Sport Coaching in Practice
Articles and Videos
Here is a collection of articles focused on the practical application of coaching. Covering a varied topic mix, they all relate to useful and relevant coaching issues, coaches face day in, day out. You may find our sections for our most recent articles, resources and materials, latest newsletters, or 5 Minutes with Bo Hanson video series valuable too.
Empowering your Team with Purposeful Recruitment
Melissa Phillips, Head Coach of the London City Lionesses on understanding yourself as a coach to provide the foundation for athlete self-awareness, and how she uses DISC to enhance team and individual performance through purposeful recruitment and positioning.
No Degrees of Separation for Technical and Mental Performance Coaching
Mental Performance Coach, Rick Sessinghaus, on using behavioral profiling as a foundation for effective coaching, producing championship winning athletes, and highlighting the strengths of each DISC Profile in golf.
Sport Coaching Styles: The Four DISC Styles
As we all know, our personality impacts our behavior and as such has a direct impact on our coaching style. However, unlike personality, which is relatively stable, a coach’s style is a preferred pattern of behavior and as such it can be changed or adapted depending on the situation. Most of all though, a coach’s style can be changed or adapted if they are aware of their style preference and what style will give them the results they need.
Why Even the Best Coaches Need Coaches
Coaches are always evaluating performance, it’s a critical part of their role in order to be successful. Whether it be through assessing the scoreboard results of their team, individual athletes’ statistics, or even through the lens of their team’s culture. However, when it comes to evaluating their own performances, who should coaches turn to when they are looking to improve their own efficacy and skills?
Where Coaching in Theory Meets Coaching in Practice
Dedicated to his profession, four-time Olympic coach, now Program Director, Dr. Cam Kiosoglous focuses his commitment to build the depth of alignment between coaching research and coaching in practice through Drexel University’s Master of Science in Sport Coaching Leadership.
Getting the Most Out of Your Coaching by Looking In
Can a coach coach themself? It’s an interesting question to ponder. While the role of a coach is to constantly work with their athletes and team to develop and improve, and we know that coaches by nature and role can be excellent at developing others, what about when developing themselves?
Conversation about Team Culture
Creating and maintaining an effective team culture is critical to sustained success. So, if we define culture simply as ‘the way we behave around here’, we need to determine what is acceptable and what is not? But then as a coach, how do you sustain a culture or how do you deal with an athlete who acts in a way that opposes the culture you want?
Why Understanding Your Athletes Off the Field, Drives On Field Performance
Let me ask you the most important of coaching questions, “What style of coach are you?” As coaches we occupy a special, even privileged place in our athletes’ lives. On the surface, we are just a part of their athletic journey, but really, we often spend as much, if not more time with our athletes, than their family and close friends.
Accelerating Athlete Decision Making
The skill of decision making is closely linked to problem solving. For some athletes, making the right decisions at the right time is a well-developed skill, whilst other athletes find this process more challenging. Like any critical skill, the key to developing an individual’s decision making is to practice. So, where should an athlete practice their decision making? The answer is in training.
Why Effective Leadership Starts with Structuring Your Captain Selection Process
Captain or leadership group, how can you determine what the right structure for your team is? Who should be appointed as the leader and, what exactly does the person in the leadership role do? These were some of the critical leadership questions we unpacked in our recent open webinar, ‘Choosing Captains and Leadership Development Within Your Team’.
From Coaching on the Court to Coaching in the Classroom
“I rarely choose the easy route just because something might be hard.” It’s a simple and succinct statement of fact, but it also serves as a quick character portrait summing up Dr. Scott Douglas, a 2x NWBA Champion, 4x player for the U.S. Men’s World Cup Tennis Team, 3x Paralympian, coach, and Associate Professor at University of Northern Colorado.
Hardwood Hustle Podcast: with Bo Hanson
We’re excited to share Bo’s chat with hosts of the Hardwood Hustle Podcast TJ and Sam, along with longtime friend of Athlete Assessments, Lisa who introduces Bo on the episode.
When Coaching Sport Isn’t All About Coaching Sport
Kinzee Salo, Teaching Specialist in Coaching at the University of Minnesota, and Assistant Men’s Tennis Coach at Gustavus Adolphus College, speaks to the philosophy of teaching coaching as a people management skill.
Q&A with Kinzee Salo, Teaching Specialist & Coach
We recently interviewed Kinzee Salo for our article When Coaching Sport isn’t All About Coaching Sport and we found that she shared too many valuable insights to include in just one article. So, we’re sharing all her answers in an extended Q&A here.
Are Your Athletes Ready To Perform?
This article was initiated by an important question that one of the gymnastic coaches we work with asked, “How can we make sure we’re ready to perform at our very best the moment competition begins.”
Why All Eyes Are On Ventson Donelson
Ventson Donelson, Coach, Motivational Speaker on Headgame, mental health, overcoming adversity, self-awareness, and DISC profiling.
Story of Success – Talented Junior to PGA Tournament Winner – his Coach’s Insight
Mental Performance Coach, Rick Sessinghaus, has coached long-time client Collin Morikawa, currently ranked #5 on the PGA tour, from talented junior to #1 World Amateur and on to professional status.
Learning from the Last Olympics – What Makes Super Athletes So Successful?
Research from the London Olympics revealed the defining difference between serially successful athletes and their competitors. And it might not be what you immediately think!
Coaching Insights to Develop a Competitive Advantage
Got a spare couple of minutes on the way to training or the weekend match? Catch the conversation between Bo Hanson and Adam Haniver on The Boxing Coaches’ Podcast. What really makes this podcast worth listening to is the way that Adam, host of The Boxing Coaches’ Podcast, asks Bo questions that surface the connections between the mechanisms and the outcomes that drive performance.
Shining the Spotlight on the Performance and Wellness Institute
On a daily basis, the Performance and Wellness Institute is buzzing with athletes practicing their verticals, leaping between stations, pushing their strength towards numbers that were previously unimaginable, while rehabbers are moving with increasing degrees and fluidity. But this isn’t what distinguishes the Institute, enter Crisa Renard and Ryan Wasilawski, these two Exercise Physiologists and their investment in every individual is what’s behind the success stories that clients are quick to share.
Coxswain Coaching Camps – Champion Creating Future Champions
Mary Whipple, who won three Olympic Medals, two Gold and one Silver, plus five World Championships, knows exactly how to achieve extraordinary results. As coxswain to the serially successful USA Women’s Rowing Eight, she was responsible for leading, understanding and ultimately driving her team across the line in first position, multiple times. Now,
Accountability Key to Championship Form
After a stellar playing career that included 4 consecutive NCAA Tournament appearances, Kristi Stefanoni, Head Coach of the UMass Softball Program, has solidified her position as a stellar coach with another successful year and being rewarded with the title of 2018 Atlantic 10 Coach of the Year.
Kristi Stefanoni – University of Massachusetts Softball Program
Kristi Stefanoni ‘The UMass Minutewomen’ Extended Question & Answer By Mim Haigh, Sports Writer – Athlete Assessments For our recent article “Accountability Key to Championship Form”, our interview with Coach Kristi Stefanoni resulted in the below Q&A. For
Google’s Management Tips Translated to Coaching
Google, the #1 search engine in the world, ranked the top 10 attributes common to its best managers. We found that those behaviors run parallel to characteristics displayed by the most successful leaders in sport. Google’s findings support our knowledge that the best in the world reach that rank because of their expertise in people management, not just technology, equipment or physical capabilities.
Coaches, Don’t Let Your Athletes Miss This In Their Training Journals
We’ve all heard about the importance of athletes keeping training journals to improve performance, and like all valuable performance strategies it isn’t whether or not our athletes know about it, but whether they do it. Bo Hanson, Senior Consultant at Athlete Assessments says, “a training journal is one of the first activities we encourage athletes to do. The kind of things we like to see in a training journal include; the way an athlete feels about the session, any mental, physical or technical challenges they identify, things they want to improve on, things they were coached to improve on, strategies they tried and the values they lived on the team that practice.”
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Learn more about Athlete Assessments
DISC Profiling
Learn how to master the people side of sport using DISC Profiling...
What We Do
We specialize in helping our clients create and sustain winning results...
Our Clients
See who we work with and read what they say about us...
