Coaching in the Club, Part Two

If you haven't already done so, have a look at the last post first. It has always been the same in my time in the club - where do we get the coaches? At the end of the 50's concern was expressed at Committee Meetings about lack of coaching for all events, especially field events, so the Committee called a special general meeting to discuss the topic. There was a good turn out in the meeting in Hunter and Currie's Halls in Whitecrook Street and the Secretary had collected as much as he could from the SAAA/SWAAA on the various courses, etc. The result was seven club members (all practising athletes at the time) volunteered to go on the first coaching course which was at Jordanhill, another group agreed to go to some regional development days and bring back what they could and a group went on a training weekend at the club's expense. That worked well enough and the coaches were all existing club senior members, men and women. In the 1960's when we lost so many women and girls of a very high standard to the short lived club of champions Western Ladies AC, the coaches were initially me and Ian Cameron (both racing members at the time) and we recruited two former athletes and four parents to do the coaching.
So what's the point then? The point is that we have two good coaches at present in Phil and Donald. First, they cannot cover all events; second, they cannot cope with all age grouos in the one group or with their own one pair of hands.
The two sources of supply are current athletes, former athletes and parents. Teachers used to be a good source but that dried up after the teachers strikes in the early 90's.
If it is agreed that the two coaches need help, where and how is the issue to be addressed? It is down to the club - either the Committee should as part of a wider club development plan take note of the situation and decide on what action to take and how to tackle the problem or the athletes/parents/existing coaches should make sure that the appropriate coaches are in place for the summer season. The coaches could well come from among the parents themselves - when West Dunbarton AAC started up, many of the coaches were parents who had no background at all in the sport.
Of course if you are going to ask senior athletes or coaches to commit one night a week or even two sessions a week, then there has to be a support structure in place for them. You cannot do what they did to Ian Leggett in Livingston - he did the Level One course on tha Sunday and was given 30+ athletes to himself on a Tuesday! He chucked the coaching on the spot. And quite right. If there is any interest in this, then I will suggest what kind of support new coaches could get next week!