Coaches Corner

There is a parable (urban legend?) about rocks, pebbles and sand. I'm sure the one I heard also included water at the end, but I can't find a reference to that at the moment. The story is that, you fill the bottle with rocks, and it seems full. But then you can add a heap of pebbles, full again. But you can still add sand to fill the jar. And then you can add water to fill it up. The essential points are what might seem full is not necessarily the order you do things is important I do a lot of work in coach development at the moment, which I love. The thing I love most about coaching is the idea of how to coach better. How to be better at changing the behaviour of the children (or adults) in front of you. When working with beginner and intermediate coaches I often get disappointed that they don't seem as interested as I am with how to coach. What they want is technical knowledge. Which got me thinking..... Rocks Rocks are technical knowledge. What are the skills of the spor

I met Keith at a coaching conference in Melbourne in the mid 90s. I don’t remember the content of the presentation but I remember I loved it. Afterwards, I thought, ‘I have to meet this guy.’ So, I went to the front and waited ‘in line’ to introduce myself. I NEVER do this. I’d never done it before and I’ve never done it since. There was just something about him that I felt like I understood. This was the start of a connection. More than half my life ago. The next time we met was when he invited me to visit UWIC in about 1998. I had built a performance analysis system and he seemed interested, which was incredibly flattering to me. He had a way of having you feel important. While in Cardiff I showed him and his staff the system I was building and they were all very supportive. It made me think that I wasn’t alone in thinking about things the way I did. Fast forward to AIS. I asked him to be a referee for me when they started the Performance Analysis Unit. He told me he was applying so