The Influence of coaches' own childhood experience on coaching

A Narrative Approach by College Student Football Coaches

Abstract

The purpose of this study was to analyze how coaches' own childhood experience uniquely reflects upon coaching infants in soccer, by using a narrative approach. The semi-structured interviews were conducted with four college students who play soccer and coach kindergarten pupils in soccer. The four informants were asked about 1) impression on kids, 2) the Kid's Program, 3) occurrences during the program, and 4) experience in their own childhood. All the informants were currently playing sports and experienced unique enjoyment through sports in their own childhood. From the results of the interviews the coaches had desired to let the infants know about the enjoyment of exercise and love of exercise. Then, they attempted to initiate the infants with enjoyment of sports as they themselves experienced.
From the coaches' responses, it was found that all the informants had experiences of physical activities in their childhood. It was also suggested that their experiences created motivation to coach and a positive attitude toward physical activities, which were passed down to infants by them as coaches.