COACH ATHLETE RELATIONSHIP
The cognitions, feelings and behaviours between a coach and an athlete are mutually and casually inter related.
Mutual trust, respect, belief, support, co-operation, communication and understanding are the most important components that contribute to performance, success and satisfaction due to good coach athlete relationship.
The components that undermine coach and athlete welfare are lack of trust, respect, dominance, blind obedience, verbal, physical and sexual exploitation.
The coach athlete relationship is interdependent in nature, since no man is an island and we all are social animals.
The relationship is dynamic and its nature is expected to change overtime, in response to the interaction of relationship members.
The state in which the content and nature of relationship resides is determined by the combined inter relating of coaches and athletes thoughts, feelings and behaviour.
IMPORTANCE OF STUDYING COACH ATHLETE RELATIONSHIP
It provides ample opportunity to help people manage their interpersonal exchanges more effectively.
Coach athlete conflict, parental over involvement, lack of support, depression, loneliness, dropout of sports in young age, aggression and power struggles are fundamentally interpersonal.
This study is motivated by the need for a systematic, comprehensive and empirically grounded body of knowledge that contains practical implications for coaches, athletes, parents, practitioners and policy makers.
The theoretical or conceptual framework guides research, and it establishes a dependable and well organized knowledge base, for understanding and analysing coach athlete relationship.
Be it basic or applied research, theory is important. Basic research is the study of central mechanics and process of coach athlete relationship. While applied research aims to bring about change in relationships.
The value of both basic and applied research lies in the importance of the problem explored and in turn, the importance of the answers that exploration generates.