Coaching Excellence

No single resource can convey everything that a coach should know and do. So Coaching Excellence does the next best thing: it builds on the basics to provide you with a wealth of information so you can become more adept in your role as an excellent coach.

Eighteen experts offer the best knowledge, research and insights that you can apply in working with your athletes, players and teams. This comprehensive manual focuses on the three key facets of coaching:

1. Roles and responsibilities of a coach. One size doesn’t fit all, so you will find several examples of successful coaches with quite varied personalities and skills.

2. Plans and methods that stem from the core values and that are implemented in achieving the major goals of the program. This requires ongoing evaluation of objectives and a commitment to achieving long-term success regardless of any pitfalls encountered in the process. Learn what this entails on a daily, weekly and seasonal basis.

3. Applications of the sport sciences to enhance fitness and the technical, tactical and mental skills of athletes. Don’t look for a trip to the lab. All the research findings here have practical uses to take individual and team performances to new heights.

Throughout the text, you will find proven strategies, advice and insights. From evaluating and teaching skills to motivation, nutrition and safety, Coaching Excellence is the complete guide to becoming a complete coach.

Frank Pyke (deceased November 2011) played a leadership role in sport science, coach education and sport administration in Australia for more than 30 years. From 1972 to 1990 he taught at the University of Western Australia, the Canberra College of Advanced Education and the Universities of Wollongong and Queensland, the latter as professor and head of the department of human movement studies. After that, he became the inaugural executive director of the Victorian Institute of Sport (VIS), a position he held until his retirement from full-time work in 2006.

Pyke’s academic qualifications include bachelor’s and master’s degrees in physical education from the University of Western Australia and a PhD in exercise physiology and human performance from Indiana University, USA. He has authored or edited 11 books on scientific training, coach education and elite athlete development and published many articles in scientific journals and magazines. He was the editor of all three editions of the textbooks used in the National Coaching Education Program in Australia in 1980, 1991 and 2001. He also co-authored Cutting Edge Cricket and was the editor for Better Coaching Advanced Manual, both published by Human Kinetics.

He was awarded an Australian Sports Medal in 2000 and a Life Membership of the Australian Council for Health, Physical Education and Recreation in 2002. Pyke was inducted into the Sport Australia Hall of Fame in 2003 and received the Mobley International Distinguished Alumni Award from Indiana University in 2010.