PREFACE

First, this book is aimed at the practitioner, the physical education student or student of swimming who anticipates a career in coaching. For this reader the book provides a practical overview and guide to the activities expected of the college swim coach at various stages during a career. Second, this book also is useful for the behavioral scientist. For the sport sociologist it is a case study of the socialization of an individual into the position of swim coach. For the student of occupations and organizations the volume serves as an illustration of an apprenticeship occupation, since the various roles and responsibilities of the intercollegiate swim coach are identified and the various activities expected while learning a career are described. This book provides an practical introduction to the social roles of swim coach, not treated systematically anywhere else in the literature on sport, occupations, psychology, or sociology.

The materials for this volume are based on personal experience. While teaching sociology I worked as a volunteer swim coach. After a few years I moved to a position of associate coach with a joint appointment between the sociology and athletics department. Later I served a brief stint as an interim co-head coach. Currently, I am back in the classroom during the day and coaching age-groupers at night.

Although I swam in a collegiate program that now is classified as NCAA Division III, my experiences with coaching have been at the Division I level. The bias of this book is clearly toward programs that strive to be highly competitive, that offer scholarships, and that must compete with the major money making, high visibility sports. Many of the problems confronted in Division I program are duplicated in Division II and III programs. Unfortunately some of the frustrations and problems of the smaller programs with fewer personnel and smaller budgets no doubt are overlooked. The oversight is neither intentional, nor meant to belittle these programs; it simply stems from a lack of personal experience in these settings.

Another bias in this work is the infrequent mention of diving. Clearly swimming and diving are dual elements of a program. Typically, the head coach oversees the swimming part of the program and delegates authority for running the diving part of the program to a diving coach (either a head diving coach or an assistant coach). An effort may be made to ensure that swimmers and divers act as a team, or in some cases the swimmers and divers may only get together when it is time to join for competition. In still other cases the head coach is responsible for both swimming and diving. Since the programs with which I have the most familiarity tend to be administered by the head coach and have a diving coach as an assistant, I tend to treat the problems of the diving program as separate items unless they directly affect the head coach.

The bases for my observations in this book are twofold. First is a lifetime of involvement in swimming, initially as an age-grouper, then as a high school and collegiate swimmer, and more recently as a Masters swimmer and as a coach. These different roles provide a range of experiences from which to draw. Informal conversations with swimmers, parents, other coaches and members of the swimming community have provided valuable insights on the process of becoming a mentor accepted by swimmers and by the larger sports community.

Second, as a sociologist/coach I have reviewed the literature in sport sociology and in swimming in order to sketch a framework which makes interpretable my observations both theoretically and practically. The perspective used to describe the social world of the collegiate swim coach is that of the sociologist. Any vocabulary terms that might be unfamiliar to the reader are defined. In general the terms are made clear by the context in which they are used. The perspective presented in this book represents only one individual's interpretation of the social world of the collegiate swim coach. Other observers no doubt would see and report it differently. To ensure that this interpretation is an accurate reflection of the social world of the college swim coach I persuaded a few swimmers, coaches, and colleagues to read and comment critically on various drafts of the manuscript. My apologies for disturbing their wa (sense of harmony and well-being). Hopefully this volume will prove to be informative, a fair reading of the roles of the coach, and perhaps useful to the behavioral scientist and the future coach.

This book does not feature information that is technique-oriented. Such information is covered in much more detail in textbooks on swimming and in the professional swimming journals. Nor is this a manual on how to create workouts. There are a number of fine books on this topic already in print. Also this book does not focus on all aspects of the coach's role of interacting with the swimmer. Topics covering goal setting, mental programming, communication, and motivation are left to the sports psychologists. There a number of works on various dimensions of these topics currently available.

The primary concern of this manuscript is the social world of swimming coach. Attention is paid to the nature of the job as an apprenticeship occupation, as an occupation striving to establish a professional identity, and as a social role important in building personal identity among one's peers, members of the community, and for posterity. The role of the assistant coach, volunteer or paid, is described. The process of becoming a the head coach is reviewed by looking at the advertisements for a college or university coaching position and interpreting the job requirements. The kinds of issues to which the applicant and the athletic director are sensitive also are examined. The various roles that the coach plays in interacting with key people inside and outside the sports community are identified. Some of the role conflicts and pressures faced by the coach are described as are some of the strategies to escape these tensions. In the latter part of the work some of the possible decision making strategies and some of issues that need to be handled by the coach are analyzed. Those issues receiving particular attention are the process of recruiting and the challenge of building support within the academic community and the community at large.

TITLE PAGE
ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS
TABLE OF CONTENTS
PREFACE
CHAPTER 1 OVERVIEW AND KEY CONCEPTS
CHAPTER 2 THE ASSISTANT COACHES
CHAPTER 3 HIRING THE HEAD COACH
CHAPTER 4 THE HEAD COACH'S ORGANIZATIONAL AND COMMUNICATION ROLES
CHAPTER 5 THE PROBLEM OF CONTROL AND TURNOVER
CHAPTER 6 RECRUITING: STEPS AND STRATEGIES
CHAPTER 7 HEAD COACH AND KEY PEOPLE AND ORGANIZATIONS INSIDE THE SPORTS COMMUNITY
CHAPTER 8 SPECIAL PROBLEMS OF THE SPLIT APPOINTMENT
CHAPTER 9 SUMMARY
REFERENCES
Academic Resume