These questions were considered recently by the SHAPE America Task Force when revising the National Standards for Sport Coaches (NSSC). The NSSC were first introduced in 1995 with the intent of identifying the knowledge and skills that coaches need to work effectively with athletes.
In this third revision of the standards, the task force identified the core responsibilities, underlying knowledge, and professional, interpersonal, and intrapersonal skills coaches need to create quality sport experiences for athletes. Here are the core responsibilities:
Coaches develop a clearly defined philosophy and vision.
Coaches model and teach ethical behavior.
Coaches build skills to communicate, collaborate, educate and support all stakeholders in a program.
Coaches create an emotionally and physically safe sport environment.
Coaches promote physical, psychological and social benefits for athletes and encourage sport participation.
Coaches plan, teach, assess and adapt in order to conduct quality sport practices and prepare for competition.
Coaches continually improve through self-reflection, mentorship, professional development, evaluation, and self-care.
This is where the national standards come into play. Under each of the core responsibilities, there are a set of standards which identify knowledge and skills (or competencies) that would help coaches meet the core responsibilities. All 42 standards can be found on the SHAPE America website.
These core responsibilities and associated standards were supported by the latest research and practical work in coaching science and the varied fields of exercise science that inform coaching. The seven core responsibilities of coaching and associated standards also closely align with the International Sport Coaching Framework and the Quality Coaching Framework.
While the standards reflect the fundamental actions that administrators, athletes, and the public can expect of sport coaches within a sport context, differences in depth and breadth of knowledge and skills can be expected based on the level of coach expertise (e.g., volunteer beginning coach versus high school coach) and the sport coaching context (e.g., youth sport versus intercollegiate sport). Thus, the standards provide a broadly focused framework that sport organizations can adapt to work within their context. However, sport organizations are encouraged to consider how all of the standards work within the context rather than whether or not they apply to the context.
The core coaching responsibilities and their associated standards can be used to improve the preparation, training and evaluation of sport coaching. Further, informing the public about the core responsibilities of sport coaches can drive expectations for quality coaching (see Figure 1).
In the end, the NSSC should assist in improving the sport experiences for all athletes and elevate the profession of coaching.
Specifically, here are some examples of how the NSSC can be used:
National Standards for Sport Coaches and find additional resources for coaches, check out the SHAPE America website.
NSSC Revision Task Force members include Lori Gano-Overway (chair), Bob Benham, Christine Bolger, Andy Driska, Melissa Long, Anthony Moreno, Dan Schuster, Melissa Thompson, Pete Van Mullem, Michelle Carter (SHAPE America liaison), and Wendy Fagan (advisory).
Lori Gano-Overway, Ph.D., is an assistant professor and director of the coaching education minor program at James Madison University. She has been involved in coaching education for more than 20 years and chaired SHAPE America’s National Standards for Sport Coaches Revision Task Force, which revised the National Standards for Sport Coaches.
