The Great Coaches: Leadership & Life

This episode focuses on the athlete-coach relationship and how the quality of the coach-athlete relationship will influence measurable performance. I also found this fascinating through the lens of the corporate world and how relationships there can impact cohesion and results.  Professor Sophia Jowett, who teaches at Loughborough University, joins me for the discussion. Sophia is also a Psychologist, and her work focuses on interpersonal relationships in sports, particularly the impact of the athlete-coach partnership. Dr David Turner, who has been on the podcast many times before, is a Senior Lecturer in Sport Coaching at ARU in Cambridge, UK.These are the links Professor Sohpia refers to:Empowering the athlete: The coach-athlete partnership - NCSEM-EM Working together for performance excellence | Tandem (tandemperformance.com) If you would like to send us any feedback or if you know a great coach who has a unique story to share, then we would love to hear from you; please get in touch with us at paul@thegreatcoachespodcast.com or contact us through our website,thegreatcoachespodcast.com

Rob Tarr is a Wheelchair Rugby Coach.As an athlete, he represented Great Britain in 3 Paralympic Games, 3 World Games, and 3 European Championships.Rob was part of the coaching team that won gold in Tokyo 2021, the head coach for the inaugural low-point World Championships, which won gold in 2022, and the gold-winning team at the Women’s Cup in 2023. These days, he is an assistant for the men's Wheelchair Rugby Team and works in Coach Development for World Wheelchair Rugby in Europe, Southeast Asia, and Central America. If you would like to send us any feedback or if you know a great coach, who has a unique story to share, then we would love to hear from you; please contact us at paul@thegreatcoachespodcast.com or contact us through our website thegreatcoachespodcast.com

Our Great Coach on this episode is Dean Smith. Dean Smith is an American Basketball coach who led the the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill men's team for 36 years. When he retired in 1997 he had 879 career victories, which was the NCAA Division I men's basketball record at that time. During his tenure as head coach, North Carolina won two national championships and appeared in 11 Final Fours.This is a posthmous interview and I used these books to create it.The Carolina Way: Leadership Lessons from a Life in CoachingIt's How You Play the Game: The 12 Leadership Principles of Dean Smith Dean Smith If you would like to send us any feedback or if you know a great coach, who has a unique story to share, then we would love to hear from you, please contact us at paul@thegreatcoachespodcast.com or contact us through our website thegreatcoachespodcast.com

Our Great Coach on this episode is Vésteinn Hafsteinsson.Vesteinin is an Icelandic Olympic discuss thrower who is now considered the most successful discus coach in the history of the sport. He represented his native country at 4 summer Olympic games and five world championships. As a coach he has worked with World and Olympic champion Gerd Kanter and Olympic silver medalist Joachim B. Olsen and is currently coaching Daniel Ståhl and Simon Pettersson the gold and silver medalists at the Tokyo Olympics. In all his athletes have won 19 international championships medals including five medals from in the Olympic Games. Vesteinn sounds a lot like Arnsold Sw and as a result I was on my toes for this terriric interview with a coach who has a deep fuctiponal specialization.some of the key highlights were:His view that athletes are owned by society and so must be good role models.How he lays out the path to an Olympic medal requiring 70 training campes, 200 meets and 4000 training sessions.The role that speed and rhythm play in his training. And how describes how this must come together in the 1 second when someone throws a discuss.And The importance of happiness and calmness and how he helps his athletes find this so that they can perform at their best.If you would like to send us any feedback or if you know a great coach, who has a unique story to share, then we would love to hear from you, please contact us at thegreatcoachespodcast@gmail.com or contact us through our website thegreatcoachespodcast.com

Tony OcConnor is a rowing coach.As a rower he represented Ireland at 2 Olympics and won 5 medals at the World Championships in the men's lightweight pair.After retiring he took up coaching and now lives in New Zealand where he is also a school teacher. In 2021 he was appointed the coach for the New Zealand men's eight, which won gold at the Tokyo Olympics.As part of this, he also featured in a documentary called The Rowing Teacher. This interviee was recorded in May 2024, and the the gold medal team Tony talks about has disbanded and did not go on to compete in Paris 2024.If you would like to send us any feedback or if you know a great coach, who has a unique story to share, then we would love to hear from you, please contact us at paul@thegreatcoachespodcast.com or contact us through our website thegreatcoachespodcast.com

Today's episode focuses on the topic of Coaches as Educators. And I'm joined in the discussion by two great coaches. The first is Valorie Kondos Field. Ms. Val, as she is known, led the UCLA gymnastics team from 1991 to 2019, collecting seven National Championships along the way. She now leads the course "Transformative Coaching: Introduction to Philosophies of Coaching and Leadership" at UCLA. Kirk Walker, the Associate Head Coach of the UCLA Bruins softball team, has a career that started in 1984 and has contributed to six Women's College World Series championships. We cover a lot of ground in this podcast, and some of the highlights for me were: The alter-ego coaches can let their worst side come to the fore. This alter-ego is the person who thinks they have to have all the answers, is black and white on issues, and does not encourage discussion. Keeping this person in check requires you to focus on what success is, and that is Coach Woodens' success: the piece of mind that comes from knowing you did your best and grounding your team in fun. Using sport as a metaphor to educate people about life supersedes the importance of the X's and O's and wins or losses. Therefore, your role as an educator is your "major mission." Influencing people is perhaps the fundamental role of leadership, and when you do this, you are educating people. If you would like to send us any feedback or if you know a great coach who has a unique story to share, then we would love to hear from you; please get in touch with us at paul@thegreatcoachespodcast.com or contact us through our website, thegreatcoachespodcast.com

Our Great Coach on this episode is Tom Herman. Tom is An American Football coach. After graduating univsierity he began his coaching career in 1998 at Texas Lutheran as a receivers coach. He then took a position in 1999 at the University of Texas at Austin as a graduate assistant under the mentorship of Greg Davis. He then joined Texas State as the offensive coordinator in 2005.From there we went to Rice where he helped set up the program. Then in 2011, Urban Meyer selected Herman as his offensive coordinator and quarterbacks coach for the Buckeyes. He was then hired by by Houston as its new head football coach in 2014, before joining power house Texas as Head Coach in 2016. Then in 2022 he was announced as the Florida Atlantic Owls head coach. If you would like to send us any feedback or if you know a great coach, who has a unique story to share, then we would love to hear from you, please contact us at paul@thegreatcoachespodcast.com or contact us through our website thegreatcoachespodcast.com

Our Great Coach on this episode is Fred Vergnoux. Fred is a swimming coach. He started his career as a coach in France with the club Racing Paris. He then headed over to the USA and took jobs working for people like Greg Troy to gain deeper knowledge if the sport. This would lead to him to eventally being appointed as the Head Coach for the City of Edinbourgh in Scotland in 2004, and then in 2008 the Head Coach of the Great Britain Olympics team. From there he moved to Spain and became the Spanish team head coach in 2010, and in 2022 was appointed the Head Coach of the Belgium swim team.His athletes’ accomplishments:8 World records11 European records3 Commonwealth records9 South American records6 Olympic medals22 World Championship medals38 European Championship medals The importance of surprising people in traiing , so that they can see how they are progressing through different activities that shake them out of their routine. The way he talks about athletes renting space in your head, and why its so important to take breaks and time away to keep yourself fresh and connected to your family. How the key to success is the relationship between the athlete and the coach.If you would like to send us any feedback or if you know a great coach, who has a unique story to share, then we would love to hear from you, please contact us at paul@thegreatcoachespodcast.com or contact us through our website thegreatcoachespodcast.com

Today’s episode focuses on the coaches, who the Great Coaches we have interviewed, have called out for praise or recognition. And we put this episode together because we wanted to hear from you. If there is a coach who had had an impact on your life then we would like to hear from you. Grab your phone and send us a recording explaining who they are and what they did it that resonated with you and we will put them together into a listener episode. Send your audio to paul@thegreatcoachespodcast.com And just before we go the podcast, this episode is dedicated to John Rea who recently passed away. John is the father of Caitie who works with us in the podcast.