2 days ago
Share the load, improve balance and use young and old: How clubs can tackle coaching challenges
They're the unheralded stars of sport. You won't see their face on TV, rarely their name in the paper, and yet they continue to beaver away on the quiet fields and waters and in halls across the land, catering for everyone from the God-gifted talented to the God-help-us craturs.
There's even a decent chance you're one of them – or at least have been.
According to some recently-published research commissioned by Sport Ireland, close to three out of 10 adults (29%) in this country have coached sport at some point.
Half a million people – basically one in eight adults – are still currently volunteering in sport in some capacity each week.
The majority of them are coaches. Up to 268,000 people – more than seven per cent of anyone aged 15 or older – coach on a weekly basis, dedicating an average 5.5 hours per week to it.
Add that all up, as Benny Cullen, Sport Ireland's Director of Research and Innovation has, and you're talking about over a million hours of coaching happens in Ireland every week, almost all of it voluntarily. 'It's mind-boggling, really, that so many people have that almost vocational zeal to coach sport.'
But here's the rub. According to that same Spotlight on Coaching survey published last month, over a fifth – 22% to be exact – of those current coaches can see themselves stepping away within the next two years.
They just can no longer give it the time.
Or partly they feel it's no longer worth all of that time.
And if you're a woman, well, remaining in coaching or even getting into it at all is all the more challenging again.
There are so many findings, so many obstacles, highlighted in this report.
But if you're a suitably imaginative and ambitious club or governing body, there are multiple solutions too.
1. CHALLENGE YOUR BIASES – 'It's like women are glass.'
Just as she won 50 caps playing rugby for Ireland, Nora Stapleton had multiple hats on her when digesting the Spotlight on Coaching report.
The primary one would have been as Sport Ireland's women in sport lead as well as its director of strategic national governing body programmes.
But she is also someone who has played rugby (in three World Cups), soccer (in FAI Cup finals) and Gaelic football (with Donegal) at an elite level. She has coached on and off as both a full-time development officer and as a volunteer, ranging from the recreational and grassroots right up to high performance. And she is a mother, which partly explains why her coaching career has been quite intermittent.
With almost every finding in the report she could provide a personally-lived anecdote to firm it up.
Want to know why women still only make up 36% of all coaches and 17% of high-performance coaches employed in this country? We tend not to see women as prospective coaches. We tend to see through them. Especially if it's a boys' or men's team that could do with some people to help out.
'A lot of it comes down to systemic biases that we now need to try to navigate. I've seen it first-hand where it's almost like women are made of glass while men are this shining light on sidelines. Men will look right past or through you to go and approach a man on the side of a pitch to help coach their kids; existing coaches tend to gravitate to the dads and ask them first towards doing some coaching rather than think to have a conversation with the mothers.
'It's no one's particular fault. It's just been bred into people. We have this perception that men are better coaches because traditionally we've always seen men coaching.' There has been progress. Back in 2007 there was a glaring 16% gap between how many men played sport compared to women. Now it's down to three per cent.
Nora Stapleton playing for Ireland against Scotland during the 2014 Women's Six Nations. Picture: Ramsey Cardy / SPORTSFILE
But in the coaching sphere, there's still that gulf. In part because a lot of coaches tend to be ex-players and most ex-players tend to be male. But only in part. Stapleton notes that there have always been more females that play hockey in Ireland than men yet how many female hockey coaches are in there in Hockey Ireland's senior high-performance teams?
'We did a survey back in 2020 of over 2000 women coaches and they talked about how they did not feel valued in their club, how they felt judged. They may have been confident in their coaching but if they were put in a situation with male coaches whereby say they had to report to a committee, they felt very judged by the committee as a female coach. High-performance recently-retired players have spoken about how they'll go on a coaching course and they'll be considered less competent and credible than a male coach who hasn't played in 20 years.
'It's about challenging behaviours and norms, including within your own club. Have we a coaching committee? Is there equal representation on that? When you're promoting coaching and recruitment of coaches, does your photographic imagery include female coaches?
'Rowing Ireland did an audit of their clubs and it was noted that the pictures on the wall of previous winners could be almost exclusively male because men had been taking part for longer. Females pick up on things like that. Where are we?' Sponsors, she highlights, pick up on it too. The fans and members of a sponsored female team are more likely to recall and support that brand than the supporters of a male-sponsored team.
Financially as well as culturally, it makes sense to champion, recruit and retain more women's coaches.
2. SHARE THE LOAD
When asked why they had ceased coaching, the most common reason by a distance cited by former coaches was they simply no longer had the time due to work or study.
'That one jumped out,' says Michael McGeehin, the director of Sport Ireland coaching. 'The time element is the most obvious barrier – we're all time poor. Another was cost. And another was travel. But even that links back to time: How long do you need me for? If as a club you can identify that, and reduce that, it can entice coaches in and retain the ones you have. Maybe have a pool of coaches involved with a particular team. The entire responsibility isn't going to fall on your shoulders.'
Stapleton concurs on the idea of shared responsibility. It would definitely help attract and retain more female coaches.
'I was talking to one male coach whose wife coaches as well and he pointed out how while he could disappear and go into camp with a team for a weekend at the drop of a hat, she couldn't. There's just that imbalance in duties. That's one of the reasons why only 17% of coaches in high-performance sport are female.
'It's something Paralympics Ireland have tried recently. Instead of the one support provider or coach being expected to be away for four or five weeks, the duty is shared with someone else and you're only away for half that time. Sport Ireland came up with a maternity policy for carded athletes in 2021 which is being further revamped and we're now looking at NGBs (national governing bodies) having something similar for paid coaches.'
3. ASK, ESPECIALLY THE YOUNG – AND THEN ASK BACK THE OLD
According to the report, 12% of those aged between 16 and 24 are currently coaching. But then work and study really comes into play; amongst 25-34 year-olds, only three per cent are coaching.
It increases back up to 11% then though amongst 35-44 year-olds; you resume or take up coaching when your own children start playing.
But then it starts to decline among older age-groups. Only two per cent of those aged 65 or over are involved in any kind of coaching.
'There's certainly a fluctuation in coaching involvement,' says Benny Cullen, Sport Ireland's research director. 'People tend to have a fluid involvement. Coaching is not a behaviour that they pick up and maintain for life.
'What the study highlights is that it's important to get people involved in coaching at a young age. Encourage them. Provide and subsidise their coach education. If they can build familiarity of coaching in their late teens, early adulthood, it puts a good grounding and is likely to increase their participation as they get older because they're back into familiar territory.'
Donegal manager John Joe Doherty, left, with selector Michael McGeehin during a 2009 All-Ireland SFC qualifier against Derry. Picture: Oliver McVeigh / SPORTSFILE
Then, in their 30s, ask them – and others – if they'd like to coach. The survey found a lot of people would be interested to help out – only they're never asked. Forty-five per cent of former coaches said they'd be willing to return. But will they be asked or encouraged?
'We could all be better at that,' says McGeehin, 'but some organisations and clubs are better and more proactive than others. Even just asking at registration day. Would you be interested in joining our coaching team?' A demographic ripe to be tapped into is the retired, notes Cullen.
'All of a sudden instead of being time poor, they have a whole pile of time back. They've possibly coached before and might be looking for something meaningful to do.
'There are barriers to overcome. Older former coaches surveyed felt they were possibly too old to coach. It's maybe reframing their involvement and that they're more mentors, whereby you're availing of their wisdom and experience to support that broader club environment and coach development piece.'
4. APPRECIATE WHO YOU ALREADY HAVE
One of the last and standout findings of the research is that recognising the voluntary contribution of coaches is 'paramount'. Award schemes like the Federation of Irish Sport's volunteer of the year are great but clubs and regional boards, Cullen and McGeehin note, could be far more proactive at recognising the prophets in their own land.
Retrospective gratitude is lovely. McGeehin recalls being at a funeral in Fermoy when he was tapped on the shoulder by a vaguely familiar face which he couldn't place a name on. 'Your sessions were great. And you were very fair.' Fifteen years earlier when they were both back in Donegal, McGeehin had coached that man when he was just a kid.
'It was a lovely moment, being in north Cork, far from Donegal and hearing that all those years later.'
But the survey and study tells every club and sporting organisation. Don't wait for funerals to appreciate who and what you have. Especially when it could be theirs.
