The culture of success and how it is defined within a sporting entity is more often established by the team’s controlling influence rather than age, standard or potential of participants. Often, this primary influence is the coach. Equally often, the coach has been totally unaware of any relevant philosophical viewpoints other than those of the wider sporting society in which they operate. Consequently the attitudes and objectives of the team perfectly perpetuate the dominant “success” paradigm of the day, which we have outlined above.

We believe this is the first aspect of coaching philosophy that requires its premises and foundations to become more conscious.

In the past, reconciliation of a purely winning based focus with other potential success considerations (enjoyment, fulfilment, learning) has proved difficult due to the flawed assumption that these factors are largely mutually exclusive. That is, the more you promote one as your central tenet, the further you are compelled to move away from the other. Consequently, as coaches, we have been left with polarised, generally inflexible opinions and the vast majority of proponents stacked unswervingly on the side of winning.

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