Wearing a “Self-Compassion Suit” May Offer a Performance Edge: A Qualitative Study of Serial-Winning High-Performance Coaches

This chapter discusses the stress process as applied to coaches and reviews the literature that has attempted to uncover the complexity of the stress process in coaching at all levels, from teacher-coaches at high-school and collegiate level, through to international Olympic coaches. It explores practical implications for coaches and sport psychologists attempting to manage coaches' stress experiences. The ability to cope with stressors is clearly an important factor in determining whether or not sport will be a satisfying experience for the performer. In assessing coaches' coping strategies and styles, qualitative methods have provided an in-depth look at coaches' attempts to manage their stress experiences. While athletes might use different strategies to cope with organisational and performance-related stressors no such differences have been found with coaches. Coaches, sport psychology consultants (SPC) and sport organisations should also work hard to remove some of the barriers that appear to prevent coaches from accessing psychological support.

This paper reports and discusses the findings of a research project that investigated the recently conceptualized and implemented New Zealand Cricket, Level 3, high-performance coach education programme (CEP). A qualitative methodology was employed to gather data from six coaches involved in the CEP. In particular the researchers sought the perceptions of the six participating coaches around the additional educational perspectives that had been included into the CEP. Thematic analysis revealed that the participant coaches saw a need to increase their coaching knowledge base and the benefits in moving beyond the traditional coach education models that privilege technical skill development. Knowledge around educational learning theory, the concept of athlete empowerment and reflective practice as a means of informing an ever-evolving coaching philosophy were also deemed beneficial to participant coaches. Although the participant coaches could see value in such areas, there appeared to be some misunderstanding and confusion around the application of these concepts. Implications from this study suggest that this CEP may be enhanced through the inclusion of critically reflective practice and its associated philosophies and pedagogical approaches.

The Malaysian Sports School (MSS) was founded to unite promising student-athletes from various regions of the country, aiming to cultivate and enhance their athletic abilities with aspirations of reaching the international stage. The Ministry of Education Malaysia (KPM) selects coaches with expertise in sports to offer structured guidance and training to chosen MSS student-athletes in order to achieve this goal. To guarantee that the performance of MSS student-athletes stays at its best, the dedication and efforts of KPM and MSS coaches in athlete development are consistently prioritized. Additionally, the enhancement of their professionalism and competence as high-performance coaches is highly demanded by KPM. Therefore, this study aims to explore the aspects and needs of elite MSS coaches in developing student-athletes to reach the highest levels in their respective sports. A qualitative method was used in this study through the Evolved Grounded Theory approach by Strauss and Corbin (1990, 1998, 2008) and The Coaching Model (Côté et al., 1995). The study involves ten selected elite coaches from five MSS. Data was collected through in-depth, semi-structured interviews with open-ended questions, observations, and document analysis. The study identifies two main themes discussing the aspects and needs of coaches in developing student-athletes at MSS, namely knowledge and management. The final findings of this study aim to offer valuable insights to the ministry, school administrators, and coaches, enhancing the development of coaches and student-athletes at MSS and enriching the existing literature in the domain of sports coaching.

This article draws on the theoretical concepts of Pierre Bourdieu to provide a critical analysis of the social construction of disability in high-performance sport coaching. Data were generated using a qualitative cross-case comparative methodology, comprising 18 months of ethnographic fieldwork in high-performance disability sport, and interviews with coaches and athletes from a cross-section of Paralympic sports. We discuss how in both cases ‘disability’ was assimilated into the ‘performance logic’ of the sporting field as a means of maximising symbolic capital. Furthermore, coaches were socialised into a prevailing legitimate culture in elite disability sport that was reflective of ableist, performance-focused and normative ideologies about disability. In this article we unpack the assumptions that underpin coaching in disability sport, and by extension use sport as a lens to problematise the construction of disability in specific social formations across coaching cultures. In so doing, we raise critical questions about the interrelation of disability and sport.

The ideas which I would like to discuss here represent neither a theory nor a methodology. I would like to say, first of all, what has been the goal of my work during the last twenty years. It has not been to analyze the phenomena of power, nor to elaborate the foundations of such an analysis. My objective, instead, has been to create a history of the different modes by which, in our culture, human beings are made subjects. My work has dealt with three modes of objectification which transform human beings into subjects. The first is the modes of inquiry which try to give themselves the status of sciences; for example, the objectivizing of the speaking subject in grammaire generale, philology, and linguistics. Or again, in this first mode, the objectivizing of the productive subject, the subject who labors, in the analysis of wealth and of economics. Or, a third example, the objectivizing of the sheer fact of being alive in natural history or biology. In the second part of my work, I have studied the objectivizing of the subject in what I shall call "dividing practices." The subject is either