I just coach
Let's remove one word
“Do you still play?”
“No, I just coach”
‘Just’ coach
Over the past couple of years, I’ve become really conscious of how I talk about myself. I’ve noticed that I qualify how I speak about coaching when chatting to people.
It’s often when meeting people and they ask whether I play or coach. I’ve often sensed/perceived this disappointment when I say I don’t play rugby anymore.
However, this undermines my learnings and experiences as a coach. It also devalues how I currently perceive myself and what I do.
So it has to stop. And it is.
In order for it to stop, I have to think about why I’ve felt the unconcious need to say it.
In rugby (I can’t really speak for other sports), there’s a perception that playing at a high level makes you a better coach. This is often seen within international or club rugby.
In 2020, writing in the Telegraph, Russell Earnshaw commented on the ‘golden ticket’ it feels like ex-players get when they go through their coaching journey.
Coaching is a contact sport where we constantly bump into other humans. You might do all of this as an ex-international player. You definitely do not have to, though, and you certainly have not ‘earned the right’ any more than the many great coaches who have honed their craft in numerous environments and through a multitude of experiences. - Russell Earnshaw, The Telegraph, 2020
This is linked to biases that place technical and tactical skills above so-called ‘soft skills’ (forming relationships etc).
These biases are changing, but they still exist. However, I often think about whether the biases are truly changing or whether the people I’m engaging means I think the bias is changing quickly than it actually is.
This perception that a playing automatically makes you a better coach has definitely influenced how I viewed myself when I stopped playing and moved into coaching more regularly.
I feels like people viewed me with less credibility because I no longer play. When the interaction takes place and people ask if I play as well as coach, I often want to hastly add that a player does not necessarily make a good coach and that I love developing my coaching craft.
This bias around ex-players is also connected with gender bias and stereotypes around coaching styles. This is something I explored in a recent article.
The perception that leadership and coaching must follow masculine stereotypes is linked to view that ex-players make the better coaches.
It feels like the unwritten rule is: if ex-players have been coached using these stereotypically masculine methods, which are superior, then they are the best at replicating them.
As a female coach, it often feels that I have to be playing or have played at a high level to support my knowledge.
“Playing experience was cited as a leadership attribute associated with their female coaches—one that afforded women credibility because playing experience provided legitimacy and “backed up” their coaching qualifications. In the context of women’s college sport, standards of human capital play out as gendered due to the perceptions that female coaches need reinforcement to be considered competent coaches, and this “back up” reads as not just playing experience, but playing experience at an elite level” - Vicki D. Schull
Vicki D. Schull’s research (from which this quote is pulled) looks at the expectations of female college athletes in the USA.
She explores how gender plays a role in how coaches’ leadership styles and experiences are percieved by atheletes.
Although in the research, male coaches were more likely to be viewed through coaching experience rather than playing experience, I believe the bias around playing and technical/tactical knowledge still affects coaches that aren’t female as well.
For me, being aware of the biases at play within myself and others can help me remove the “just coach” statement.
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