For three days this past weekend, the top athletic coaching educators, professors and administrators came together to set new standards in athletic direction at the 2006 National Coaching Educators' Conference.
The conference took place on MSU's campus this year from June 15-17 at the Institute for the Study of Youth Sports.
The aim was to examine the issues, challenges and trends that coaches face and what these coaches need to learn in order to prepare and train athletes from a junior youth level to college sportsmanship and even to professional athleticism.
"There are programs designed to teach life skills and not just about winning," institute director Dan Gould said. "They want kids to excel if they can, but it's not about college scholarships or pro sports. It's about kids getting hooked up with a caring adult to help them try to get through high school."
The conference was hosted by the new USA Coaching Coalition, in partnership with the institute and the Michigan High School Athletic Association.
While many themes were present throughout the conference, including sports science research, coaching education technology and hazing, the overall focus was directed on providing coaches with practical information.
"The people who are educating coaches come together at this conference," said Larry Lauer from the institute. "You get people like university professors teaching coaching courses, national deadline governing body personnel, such as U.S. Skiing or groups like that who come to educate coaches, or you have athletic directors from organizations like the MHSAA."
At the institute, administrators were presented with advice, counseling and instruction on innovations and practices about coaching certification and education programs. Gould described panels of sports marketplace information featuring discussions between MSU athletic directors, Olympic committee members and high school educators.
"We even had kids from local area schools come in," Gould said. "We had a great panel at the end with some kids from Lansing Catholic (Central High School). They talked about what they want from coaches and what they liked and disliked."
At the conference, precedents and regulations are also set and documented in the National Standards for Sport Coaches. This ruling gives direction for coaching educators about the skills and knowledge that coaches of all levels should possess.
This year, the group talked about setting standards for students who want to go into coaching and about current coach conduct dealing with specific training.
These guidelines will set boundaries and raise educational standards for coaching all over the nation.
"The vast majority of coaches need a hat and a whistle, historically, to coach," Gould said. "Now we're trying to come up with realistic programs. One of the groups is coming up with standards that people should use as a guide. The issues we dealt with were very practical."
The 2007 National Coaching Education Conference will be held June 6-9 in Indianapolis. The event will be hosted by the National Collegiate Athletic Association and the National Federation of State High School Associations.
"I think a lot got accomplished, and we were pretty excited about it," Gould said. "The event couldn't have went better."
