Is the role of the sports coach simply to improve sporting performance?
What are the key ethical issues in sports coaching practice?
Despite the increasing sophistication of our understanding of the player-sport-coach relationship, the dominant perspective of the sports coach is still an instrumental one, focused almost exclusively on performance, achievement and competitive success. In this ground-breaking new book, leading sport scholars challenge that view, arguing that the coaching process is an inherently moral one with an inescapably ethical dimension, involving intense relationships between players and coaches. The Ethics of Sports Coaching critically examines this moral aspect, develops a powerful idea of what sports coaching ought to be, and argues strongly that coaches must be aware of the ethical implications of their acts. The book is structured around four central themes: the nature of coaching, the character of the coach, coaching specific populations and specific coaching contexts. It explores in detail many of the key ethical issues in contemporary sports coaching, including:
coaching special populations
the ethics of talent identification
understanding the limits of performance enhancement
coaching dangerous sports
expatriate coaching
setting professional standards in sports coaching.
Combining powerful theoretical positions with clear insights into the everyday realities of sports coaching practice, this is an agenda-setting book. It is essential reading for all students, researchers and practitioners with an interest in sports coaching or the ethics and philosophy of sport.
"...an illuminating collection. Summing up: Recommended. Upper-division undergraduates through faculty and professionals."—CHOICE, D. R. Hochsteller, Pennsylvania State University, Lehigh Valley
Part 1: The Nature of Coaching 1. The Normative Aims of Coaching: The Good Coach as an Enlightened Generalist 2. Celebrating Trust: Virtues and Rules in the Ethical Conduct of Sports Coaches Part 2: The Character of the Coach 3. Becoming a Good Coach: Coaching and Phronesis 4. Objectivity and Subjectivity in Coaching 5. Sports Coaching and Virtue Ethics Part 3: Coaching Specific Populations 6. The Moral Ambiguity of Coaching Youth Sport 7. Sport-Smart Persons: A Practical Ethics for Coaching Young Athletes 8. Males Coaching Female Athletes 9. Coaching Ethics and Paralympic Sports Part 4: Coaching in Context: Contemporary Ethical Issues 10. Coaching and the Ethics of Youth Talent Identification: Rethinking Luck and Justice 11. Coaching and the Ethics of Performance Enhancement 12. Ethical Issues in Coaching Dangerous Sports 13. A Defense of Expatriate Coaching in Sport