The fine art of coaching: instructions, social support or democratic participation?

Abstract

Although coaches are of extreme importance for how the many visions associatedwith sports are fulfilled, we know little about who coaches are and how they practise coaching. This paper responds to this challenge by answering two sets of questions empirically. First: Who are the coaches? Which athletes have which coaches? Second: How do coaches coach? How do we explain differences in coaching practices? Theoretically, the paper is based on a framework where the roles a coach might inhibit are inferred from the many visions and expectations surrounding modern sports. The results show, first, a heavily and doubly gendered distribution of coaches. Second, they indicate that relatively instructive and social coaching practices are common, but that they vary considerably by gender, age and competitive level. The paper is based on a random sample of members in Norwegian Sport Clubs.