Coach - Athlete Relationship

During one of my sessions with a Table Tennis player, I realised that it was not at all anxiety, comparison, lack of motivation or negativity that caused my player lose a recent match. But to my surprise, it was the way in which the coach treated her. According to my player and her mom, the coach did not pamper her or motivate her during her game as much as he did for the other players. Taking up this matter as it had started affecting her performance, I brought up this issue with the coach. He being extremely co-operative promised me that he would keep these things in mind and actually started implementing the changes in his interaction with the player that day onwards.

A few weeks later, this same player not only won the championship in her own category but also won the title in the higher category as well. This was only due to the newly found relationship that she shared with the coach of trust, friendship, communication, cooperation, respect and dependence.

Similarly, all of us have just witnessed the recently conducted Rio Olympics. We have watched so many winners in different areas of sports and have also viewed many more who could not make it to the victory stand. However, regardless of the victory or defeat, the most common thing that we noticed was every athlete being with their respective coaches or discussing their strategy with their coach. This in itself tells us how important this relationship is of the coach and the athlete to achieve best performance in every sport.

The coach-athlete relationship is based on many aspects. A coach has tremendous influence on the physical and psychological development of their athletes.

How it works? Coach-Athlete relationship is found by the quality of understanding, respect, trust and predictability that exists between the coach and the player. Today it is recognised as a key performance factor. A research proved that players who perform well at higher level competitions, have good self-awareness about themselves such as their understanding of themselves, their strengths, their limitations etc. but the most important factor was the coach athlete relationship which is absolute non-negotiable.

If the player has a productive relationship with the coach, if the player understands the coach well and understands his/her expectations and vice versa, then both will have predictable environment to function which helps develop the performance. If either of these two parties feel that there is lack of mutual trust and respect, the relationship is usually poor and the motivation and performance is negatively impacted.

However, we also need to remember that though this coach-athlete relationship is extremely important, it does not happen instantly. Rather, it needs to get bloomed over time just as any other trusting relationship.

Mugdha Bavare
Sports Psychologist