Are Players the Only Performers in Sport?

The lecture and tutorial in week 4 centered around the idea of coaches being viewed as performers in a similar sense that a player's career is defined by their performances in their respective sports. We agreed that essentially a coaches role is to maximize the performance of their players. The divisive point in this discussion came from the question over coaching methods: does the ends justify the means? Nikolay Karpol (seen in the below video) was a Russian women's volleyball coach who's coaching method, although successful, also bordered on scary. I thought this was an interesting take on coaching methods and how they may vary between coaches, nationalities and sports in general.

Continuing on with the thought of coaches being performers, I got thinking about how fair it may or may not be to judge a coach in the same way that we do players. Arguably the coaches role is much more diverse and dynamic, particularly when considering their role in a team environment. How does a coach get the best out of each individual in a team when each of them is going to require an individualised approach to get them going? This problem only intensifies at the elite level when the very best performance of an athlete/team is expected on a weekly basis, forcing the coach to find ways to keep his or her methods dynamic and fresh enough that players continue to perform.

Anyway, they were some of the main ideas and thoughts that came to mind when I was thinking about the content for week 4. I'm interested to see if people agree or have taken a different approach all together?

Cheers,

Leigh.