Coaches Corner

  In the Derek Evely 'Shovelling Shit' article from 2013, here , there is one bit that stood out for me and I keep referencing back to. Evely talked about the factors of a successful program and the sequencing of those factors. The factors are: Coaching Excellence Quality Sports Medicine Access to Warm Weather But he warned against putting the cart before the horse and building a centre without these factors already in place. "Do not kit out a Centre with support and medical staff and then try to figure out who your coaches are going to be.  All the bells, whistles and support staff expertise can really help but only if driven by a coach who knows what to do with the information harvested from such tools. Without this, it is all a waste of money…money that could be better used for a coach’s salary". Now most coaches in this country will have little or no access anyway to the bells and whistles of a formal support structure or centre, but they ...

There is a lot of chatter on social media at present regarding the great success we are seeing at underage level and how we can ensure these great young athletes and their coaches are navigated through the post-junior years. Three articles in the past week have touched on the point. Cathal Dennehy, writing in the Irish Examiner on Saturday, link here , said "At some point, though, the association needs to dig deep into its coffers and appoint a full-time director of coaching, and it has to be someone of international repute, one whose results speak louder than a powerpoint presentation that can easily fool a boardroom". Along similar lines, on his RTE Sport blog, link here, David Gillick said "I think Athletics Ireland have an opportunity now to look at that talent and think: how do we nurture that? Is it a case where someone comes in and tries to manage it to the next level? Perhaps, because we always have talented juniors but the key is what happens to them...

Some great insights from coach Roddy Gaynor. "one basic principle however when it comes to applying a coaching method to a specific athlete, just ask ‘does this make sense’?"   Q - What is your background - as an athlete, as a coach? My background in competing dates back to the 80’s. Overall, I won 7 national titles from Schools through to Senior level. Winning the senior outdoor 800M in 1982 was something of a breakthrough and I went on to gain a number of senior international Irish vests. My best over the 800 was 1.48. I was a graduate of the US collegiate system and made All-American on three occasions at NCAA Div 2 level. The US experience was very much an eye opener as a young aspiring athlete. Having not been beaten as an Irish secondary school student for two years, to being completely off the mark against senior collegiate athletes was somewhat devastating.   I was released from scholarship at the University of Arkansas after one year and I was very fortun...

There was a good night for Irish 4 x 400 relay running on Wednesday night when both u20 teams qualified for this summer's European u20 Championship in Italy. The women's team qualified and broke the Irish record. That was achieved without the #1 and #2 ranked athletes (at the time) who were unavailable. The quartet of Ciara Deely, Ellie O'Toole, Nicole King and Davicia Patterson guided by their team coach, David McCarthy, acquitted themselves very well. Nicole King in particular ran a 55.28 split (using Dartfish), excellent considering her PB is 56.47. Two key components to a strong relay programme are strength in depth and athletes who always seem to run well when given a baton. The last Irish relay team to qualify for an Olympics (and only the 4th ever) was the women's 4 x 400 team in London 2012 and they had depth and excellent relay runners. Granted they had a 'once in a generation' in Joanne Cuddihy to spearhead it all but it was a great team. The Clas...

What a phenomenal day of athletics in Tullamore yesterday at the Irish Schools. It seems to be a regular occurrence in recent years. It is evidence the athlete talent is there. It is evidence the coaching talent is there. But the amazing talent who have competed in their last schools competition will now enter the most critical phase of their careers that will define whether their dreams are realised or not. Our official coaching framework is letting these athletes down in that key phase of their career. It is letting the coaches, who have developed them, down. The most critical years for our athletes are their collegiate years. This is where the wheels will usually come off if they are going to come off. A whole new world. Away from home in many cases. New temptations, new pressures. Their normal support circle has disappeared. A huge void can appear. Of course there will be athletes who will thrive despite this neglect and you could argue that it's that resilience that make...

I recently met Paddy Fay for a catch up. We met in Raheny GAA Club bar and the breadth of his sporting background was on show. All the GAA lads seemed to know Paddy and he explained that he used to be the Director of Underage Football in the club. It was something I never knew about Paddy. His athletics coaching career included the athletics team in Lusk National School, where he was a teacher, and their success was exceptional particularly at sprints and relays. But primary school athletics was far from the pinnacle of his coaching career and when he finally retired he had amassed 59 National Senior medals, including 22 golds, 20 Irish Internationals and 4 Olympians. It was Paddy’s move into relays in the mid 90 that defined his legacy.  He recalled being handed the reigns of the National Sprint and Relay programme in late 1995, more of a toss and ‘there you go’ than a handoff. Morale was at an all-time low with the relays. Paddy wrote to all national sprint squ...

Picture at last weekend's Ton Le Gaoithe Wind Sprint Meet (Brian Corcoran, Paul McKee, Paddy Fay, Shane McCormack) According to Wikipedia, the Dunning-Kruger effect is a cognitive bias in which low ability individuals suffer from illusory superiority, mistakenly assessing their ability as much higher than it really is. The graph below was presented by Athletigen, a sports genetics and performance company, to represent the Coach's brain. The profile of a large percentage of our elite (sprints) coaches in Ireland is very young, i.e. coaching only 5-10 years. All probably early in their coaching careers, all enjoying relative success and all thinking they are somewhat the bees knees. Confidence is high. As we progress and go through generations of athletes, achieve more success but also failure and generally become more experienced, per the Dunning-Kruger effect we will likely hit a crisis of confidence.  It's at this stage in our coaching lifecycle when...