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The Great Coaches: Leadership & Life
Mike Hesson
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Mike Hesson is New Zealand cricket coach.
He started his coaching career in his early 20’s while playing in the UK. From there he progressed through Assistant coaching before accepting a the role as Argentina’s head coach in 2003. He returned to New Zealand and became Head Coach of Otago and leading them to the 2008 one-day trophy and the 2009 T20 championship.
In 2011 he took on the job of Head Coach of Kenya before being appointed the Head Coach of the New Zealand national team, the Black Caps in 2012. He went on to take them from a One-Day international ranking of 8th to 2nd by the time he left the role in 2018. He finished his tenure as one of the most successful coaches I the nations history with highlights including a record breaking 13 game winning streak. He has gone on to coach the Kings in the IPL and Islamabad in the Pakistan Super League.
Some of the highlights include:
- On being comfortable with silence and not feeling like you have to always fill it as a coach with information. But instead using it as a space to observe and gather information so you can be helpful later on.
- The way he uses questions to help lead people, as he believes that the majority of the team the player has the answer they just haven’t been asked the right question.
- The importance of authenticity and in his words “if I want my players to believe in me and trust me and have relationship with me, they need to know that it's actually me rather than me trying to be somebody else.”
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
More episodes
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On Pep Guardiola
40:07|Today’s episode focuses on Pep Guardiola, and I am joined for the discussion by Dr David Turner, who has been on the podcast many times before and is a Senior Lecturer in Sport Coaching at ARU in Cambridge, UK.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
Roy Masters
58:56|Our Great Coach on this episode is Roy Masters. Roy is an Australian sports journalist and former rugby league football coach.He started life as a schoolteacher in the NSW countryside coaching school sides and by 1974 had been appointed as the Australian coach of the Australian School boys’ team. He then became coach of a youth team at the professional club Penrith Panthers before becoming the Head Coach of the Western Suburbs Magpies in 1978. He was a Head Coach for 10 years, and on three occasions, he was coach of the year and twice runner-up on Grand Final Day. He then walked away from Coaching and started life as a journalist. In 2012, he was appointed a Member of the Order of Australia for services to sport and journalism. 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
Nicole Pratt
42:02|Our Great Coach on this episode is Nicole Pratt. As a player, Nicole reached a career-high ranking of #35 and won 4 ITF singles titles. As a doubles player, she reached a doubles ranking high of No.18 (September 2001) and captured nine WTA doubles titles and nine ITF doubles titles. She then switched to coaching with the Australian Institute of Sport and worked with players and coaches transitioning onto the WTA tour. She has worked with a long list of players, including Daria Saville, Ashleigh Barty, and Casey Dellacqua, and is presently the Women’s Coach lead and National Teams coach at Tennis Australia.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
On Athlete Coach Relationships
59:40|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
42:25|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
Dean Smith
37:57|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
Vésteinn Hafsteinsson
38:31|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 O'Connor
46:21|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
On Coaches as Educators
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