Learning from Serial Winning Coaches

Learning from Serial Winning Coaches provides performance coaches and directors, coach developers, and researchers with the knowledge and tools to affirm and challenge policy and practice and conduct further research to inform future policy and practice in the identification, recruitment, and development of performance coaches.

Leading an athlete or team to an Olympic or world championship gold medal or professional league title is a great achievement for a coach; a dream that comes true for a small group of privileged coaches. This outstanding accomplishment can become the defining moment of their careers. Winning multiple golds and championships with different athletes or teams, and across multiple major events spanning decades, is the prerogative of an exclusive club of coaches.

This book reveals the secrets, experiences, and practices of 17 of these coaches across 10 sports and 10 different countries. Through a combination of in-depth interviews with the coaches and their athletes and a detailed analysis of their personality and motivational profiles, Mallett and Lara-Bercial offer a unique portrait of the day-to-day workings of these coaches: who they are, how they operate, their leadership style, and their inimitable and often serendipitous journeys to the top of the sporting world.

Learning from Serial Winning Coaches goes beyond the description of isolated coaching behaviours provided by previous research to explore the personal realities of these exceptional men and women, coaches, and athletes. The emerging multi-dimensional picture sheds light on the unique conditions and practices that lead to the unparalleled success of these true outliers.

This book is key reading for researchers, coaching and coaching psychology students, performance coaches and directors, and coach developers, providing a novel evidence-based theoretical framework to conduct further research, shape and reshape coach development, and facilitate the identification and recruitment of the next generation of serial winners.

Cliff Mallett is a Professor of Sport Psychology and Coaching at the University of Queensland (Australia) and has enjoyed distinguished careers in high-performance sport and academia. He is an Olympic and world championship podium coach in athletics and also an internationally renowned researcher and coach developer who has been honoured with prestigious professorial fellowships at the Technical University of Munich and the National Institute of Education at NTU in Singapore. Cliff consults to many national and international sport (World Athletics) and corporate organisations and has published more than 150 peer-reviewed papers and presented 29 invited international keynote addresses in more than 12 countries.

Sergio Lara-Bercial is a Professor of Sport Coaching at Leeds Beckett University in the UK and Vice President for Strategy and Development at the International Council for Coaching Excellence. He has published widely on many sport-related topics including youth sport and coach development. Sergio consults to many high-level organisations, including Nike, IOC, UEFA, and FIBA. He is a former international basketball coach for Great Britain and has coached in the National League for over 25 years and won 19 national titles with both male and female teams.