INSIDE DOUGLAS COLLEGE / DECEMBER 12, 1989

 

 

 

@ | ask Force Studies Coaching in B.C.

They can have an enormous in-
fluence on our children’s lives.
They guide, teach, encourage, and
criticize. They instruct, inspire, and
sometimes merely babysit.

They are coaches — coaches of
organized sports for children —
and they have a much bigger im-
pact on our children and our com-
munity than most people realize.
At best they are in-
spirational teachers

 

to draft a report on coaching in B.C.
which will be passed on to an ad-
visory committee and then to the
Minister of Municipal Affairs,
Recreation and Culture.

The goal, says Johnson, is to
look at what exists now in terms of
coaching, including guidelines,
policies, and regulations, and then
come up with suggestions for chan-

 

Coaches should have some
“basic knowledge before we let
them free on our children.” says
Johnson. Coaching, he adds, is a
lot more than teaching sports.
“Coaches are role models. Their in-
fluence is quite strong. I believe
there should be some kind of sen-
sitivity to what children are and
what children need. Coaching is

more than passing on
skills — it’s a whole at-

 

and role models; at
worst, they are
abusive, destructive in-
dividuals.

Who monitors
these people? Who
trains them? Who
teaches our coaches to
be coaches?

Unfortunately,
most of the time, no
© one, says Chris

Johnson, a coaching in-
structor at Douglas
College. “At the mo-
ment, all you have to
have (to coach kids) is
an interest in coaching
and the lack of a

 

“Coaches are role models.
Their influence is quite strong.
I believe there should be some

kind of sensitivity to what
children are and what children
need. Coaching is more than

passing on skills — it’s a

whole attitude.”

titude.”

The task force will
address these issues,
says Johnson, and
hopefully come up
with possible solu-
tions. Although the
task force is looking at
the problems that
exist, Johnson says it
will also look at what's
being done right. “We
have to stress that
everything is not nega-
tive,” he says. “there
are a lot of good things
going on out there.
And there are a lot of
good coaches.”

 

 

morals charge.” he ex-
plains. “Or not even
an interest — maybe you do it be-
cause nobody else will. In other
words, to work with our children
you don’t need anything — no
education, no training.”

Johnson, an outspoken advo-
cate of quality coaching and sports
and fitness programs for children,
is one of the members of a new task
force struck to look at the develop-
ment of coaching in British Colum-
bia over the next decade. The task
force, chaired by Dr. Robert.
Hindmarch, director of athletics at
the University of B.C., was formed
© to respond to the federal

government's designation of 1989
as the Year of the Coach.

The task force has been asked

 

ges and improvements. “We're
looking at the future of coaching in
the province,” he adds.

Johnson has long recognized
the need for a more structured ap-
proach to coaching. He wants to
see “some kind of requirement that
coaches have to be interviewed and
selected.” Right now, Johnson says,
virtually anyone can become a
coach. “Nobody monitors your per-
formance.”

This has lead to problems —
problems that Johnson would like
to eliminate. Some coaches do not
teach their sport effectively, and
others are guilty of sexual or emo-
tional abuse. “Sometimes coaches
put too much pressure on kids.”

 

Johnson hopes the

task force will also
have the opportunity to look
beyond organized sports to alter-
nate forms of recreation. “We have
to ask ourselves what the govern-
ment at all levels — municipal,
provincial and federal — is doing
for kids who don’t want to take
part in organized sports,” he says.

While acknowledging that

members of the task force have
their work cut out for them,
Johnson says the group’s existence
is a positive development for
Canadian sports. For more infor-
mation about the task force or the
coaching programs at Douglas Col-
lege, contact Chris Johnson at 527-
5041. m

 

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