Role of Sports Science & Sport Medicine

Sports science is important in advancing our knowledge of
training. I am a huge supporter of sport science, during my career I have had
the opportunity to work with some of the best, but today we have a problem. The but is that sport
science and the sport scientist do not captain the ship, the coach does. The
same with sport medicine; under that term I put the pysio (ATC in US), physical
therapist, chiropractor and doctor, they are important, but they should not
captain the ship. The captain of the ship should be the coach. The coach is the
ultimate authority on what needs to be done to get his individual or team into
the performance arena in optimum condition to perform. This means the coach
must be a great a communicator and organizer. The coach must be knowledgeable
enough in sports science and sports medicine to be able to direct, detect and
ask the correct questions. I have seen first hand what happens when sport
science or sport medicine runs amok and it is not pretty. The athlete suffers
and the coach loses games and matches, the athletes underperform and no one is
willing or able to take responsibility. The performance team is the team behind
the team, they should be invisible, there are no super star sport scientists,
sports medicine practitioners, there are only star athletes and great teams.
The spotlight should be on the athlete, not the support team. Lets just make
sure that we have the horse before the cart and the coach is driving the cart.