The Role of Coaches in the Changing Landscape of Sports
The recent past has seen a lot of changes in sports and this includes the coaching profession. In the world of sports today, the participants are expected to deal with many and complex issues both inside and outside the field. Sportsmen are currently more fitting to fight for what they believe they deserve than what was the case in past. This current situation complicates the role of a coach more than ever before. Coaches now have more responsibilities before them including teaching athletes strategies, skills, and discipline while at the same time assisting the athletes to succeed by guiding them, respecting them, encouraging them, and inspiring them (Lynch, 2013).
The Book "Creative Coaching" by Jerry Lynch
Creative Coaching written by Jerry Lynch is a strategic book that is aimed at addressing some of the challenges that current coaches are now facing while dealing with athletes with the intention of maximizing their performance in sports. The book shares some of the most innovative coaching approaches whose payoffs have been proven in the field and is written by one of the top coaching consultants in the country.
A Collective and Reciprocal Coaching Approach
The coaching approach shared in the book by Jerry Lynch is considered as being a collective approach but still unique because it teaches coaches how to guide, teach and motivate in a relationship that is reciprocal with athletes. According to Lynch, authority and respect are only earned through effective communication and a clear vision and not through disciplinary measures or a title. This way, athletes will work to put maximum efforts towards their sporting goals while at the same time developing their personal decision-making skills, with all these having a direct payoff in relation to performance.
The Credibility of Jerry Lynch
Lynch academic qualifications and sporting experience make his work credible. He is a Ph.D. holder in sports psychologists and serves as an athletic development specialist, with decades of sporting experience at the high school level, college, and pro level. In his book, he focuses more on the role of coaches in helping athletes to achieve their greatest possible potential.
The Approach of Creative Coaching
According to Lynch, this can be achieved through the thoughtful team environment creation where athletes will be empowered to achieve their best rather than changed to achieve. The job of a coach is beyond the normal responsibilities of controlling and commanding athletes to active engagement and elevating individual athletes above and beyond their personality as athletes (Lynch, 2001).
The Philosophy of Successful Coaching
Dr. Lynch has laid his ideas chapter by chapter in a manner that is compassionate but tough and to the surprise of many, practical and efficient when it comes to implementing them. Most importantly to the coaches and athletes, throughout the book, he justifies his position that creative coaching wins (Lynch, 2001). To get his ideas to the readers, he starts by grounding the book in the reality of the needs and expectations of the modern athlete. How Lynch defines successful coaching stands out in the book. According to him a coach who is successful is one who connects with his athletes not to make them feel good but gain confidence to take on risks which are high-level performance prerequisite (Lynch, 2001).
Practical Lessons on Becoming a Creative Coach
Dr. Lynch is his writing, manages to actualize his philosophy about a coaching in a number of practical lessons on how to become a creative coach. In each chapter in the book, he offers examples in real life of athletes and coaches in action in an effort to illustrate the creative coaching principle power. The book contains three main facets associated with successful coaching and they include;
Part I: Assessing Leadership Style
The section provides the readers with assessment tools that can assist them in identifying their leadership style and understand better the athletes they handle.
Part II: Developing Effective Leadership
This section is intended to help coaches and interested readers to become leaders who are more effective and develop a training environment that is positive on the basis of what they know about their athletes and their own style of leadership.
Part III: Achieving Athletes' Potential
This part demonstrates to coaches how to have everything together to assist athletes to achieve their potential in competitions. Throughout these sections, Lynch challenges the readers with real-life scenarios in which they have to try in order to solve problems and share new proven-strategies to be effective with modern athletes. The approach that is shared in the book delivers results. There are many coaches who have employed the approaches shared in the book and have emerged very successful. On Dr. Lynch side, he has worked closely with about twenty teams and has helped them get to Final Four with twelve of these teams going ahead to win the national championship. He has also worked with individual clients who have managed to win a sum of fifteen national champions (Lynch, 2006).
Conclusion
This book "Creative Coaching" by Jerry Lynch offers more than how to win strategies. The inventive techniques that he shared apply to a wide range of coaching situations and have the potential to assist coaches and athletes experience all the passion and fun of sport while at the same time enable them to perform to their best.
References
Lynch, J., (2001). Creative Coaching. New York: Human Kinetics Publishers
Lynch, J., (2006). The Way of the Champion: Lessons from Sun Tzu's the Art of War and Other Tao Wisdom for Sports Life. New York: Tuttle Publishing
Lynch, J., (2013). Coaching with Heart: Taoist Wisdom to Inspire, Empower, and Lead in Sports " Life. New York: Tuttle Publishing
