Guidelines for Coaches:

Based on Anderson's (2008) article in Coaching Knowledge’s: Understanding the Dynamics of Sport Performance. London: AC Blackwell.

1. Choose your words wisely:

·     By using homophobic language such as 'faggot' can help replicate peoples belief for the hatred of gay men and women and prevent sport from being an open space for all human beings

·     By building up the masculine ideals, women are removed from sports by not allowing men and women to play together it perpetuates the belief that women will never be as good as men, however in many sports they are! Thus saying 'act like a man' or 'take it for the team' embeds males into a culture whereby they accept what they are told and will eventually contribute to the athlete dropping out!

·     Try not to constantly criticize your athlete, constant negative comments can lead to several health problems including eating disorders, depression and even attempted suicide (IOC, 2007).

·     Do not encourage athletes to lose weight by stating they are fat or telling them to cut out the carbohydrate as recent studies have shown this can lead to severe eating disorders such as anorexia and bulimia which will prevent your athlete from training or competing well again. If athletes are still in their developmental stage (10-18years) some weight will not easily shed and thus encouraging athletes to starve themselves will be detrimental on their view on your and the sport

·     Words such as ‘your crap’ or that was ‘rubbish’ can reduce your athlete’s confidence, be sure to consider how you would feel if one of your athletes said you are a ‘crap’ coach. If it will upset the athlete, is it really worth saying? There are better ways to work around poor performances through feedback and evaluation which involves the athlete not just the coach telling the athlete what they did wrong.

·     Do not discuss other athletes with your athletes behind their back. Athletes trust your judgement and confidence and discussing their issues with another athlete will undermine this confidence.

·     Avoid swearing, if there is something to say there are better words than swearing especially with younger athletes. Do not encourage or promote bad language as this will carry through to their sporting experience.

2. Encourage athletes to question:

·     When an athlete performs a session encourage them to ask the reason (scientific and socially) why they are doing such a session. This isn’t questioning your authority it is merely good practice and helps the athlete to develop independently and allows the athlete to learn from the experience of sport to not believe everything they are told.

·     Sometimes you may create a ‘bogus’ session to see whether athletes question the point of the session. Athletes are not sheep; they deserve to be stimulated, to learn the reason behind sessions as they may wish to become a coach in the future and by learning how you plan it will help the future of sport.

3. Challenge structures that promote social exclusion:

·     Within organisations discrimination on age, gender, sexuality, (dis)ability and ethnicity may occur. Do not accept it, champion your effort by including athletes of all the above in your group and do not allow negative language about such a group of people become part of your groups mandate.

·     You have the power to influence others, use it for good!

4. Educate others:

·     About abuse in sport, if another coach is swearing or what seems to be abusing their athletes, inform them of their wrong, if the coach fails to acknowledge your warning, report them to your governing body. By allowing these coaches in your sport, they undermine your coaching and prevent your sport from becoming as good as it can be.