Teaching Games for Understanding and Athlete-Centred Coaching

The pedagogies chosen by sport teachers and coaches are a powerful way to influence athletes’ development and sense of themselves. Athlete-centred coaching has emerged as a humanistic approach developed to engender empowerment and agency within the player/athlete and enhance their performance by adopting a holistic approach to the athlete. This chapter explores game-based approach research and practice related to coaching and player development. It examines and reflects on athlete-centred coaching as an approach that promotes an educative and holistic process for players’ sporting experiences. The chapter outlines the sporting experience. It then discusses the possibilities and challenges of implementing an athlete-centred approach to coaching and player development. Being athlete-centred has been identified as central to contemporary coaching practice. Coaching is now considered ‘a relational, dynamic social microcosm' involving a community of practice, called a ‘team’.