Figure skating coaching in the contemporary sport culture : Finnish figure skating coaches' perceptions about their work

Abstract

Coaching as a profession in Finland in perceived as a challenging job. Lack of appreciation and support, scarce resources, and demanding working environment are placing coaches under a lot of pressure. In addition, coaches play a key role in the lives of their athletes and are therefore dealing with a variety of expectations and demands. These are not always set by the coaches themselves, but also from outside stakeholders, such as parents of the athletes, and national and international sport governing federations. On one hand coaches need to be demanding, authoritarian, and goal-oriented, but on the other hand, they need to be empathetic, friendly and supportive. During the past few decades, perceptions and understanding about what coaching as a profession is and requires, has been under discussion.

This study aims at describing and shedding light into the different sides of figure skating coaching as a work and moreover, as a way of life. The purpose is to bring out the variety of emotions and experiences; both the joy and stress situations related to figure skating coaching. In addition, the purpose of this study is to understand the changes occurring in our contemporary sport culture, and how it reflects the experiences that figure skating coaches have about their work and how they can handle these situations. The existing literature about coaching and figure skating is used to reflect the findings of this research. As a theoretical framework for this research, the Finnish coaching excellence model is being used to evaluate the diversity of coaching work.

The data for this qualitative study was collected in four in-depth theme interviews that took place during spring 2015. Four coaches represent geographically different parts of Finland and were rather heterogeneous group in respective to their age, gender, experience, and background. The frames for the theme interviews included sport coaching, well-being of coaches, conflicting pressure situations and coping skills. The data collected from the theme interviews were analyzed using theme coding.

According to the results of this study, figure skating coaches are passionate about their work, and place value on education as part of their work. Coaches are perceived as co-parents in the lives of the athletes, and thus get to experience the highs and lows of their athletes. Coaching is not solely about the sport, moreover it is about teaching athletes to become also good human beings. However, work is often operated with fewer resources, such as time, money and professional guidance. Overall, coaches need to take into consideration the changes occurring in our current society and how it reflects the world of sport.