In professional sports where teams are subject to a “draft” system, it is common to talk about a “window of opportunity”, i.e. a year or two when the team has the realistic opportunity to win the title owing to the talent, maturity and experience of their players. For many teams “outside the window”, coaches and management will often talk about the “rebuilding phase” – a period where the team is re-building their playing ranks with the aim of giving them the opportunity to win again sometime in the future. This article looks at the concept of “rebuilding” and challenges it as a valid philosophy in professional sport.