Coach Beyond program trains coaches to support athletes
Of all the students who play sports in high school, between 3% and 5% go on to play sports in college and less than 1% will play professionally. Still, sports are an excellent vehicle for educating young people about life and leadership, said Samantha Bates, assistant professor.
“Sport is a great context to learn about these other life leadership things that we know go into jobs, go into relationships, go into families,” she said.
Many people choose to coach sports because they want to help student-athletes learn these lessons, Bates said. Unfortunately, many feel they do not have the resources to do the job well.
Over the last three years, the Coach Beyond program has sought to provide those resources. Through a partnership between the Ohio High School Athletic Association (OSHAA) and Ohio State’s LiFEsports Initiative, Coach Beyond has trained more than 15,000 coaches across the state in positive youth development practices with an emphasis on how to support student mental health.
Those coaches are part of an effort by the Susan Crown Exchange, which funded Coach Beyond, to train 1 million coaches by 2025. Bates said including OSHAA and area athletic directors and coaches in the process is part of what sets Coach Beyond apart.
“The collaborative structure has been amazing,” Bates said. “You have academic researchers, athletic directors and coaches who handle the day-to-day, and then OSHAA, and we’re all sitting around the table and asking, ‘What are we seeing? What’s missing?’”
This led to a statewide survey of 6,000 coaches, the first of its kind.
“We learned things like coaches did not feel confident in providing mental health support but two-thirds wanted more training about it,” Bates said.
In addition, researchers spoke with 50 student-athletes to hear their perspectives about coaching. This perspective clued researchers in to one of the larger issues facing coaches and student-athletes today: the COVID-19 pandemic.
“These kiddos were telling us that they were so stressed and busy, that they’re not feeling up to snuff,” said Emily Nothnagle, a social work PhD student. “Some of these kids are now sophomores and juniors in high school – they’re expected to be team captains, but the pandemic stopped them in middle school.”
“When we think about the ripple effects of the pandemic, we lost a lot of relational currency,” Bates said. “When you’ve had two years of being unable to see each other and touch base, those rapport-building things are absent. And we know those are the foundation of a great sports experience. A lot of people, including coaches, needed tools just to re-enter that environment.”
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