Sports Coaching Communication 

When you are coaching any sport, communication is essential. It doesn't matter if it's tennis, football, baseball, basketball, netball, golf, gymnastics, badminton, athletics, hockey, cricket......the list is endless. The better you are at communicating and specifically speaking clearly the more popular and successful you will be and the more confident and successful your pupils will be.

Usually when we have to teach people, they are sitting still, able to concentrate fully on what the teacher is saying. The teacher is also able to sit or stand still, perhaps sitting at a desk with all of their notes or standing at a whiteboard able to reinforce ideas with written words. 

Sports coaches do not have these luxuries, they have to teach in the middle of a field or a large sports hall with no chairs or whiteboards, to students who are moving around and who are being distracted by anything and everything. If you are teaching outside the wind can blow your voice away or if in a large hall the echo can swallow up your words. These sports coaches need to have exceptional communication skills if they are to produce first class athletes.

I have written articles for various sports publications around the world including 'Tennis Pro' and the International Tennis Federation Coaching and Sport Science Review.

Good sports coaching communication is vital

As a voice coach it became apparent to me that ‘good’ coaches (described as such, not only by me but by other parents), were the sports coaches who were able to communicate their love of their activity and their skill, be it dancing or tennis, to the student. They managed to get the best out of every student. These coaches were not always the best qualified but they had the ability to explain and to listen.