A new study looking at the current status of high performance coaches in Canada has found huge variances in the way coaches of top athletes are valued, managed and compensated.
Study data clearly show that while coaches are dedicated to their athletes and passionate about coaching, many are under-valued, shoulder a significant workload - often for little compensation; they have little job stability, usually working with one-year contracts or without contracts; no job descriptions or clear expectations for their jobs.
Ian Reade, of the Faculty of Physical Education and Recreation's Coaching Research Group, led the study, which was funded by Sport Canada and monitored by the Coaching Association of Canada.
The intent of the study was to determine the state of the profession and unearth what needs to be done to advance the lot of high performance coaches in Canada.
More than 800 university, college, national team, provincial team and Canada Games coaches in 56 sports took part in the year-long study. They included coaches (male and female) of teams and individual sports, and 233 were coaches of carded athletes.
"The most important findings," says Reade, "were the lack of consistent contract, job description, or evaluation across the board for coaches. The lack of contract was the biggest surprise for those of us conducting the research, and the greatest concern. After all, these are high performance coaches of national team athletes, junior national teams and club coaches who would be expected to work with an athlete or team for three to four years."
Workload for coaches was significant, says Reade, adding. "They all had administrative tasks in addition to their coaching and virtually all of them said it was impossible to do in a 40-hour week. Coaches typically put in the extra hours without overtime pay or time off in lieu of pay."
Though well-educated - over 75 percent of coaches have university degrees and 80 percent are certified at Level 3, 4 or 5 of the National Coaching Certification Program - Reade found large variances in income among coaches, often depending on whether they were coaching a college team, CIS, national or club team.
Reliance on second jobs was common. Over half the coaches in the study held a second coaching job, or one coaching job and another income-producing job - and they relied heavily on the income of partners to make ends meet. "Coaches in Canada are relying on other people or companies to pay their bills," says Reade, ruefully.
"This begs the question of how many qualified coaches have quit because they can't pay the bills?" says Reade. "You lose the whole investment in a coach when they walk away."
Some actions can and must be taken immediately to address these shortcomings, says Reade.
"The biggest, single change that can be done immediately is to establish clear, reasonable expectations of coaches. If you don't have a clear idea of what it is you want the coach to accomplish, you can't evaluate them."
Secondly, evaluation of coaches by committee is another critical part of the puzzle, says Reade. "Our data show that few coaches are evaluated by committee. Coaching is a complex job. If the evaluation is only done by one person, they might not understand other aspects of a coach's job and it won't be a fair evaluation."
Furthermore, he adds, many organisations, such as Golden Bears and Pandas Athletics at the U of A, have these committee evaluation models and criteria in place, that can be quickly adapted by others.
But, he emphasises, there has to be commitment by the coach and the organisation or team to follow the process and to do the administration that's required. That also means that before an evaluation can take place, a job description must be in place and coaches have to agree with it and what the outcomes are.
Government has a key role too in establishing good, ethical practices in the management of coaches, says Reade. "Government can set a policy about how coaches should be engaged and managed. Organisations need to have an ethical approach to the management of coaches and that's not in Sport Canada's policies anywhere."
Looking forward, Reade says the data from this study will spawn a variety of future studies. "Stress is a big topic among athletes and coaches right now," he says, "and I'd like to look at that in more depth."
Some other studies planned by the research team include a sub-group analysis of CIS versus college coaches, college coaches versus club and provincial coaches; a comparison of how male and female coaches are treated; retention and succession issues in the coaching profession, and sport to sport comparisons of sports which have similar development models, such as basketball and volleyball.
Read the full report at www.coach.ca/statusofcoaches