Observation of a Track and Field Coach Essay -- Papers

Observation of a Track and Field Coach I chose to observe the practices at State College for Track and Field. I primarily focused on the distance team with John as the coach. When I arrived at the first practice I observed Coach John talking to the team at the beginning of their practice. He was going over what they should focus on during their first track meet, which was coming up. His positive attitude stood out the most. He put his emphasize on having fun. He stressed the importance that they work as hard as they can to achieve their best performance but his final words were, "Have fun!" I started to realize what he stressed most for his team and that was to achieve the goals they set for themselves. For both practices I attended the athletes started out with a warm-up run. They then met as a group and had the team captain lead in their stretches. I noticed strong team cohesion as they stretched talking about their activities from the previous weekend and the work out that they were going to have. After the stretching Coach gathered them together to explain the workout (both days a speed workout). As he explained he made sure each of the team members understood the exact instructions for the speed drills. One of the athletes had a question and he patiently answered it and encouraged more questions to make sure the team knew the exact workout. He had the lone male distance runner do 2 sets of 4x200 meter sprints on the track. He had the women's distance team go out to the pond's to run a 20-minute fartlek in which they ran a minute hard and a minute easy. I observed the male distance runner and when he finished his second set of 200's, Coach suggested he run one more set of 200's. Chris was tired and was he... ...en a coach and a friend and he recognizes that there needs to be a level of respect from the athletes. Reflecting on my interview with Coach comparing and contrasting his stated philosophy on coaching and what I have observed from practices and meets I saw that his goals as a coach are being met at practices and his interactions with his team. He knows what he wants to get out of his coaching experience and he achieves that by working hard at demanding respect and hard work from his team while still ensuring that they have fun. From what I have observed from Coach it seems as if he has taken this class. He knows so much about performance strategies as well as athlete motivation techniques and coach and athlete issues such as respect, safety, and personal relationships. Overall I was very impressed with Coachs coaching strategy, and his team performance.