Building Capacity of Community Sport Coaches - An Emotional Intelligence Approach to Practice and Delivery

There are a number of challenges that face coach educators and professionals within the field of community, youth, and recreational sport. The generally held consensus and understanding of performance sport espouses a nature that prioritises competition, and so the goals, objectives, and subsequent skills of sports coaches in this domain contrast sharply with the aims and intentions commonly inherent in community type  sport. Here, community, youth, and recreational sport coaches are often tasked with developing their participants to reflect wider social policy issues, for instance, through an increased understanding of citizenship and life skills. This commentary highlights some of the issues that surround this topic and, acknowledging the broad body of work that positions „people skills‟ and strong relationships as crucial within this field, argues that coaches delivering community type sport should integrate and practice the  concept of emotional intelligence in their coaching.

Keywords: Community Sport, Youth Sport, Expertise, Emotional Intelligence, Coach Development.