Youngest Head Coach To WIn The Super Bowl

It’s a cold Tuesday morning in England with a snow dump which seems to be causing havoc! My two school classes this afternoon have been cancelled by the schools due to severe weather warnings...so I have a bit of time to write this second blog!

Last night I watched the Pittsburgh Steelers win a 6th Super Bowl! They broke many records including Mike Tomlin of the Steelers becoming, at 36, the youngest head coach ever to win the Super Bowl.

So as an elite coach he never played in the NFL, he never experienced and had to deal with the stresses he is dealing with in his players. So why is it that in judo there is an attitude that you can’t be an Elite performance coach unless have been an Elite player. This attitude can come from players, clubs and NGB’s.

I am currently reading “The Coaching Process” by Cross and Lyle, in this they say there are two different treads to coaching, the Training Process and the Coaching Process, Training being the Physiological and Psychological aspects of training, as well as the application of scientific processes. The Coaching Process is the relationships, the management and how the training process is personalised.

So is Tomlins skill in the Training Process – that is also handled by the support staff, or is it his skill in the application of the coaching process?

Lyle and Cross also divide coaching into two different type – Elite and participation coaching, the participation coach is the Sunday League Junior Coach, the Guy who runs a small Judo class once a week where it is not about being the best it is about gaining and maintaining participation in the sport. However where do we differentiate between the two types in our coach education?

Is Tomlins just an Elite Head Coach or is he a participation coach – ensuring in his early coaching experiences players wanted to play for him, helping them manage Football and College life. How do the coaches running small judo clubs or Football teams recognise and encourage the skilled player who could become an elite performer? And how do they know when to say I can teach you know more?

Part of the job of a coach is to reflect on his own performance and that of his players and acknowledge when they are wrong and when things work, and then strive to improve. Coaching is a development process for both the player the team and the coach......the problem is coaches don’t know it ....but I am sure that Mike Tomlin will wake up today with a new ring on his finger, and a place in the history books and that over the next few weeks he will review the game, and ALL his decisions trying to work out what worked and why and what didn’t work because next season it starts all over again.

I hope we can explore the differences in Performance and Participation coaching.