(I sent this post to many of my colleagues – over the next few days I will post their comments and reactions. I think you will find it informative and enlightening. Some of these people are icons in coaching; all who responded are coaches who are coaching – no keyboard coaches.)
We have a whole generation of people who claim to be coaches that never get off the keyboards on their computers. They are the keyboard coaches. They measure their success by the number of hits on their website and how many e books they have sold. These are the people that the younger generation of coaches are following and listening to. They have never had to put their ass on the line and get a team or an individual ready to compete but they know it all. They can recite the Krebs cycle forward and backward and talk all about HRV curves and draw neat charts and graphs, but bottom line is they can't coach and most have never coached. The younger generation of coaches looks at coaching as an industry rather than a profession - A fundamentally flawed assumption. What can we do to change this?
I am writing this to all of you as rant out of frustration with what I see. All you have produced at the highest level. You are true coaches. We must speak out and be united to get back to the essence of coaching, which is based on practice based evidence and sound pedagogy. Help me, support me. I am going to blog extensively on the state of coaching and what needs to be done any of your ideas and thoughts would be appreciated.