It is possible to be a successful sports coach without doing it as a full time job or for financial reward. Up and down the country there are coaches for a whole variety of sports who give up their time voluntarily in the evenings and weekends to teach and train people of all ages in a wide variety of sports. These people are teaching everything from field hockey drills to rugby scrums to football tackles so here we look at how to get into coaching sports and how to be good at it.
There are over a million coaches in the UK working with adults and children to develop their sporting skills across a huge variety of sports. This doesn’t however mean that sports don’t need more coaches, and as a large proportion of coaches are volunteers there will always be room for more.
Getting into coaching
One of the best ways to get involved in coaching is to start off as a volunteer. The governing bodies of most sports such as the FA have lots of information and support about how to get involved, but the best way is to ask in your local community about sports groups and organisations. If you have children then you may want to volunteer at sporting groups that they attend as this can be a great way of getting coaching experience at grass roots level.
What you need to be a sports coach
One of the most important qualities for a sports coach is commitment. This is important, as the people you are training will be relying on you. Whatever the weather you will need to be prepared to give up your time to train or attend competitive tournaments. Coaching can require you to carry around a lot of equipment and store this in your home. One solution to this could be to use some Garage Shelving like those that you can find at sites like www.garage-shelving.co.uk This will help to keep the equipment away from the floor or others areas where it could potentially become damaged.
Ideally you should have a coaching certificate and your club or team should be able to help you sort this out. It is also important for coaches to be organised and some sort of plan for training sessions is essential.
Hopefully this has inspired you to volunteer and have a go at coaching so the next time you are taking your son or daughter to a sports training session, have a think about whether you might have what it takes to be a coach. You may be surprised.
