Traditionally male-dominated contact sport environments such as the football codes are seen as primary propagators of attitudes and values associated with “orthodox” masculinity. Administrators, spectators, media commentators and parents contribute to the promotion of traditional Australian cultural ideals of masculinity such as physical toughness, aggression, competitiveness, stoicism and emotional reticence as desirable masculine traits. Male coaches, too, are seen as significant institutional agents in this indoctrination process. An Interpretative Phenomenological Analysis of five regionally based volunteer rugby union coaches’ lived experiences, coaching practices and the beliefs underpinning them was undertaken. While these coaches were brought up in heavily masculine environments where sport was an avenue to demonstrate and assert themselves as males along orthodox lines, these same formative environments taught them to accept and care for others. Contrary to the traditional image of regional male coaches operating in a hypermasculine contact sport environment, these coaches demonstrated tendencies reflecting alternative versions of masculinity, expressing a preference for humanistic pedagogical practices centred on caring, empathy, compassion and communication. With scarce research into regional sports coaches’ beliefs and coaching practices, these findings fill a gap in the literature and provide sporting organisations and coach educators with insights into their volunteer coaching workforce.

This study aimed to assess the impact of a psychosocial development program on academy soccer players with coaches being central design and delivery. The 8 Pillars program (designed to foster Communication, Control, Commitment, Confidence, Concentration, Resilience, Presence, and Self-awareness) was delivered through player workshops, coaching practice, and coach-led environmental manipulation. A total of 25 academy soccer players (Mage 14.7 ± 0.3) completed the Psychological Characteristics of Development Excellence Questionnaire-2 pre- and postseason, and a self-report scale for each of the eight prescribed psychosocial skills and characteristics at five time points across the season. Significant (p < .05) improvement between pre- and postseason for “Imagery and Active Preparation,” “Seeking and Using Social Support,” and “Active Coping” factors within the Psychological Characteristics of Development Excellence Questionnaire-2 were evident. Significant (p < .05) improvements were shown for “Communication,” “Control,” “Commitment,” “Concentration,” and “Resilience” scales across the season. These findings give initial efficacy that a targeted, multifaceted program, largely delivered by coaches, can improve player self-reported psychosocial skills and characteristics in a U.K. academy soccer setting.

Mindfulness and self-compassion are two constructs positively related to well-being and mental health outside sport. Within sport, these constructs are emerging in research, yet the extant work has primarily been conducted with athlete samples. The aim of this scoping review was to provide a broad synthesis of the literature on mindfulness and self-compassion among coaches. Fourteen articles were included, 11 of them published 2019–2022. Of the 14 publications, the concepts studied were mindfulness (n = 10), self-compassion (n = 2), and a combination of both (n = 2). The samples were predominantly male coaches (68.7%), and most of the studies targeted coaches at the elite or competitive level. The most common area studied was developing and testing interventions and programs, followed by depicting relationships of mindfulness or self-compassion with desirable outcomes. This review significantly extends the current knowledge by illuminating critical issues in this rapidly moving area of research; the need for conceptual and contextual clarity of mindfulness and self-compassion; methodological considerations, such as measures that may allow reliable comparison across studies; and the need to further explore the potential benefits of mindfulness and self-compassion for coaches for sustainability and performance.

The purpose of this study was to explore leaders’ development of trauma-sensitive approaches in their sport coaching practices through exploring the learning experiences of leaders of a national community youth-serving organisation who participated in an initial training workshop. The value-creation framework was used to explore learning experiences based on the interactions and values leaders discussed. Two training workshops were held with two different cohorts of leaders. The researcher observed these workshops, and the leaders were interviewed about their preferences for training and development, and their experiences of learning in the workshops. The interview data were analysed collectively using a deductive–inductive thematic analysis. Data were also collected on leaders’ satisfaction with training, knowledge perceptions, content knowledge, and attitudes toward trauma-sensitive practice. These data were analysed using descriptive statistics and Wilcoxon signed-ranks tests. Collectively, the results showed that the leaders (a) improved their relevant knowledge from pre- to postparticipation; (b) valued having a variety of learning opportunities; (c) wanted to learn how to support their youth’s needs better within and beyond sport; and (d) intended to promote more responsive, trauma-sensitive programme practices. Implications were discussed for the improvement of training opportunities to meet learners’ needs.

Many coaches have reported not feeling well equipped to support and discuss mental health issues with their athletes. The purpose of this study was to understand elite ice hockey coaches’ perceptions of their role in supporting athlete mental health, along with their experiences in taking part in a mental health and suicide awareness program. Five coaches of elite 16- to 20-year-old ice hockey players who had taken part in a mental health and suicide awareness program for at least one season each participated in an individual, semistructured, open-ended interview. Data were analyzed using a reflexive thematic analysis. Results revealed that coaches perceived their role to entail integrating mental health considerations into their daily coaching practices, paying attention to signs of player distress, assessing risk in various situations, and referring players to health professionals when necessary. Overall, our findings offered insight into coaches’ perceived role in providing mental health support to athletes, as well as helping to identify strengths and areas to improve the mental health and suicide awareness program. Consequently, coaches are primed to be key players in helping to create a sport climate in which well-being is prioritized and is perceived as a catalyst to performance.

Intensified international competition for sporting success has facilitated coaches’ cross-national migration, which constitutes a space for coaches’ career transitions and development. This paper examines elite coaches’ international migration as part of coaching career transitions within the context of the global sporting arms race. Using a qualitative case study design, data were generated from documents and semistructured interviews with six South Korean coaches who had moved to Western nations to coach national teams in two Olympic sports. The analysis reveals an underlying mechanism of the coaches’ international mobility: dual imbalances existing between the sending and receiving countries—one in the levels of sporting performance; and the other in the perceived levels of modernisation in coaching cultures and sports systems. The migration opportunities were created by the performance imbalance between the home nation and destinations amid the structural context of the global sporting arms race. However, equally important is the individuals’ strategic initiative to seize the opportunities for their career development and mitigate the perceived modernisation imbalance in coaching practices. By highlighting coaches’ agentic capacity to navigate their career pathways within the global context, this study contributes to the literature on both international coach migration and coaching transitions.

Planning is essential for organising learning content in sports coaching and physical education (PE) contexts but depends on multiple and mutable circumstances in each context. Although learning and performance are present in both contexts, planning in PE is typically more centred on learning, while coaching tends to focus more on performance. Nonetheless, sports coaching planning also requires ongoing learning to support performance, with coaches outlining pedagogical strategies in their daily training plans to achieve both short- and long-term goals. From this perspective, planning models used in PE contexts may offer valuable insights for sports coaching contexts, helping coaches develop various pedagogical approaches to plan their learning tasks effectively. Therefore, this article explored the parallels and divergences between planning in sports coaching and PE contexts, encompassing the pedagogical goals and planning structures, alongside opportunities, barriers, remediation strategies, and practical implications potentially transferable to sports coaching. The article highlighted the importance of flexible planning structures to accommodate the nonlinear nature of learning. Specifically, coaching contexts can learn from PE how to plan sessions for athletes with diverse motivations and skill levels, as well as how to design learning tasks that develop psychosocial and psychological skills.

As the number of international transfers increases in professional sport teams, it is unclear how this diversity impacts team functioning, and also, whether coaches feel equipped to meet this new challenge. In this study, we explored professional coaches’ perceptions and experiences of cultural diversity (i.e., national and racioethnic diversity), with a specific emphasis on implications for team dynamics. Semistructured interviews were conducted with nine professional coaches from four interdependent team sports in France (i.e., basketball, football, handball, volleyball). The coaches had experience leading first or second division men’s and/or women’s teams (e.g., two highest national championships in France, Canada, or Italy) and national teams (e.g., France, Belgium, China). Based on a critical realist approach, results indicated that coaches purposefully considered cultural diversity within their teams, and discussed stereotypical differences based on nationalities pertaining to work ethic, communication, and motives for action. Coaches’ international experience and intercultural competence seemed to be key elements that influenced their willingness to consider the cultural diversity of their teams in their coaching/management strategies. Herein, we discuss the importance of purposefully considering a team’s context (e.g., sport, member composition, geographical location) and note that coach intercultural competence appears to be a concept warranting further investigation.