Mental Health

What Is coaching?

Updated: 2022-06-30
 Original: 2021-02-01
What Is coaching?
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What is coaching?

Jeff Huber in his book “Applying Educational Psychology in Coaching Athletes” starts out answering this question by looking at what a coach is not.

It is not about transmitting knowledge to an athlete.

Yes, you as the coach will share information, but a better approach would be to facilitate learning. Teaching and learning are not the same thing. You can give a lecture on how to run a zone trap, but have the players learned? People learn when they are able to find meaning in the new information and often that means connecting it to something they already know.

Having played the sport means you have all the knowledge necessary to coach it.

Sports have a history of great players not being great coaches (and players who were not very great being great coaches). Expert teachers are noted for having three key qualities that translate to coaching: knowledge, efficiency in problem solving, and insight into solving educational problems. 


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