Jim Radcliffe and I co-presented Saturday at the NCSA
Convention – The Topic was Coaching Excellence – Building Champions in Sport
and Life. In some respects it was a little out of character because there was very
little directly on training, certainly no exercises, sets and reps, instead it
was on philosophy of coaching. The underpinnings of why we do what we do. It
seemed to be well received, I know that we really enjoyed preparing the
presentation and presenting it. Working with Jim is always inspirational to me.
As far as the rest of the convention the highlight was
getting the opportunity to meet up with old friends and professional colleagues.
I question scheduling where the speakers from Australian Rugby and the conditioning coach for British cycling were scheduled at the same time. It was
tough choosing between those. I am just not sure where this organization is
going. If the exhibit hall and the wide variety of topics covered in the
presentations is an indication I think it is a ship adrift on a stormy sea. I
am not sure whose needs the organization is meeting. It is certainly not a
coaching organization. It appears to be more of a personal fitness/personal
training organization to me. I appreciate the attempt to have the research
included, but it gets lost in the clutter. Why add an extra day “pre-Conference”?
Why aren’t those parts of the conference? As usual I am a naysayer, but I do remember
going to the Convention and coming away with practical and useful information
that helped make a better coach. I hope that as an organization they can clarify
their mission and serve a useful role to coaches. What I do as a coach is not
an industry, it is a profession. I get really tired of hearing people stand up
and talk about the industry. This is about people and improving people not an industry.
When I pay my NSCA membership it doesn’t say anything about an industry in the
membership materials or their mission statement. I have so many questions about
the NSCA I could go on forever. My last question is how can a national staff
member have a for profit business that is supported by the NSCA?
LvConvention
Coaching is a great profession. Everyone needs coaching, even coaches need coaching. The convention is a great place to learn and help you become a better person. Everyone should go to it because you never know when someone will come up to you and ask them to “coach ’em up”
Adam
I agree with you Vern, I attended the conference and I would even say it is more about two groups, personal training and a sports science group. The push towards this is evident in the new presidents speech, rather than coaching it was all about the board members and sports science and not coaches at the awards night…disapointing really as Boyd Epley first got the organisation up and running for coaches (well that was my understanding). I also share the hope for NSCA to start to support coaches, and not just American coaches because as you have mentioned there were a lot of good international coaches who attended who did not get welcomed at all. When Lee Brown took the job as the NSCA president three years ago he chanted ‘world domination’ with a fist in the air, well he is now retired so can someone please explain this world domination? I think it sums the direction unfortunately…