Coaching

Coaching in the club has been discussed, so I am told, at several recent committee meetings. Appropriately enough since the situation has been allowed to deteriorate over the past few years. The clubmark accreditation was basically a tick box exercise that indicated to the athletics world what clubs had to offer. It was decided by the committee at the time that we did not meet enough of the criteria to apply for the accreditation. That being the case, it might have been right that the committee looked at the gaps and asked how we could fill them. Another gap was the lack of qualified officials in the club - at the time there were only two graded officials (myself and Raymond Farrell) and, as a club that organises several road races a year, we should probably have tackled that issue as well and developed oyur own graded time keepers for road races. Clubmark should have been used as a diagnostic tool to help improve the club. But that's all water under the bridge and we should now look at how the coaching should develop. There are two aspects - first, what do we do this summer? Second what is the longer term plan for 2013 and beyond?
For this year, the main man for the bulk of the Seniors is John Hanratty and he is organised and is the man for the job. For younger athletes and for field events, the man in charge is Phil Dolan - who really has too much on his plate right now. Who do we have that has any qualification or who has enough experience to help him with the work this summer? For field events, Donna Campbell is a qualified PE teacher, has done the coaching assistant course, has attended a coaching workshop for long jump and used to be a good sprinter/long jumper in her own right. She will have to be used as much as possible to develop the event within the club. Fiona McCue is a good high jumper who could win points in the CSSL should she choose to do so, but Phil has already asked her if she would do some high jump coaching in 2012 and she has agreed to do so. Availability and disclosure checking are the key isues here and need to be addressed. Paul Ross and Joe Higgins have been working with the younger athletes all last summer and are available Tuesdays and possibly Thursdays all summer. They were going to go on a coaching course last summer but Joe was in and out of hospital a lot over the past nine months and the plan was postponed. They need to do the course and they also need the SCRO checks done but they are available and Joe has been asked by Phil to do some throws coaching: that is a real possibility and maybe Bobby Bell should be asked to help Joe himself with the basics BUT ... don't forget Colin Gray. Colin was a good thrower with Vale of Leven AAC and competed for our senior men's team in the League for a couple of seasons. We should probably ask him to come along in the same capacity as Fiona at least.
That gives us a basic framework of Phil and John working with the endurance runners, Fiona and Donna looking after the jumps and Joe and/or Colin + some imput from Bobby on the throws, with Paul looking after the sprinters. If Paul is doing that, then the club could do worse than approach his brother David to come along. David was an excellent sprinter for Victoria Park and Clydesdale and a flying winger for West of Scotland RFC. That would be a catch.

If we have the personnel, the how do we increase their knowledge and the coaching advice to club members? Well, coaching courses need to be covered but there are also several workshops for the various events at Scotstoun and Linwood where athletes are welcome as are their coaches or seniors fom their clubs who can add to their own store of knowledge. They are usually free of charge and local. So if there's a javelin course at Scotstoun, two or three young club members plus Colin or Joe could go along, or a high or long jump sessions, maybe particluar athletes could go along with Donna or Fiona. No exams and the young'uns get a day of good quality coaching and the coaches learn something as well.

For next year, we build on that. There are issues that I have not addressed - the roles of Donald Macleod and I in the system under Phil, etc. In 1961 when we had a similar issue, the committee called a special general meeting and most of the club went along and at the end we had five seniors going on a coaching course and half a dozen athletes going on a training course. We should maybe either do the same, or set up a coaching committee on which all sectors of the club are involved leading in to a much better and settled system for 2013, 2014, etc.