Alex Blackett University of Lincoln ICCE, Durban, September 2013

FACULTY OF HEALTH, LIFE AND SOCIAL SCIENCESSCHOOL OF SPORT AND EXERCISE SCIENCE

Seeking conceptual clarity in the study of elite professional coaches and managers in rugby

union and association football

Alex BlackettUniversity of Lincoln

ICCE, Durban, September 2013

SCHOOL OF SPORT AND EXERCISE [email protected] +44 (0) 1522 837 061 @alex_blackett

IntroductionAt the start of the English 2013/14 season89/92 professional association football (soccer) and 22/24 professional rugby union teams’ head coaches possess tenure as a professional competitive player in their respective sports.

• Idiosyncratic learning pathway (Werthner & Trudel, 2009)

• Meilke (2007) 60% - EPL, MLB, NBA, NFL

• Apprenticeship (Cushion, Armour & Jones, 2003) • Stages of developmental sport experiences model (Erickson, Cote & Fraser-Thomas, 2007)


Research Questions1. What are the differences between a ‘coach’,

‘head coach’, ‘manager’ and ‘director’ in professional soccer and rugby union at the elite performance level? (Côté, Young, North & Duffy, 2007; Turner, Nelson & Potrac, 2012)

2. How is coaching knowledge acquired?

3. What forms of coaching knowledge are valued?


Literature’s samples - coach/agency centric

Recognition of the structural constraining/enabling influences surrounding coach’s development.

Cushion & Jones (2002, 2012)

Cushion et al (2003, 2010)

Light & Evans (2012)

Taylor & Garrett (2012)

Turner, Nelson & Potrac (2012)


Theoretical Sample - Employers1. Managing Director – Oliver

2. Head of Player & Coaching Development - Darrell

5. First Team Manager – Shaun

3. Director of Football Operations – Eric

4. Chief Executive - Samuel

6. Chief Executive & Performance Director – Kirk

7. Director of Rugby – Keith

8. Chief Executive - Tony

9. Director of Rugby – Ron


Results

Roles and responsibilities

Director of Rugby (DoR)/Manager – Head Coach

1. Philosophy2. On field results accountability

3. Recruitment of staff4. Team selection

5. Performance plan and review6. Budget expenditure

Coach

1. Athlete development

What is the difference between a ‘coach’, ‘head coach’, ‘manager’

and ‘director of rugby’?


Role dynamicsNo, no we are not going to take someone who just says we’ll hoof it up the pitch...

...we have got a playing style which we think is important for the club...

...so that’s how they are asked to coach...

Eric (Director of Football Operations, Championship)

...we have a playing philosophy...

football must be attractive because we are in the entertainment business...

so that’s what we would ask...

Shaun (Chief Exec, League One)

Club Board

Head Coach

Coaches

Players, Academy & Rest of

Club

Erm they’ve got to fit in with our culture, erm you know again it’s a small world we know who works hard and who is there just purely for the money and will work a little as possible. They’ve got to have that same yeah culture that we have.

Samuel (First Team Manager, Premiership Rugby Club)


Leadership

Figurehead

Have ‘the’ vision

Implement ‘the’ vision

Again it’s that leadership... leadership, it’s the ability to get the vision... It’s that ability to enrol people you know, to have a vision...

Oliver (MD Premier League Football Club)


Credibility/Respect

Experience

Knowledge

Results

Oh Christ yeah you have had to have played the game I would have thought. At what level?

I don’t think it’s about, I would think that you would have had to play first team rugby, erm you would have had to have played first team rugby in the national divisions, I think.

Ron (Director of Rugby Nation League)

They [qualifications] don’t really stack up a lot of the time. There are a lot of guys who have got level three or four coaching certificates that can’t coach you know. I’ve employed a bloke who’s done RFU coaching assessor, top of the food chain with all of the qualifications, even got a Welsh RFU senior coaches badge and I put him in front of our forwards […] and had to give him the bullet after two months.[...] He just couldn’t cope with it and the lads saw through him straight away. (Ron)


Theoretical Discussion (Bourdieu, 1977)

• Coaches = arbiters of taste when identifying playing talent (Christensen, 2009)

• Arbiters of taste = the club hierarchy – Board members act as ‘cultural custodians’ of club values when

making managerial appointments with the candidate being required to embody the club values = Hexis

– Managerial and coach appointments largely remain within the field and in-house which perpetuates a fast-tracking culture of appointing elite athletes to elite coaching positions

= Doxa → Symbolic Violence (ethnic minorities & women?)(the norm) → (discriminates)


Theoretical Discussion (Bourdieu, 1977)

• Why are elite athletes considered pertinent candidates for direct entry into elite managerial/coaching positions?

– Cultural capital developed through playing career = credibility & informal and non-formal coaching knowledge acquired

– Symbolic capital earned from playing and coaching tenure = respect

– Tacit and implicit knowledge gained over a competitive playing career comprises towards a coach’s disposition = habitus

Informal and non-formal forms of knowledge valued over formal.


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Coaching Tenure (weeks/months?)0 6 1812

Figure 1. Head coaches’ capital gain/loss during coaching tenure

1. Coaches’ level of symbolic and cultural capital initially high when first appointed

12

2. Increase in symbolic and cultural capital during practice equates to extended tenure of post

3

3. Decrease in capital results in dismissal


Selected ReferencesBourdieu, P. (1977) Outline of a Theory of Practice. Cambridge

University Press: Cambridge.Becker, A.J. (2009) It’s not what they do, it’s how they do it: athlete experiences of great

coaching. International Journal of Sports Sciences, 4(1), 93-119.Côté, J., Young, B.W., Duffy, P. and North, J. (2007) Towards a definition of excellence

in sport coaching. International Journal of Coaching Science, 1, 3-17. Christensen, M.K. (2009) “An eye for talent”: talent identification and “practical sense” of

top-level soccer coaches. Sociology of Sport Journal, 26, 365-382.Potrac, P., Jones, R., Armour, K. (2009) ‘It’s all about getting respect’: the coaching

behaviours of an expert English soccer coach. Sport, Education & Society, 7(2), 183-202.

Mielke, D. (2009) Coaching experience, playing experience and coaching tenure. International Journal of Sports Science and Coaching, 2(2), 105-108.

Werthner, P., & Trudel, P. (2009) Investigating the idiosyncratic paths of elite Canadian coaches. International Journal of Sports Science and Coaching, 4(3), 433-449.


Thank you for listening.


Grounded Theory

Theoretical Sensitivity Data

Theoretical Sampling

Iterative ProcessCodes,

Memos & Concepts

Constant Comparison

LiteratureTheoretical Saturation

Fit, Work, Relevance & Modifiability

Substantive Theory

Figure 2. The grounded theory process (Weed, 2009).

Documents

Alex Blackett University of Lincoln ICCE, Durban, September 2013