Minimalism

[altius]

After all of the grandiose and largely irrelevant information - not wisdom note - we have seen on PVP in recent months perhaps it might be worth considering the question, "What minimum levels of knowledge and competence SHOULD BE required before anyone is permitted to start coaching the pole vault"?

Note that 'should be' is in caps simply to indicate that whatever is decided upon in this forum is unlikely to impact the real world. And of course the question ignores the important issue of personality traits.

Be interesting to see if we have any readers left and prepared to contribute - hope we do.

[PVstudent]

Just to start with fundamental requirements.

The first requirements are eyes that see, ears that hear coupled with the humility and ability to ask pertinent, and occasionally, impertinent questions. Then with an open mind to test how well you understand the answers by thoughtful action (deeds not talk) and careful reflection upon the action outcomes.

The second requirement is to ask the questions that arise from the first acts of coaching you carried out and to repeat those actions tempered by the light of understanding answers to the original questions. Asking questions is mere child's play whilst acting in real life settings on answers to questions is much more difficult requiring effort and persistence to turn mistakes into successes. Coaching is effortful and not for the weak of spirit!

The third requirement is to have the courage to accept that you will make simple mistakes that invoke criticism. Only by having this criticism will the errors be revealed upon which you accumulate empirical understanding based on the greatest teacher of all, personal action based experience.

The fourth requirement is to continue to grow by meeting and repeating requirements one to three.

The fifth requirement, as you grow in passion and enthusiasm, is to work hard to deflate the growth in personal ego as success is achieved.

The sixth requirement is to take personal responsibility for your actions being an honest advocate for this athletic event whilst providing, to the best of your ability, a safe productive learning and training environment for the athletes you coach.

Whilst the motivations will be many and varied, most people who start coaching do so with good intentions stemming from a desire to help others achieve competence and skill in safely meeting the challenges of the event.

There are also fundamental coaching competencies that need to be acquired if not already possessed by the person taking up the challenge of being a "Pole Vault Coach".

Come on PVP community lets put them up!

[PV2020]

We must remain to be realist for a bit on this topic. You Altius I am sure would like to require everyone to have a grasp of the Petrov model and how to coach that, but that is not likely.

If there is a requirement it should be for the safety components of the vault. Things like being able to express knowledge with learning progressions into the basics. How to carry the pole and find ones starting grip. Progressing from grass to straight pole drills or even the sand pit before having someone start trying to take big jumps. Knowing pole progressions and little things like an athlete should only move their grip up a little at a time as well as how that affects stiffness and penetration. How to progress an athlete to a farther run.

The USATF book actually has a good progression in their Level 1 class but they usually skip right over it so most people do not even know it is there.

I know you are probably inferring to people that you do not lime the way they coach (pvdaddy for instance) but if I were to guess he does fine keeping athletes safe and is more than good enough to be a high school coach, be just lacks some of the knowledge of the physics of the vault that you agree with.

[grandevaulter]

"It's not that I'm so smart, it's just that I stay with problems longer." - Albert Einstein

PV Daddy seems to have the persistence to keep at it. I think it is more difficult to prove a point on this forum as a beginner coach than it is to effectively coach High School kids. s

I'll stick with Altius's and PV Student's book as my ONLY source for teaching youngsters how to vault. One needs not to look any farther. (but go ahead if you insist).

[altius]

"I know you are probably inferring to people that you do not lime the way they coach (pvdaddy for instance) but if I were to guess he does fine keeping athletes safe and is more than good enough to be a high school coach, be just lacks some of the knowledge of the physics of the vault that you agree with."

Not inferring anything old son -just trying to encourage folk to come out of the woodwork and actually tell us what THEY think are the minimum requirements for someone to start coaching effectively. I am not going to comment on anyones ideas. I just hope someone will come forward and summarise what folk think about this issue. Apart form the coaches I have worked with over the years I have little or no idea of how most coaches operate in the US. That said I meet dozens of kids at camps who have little or no idea of what they should be doing and most say they do not really have a coach - just someone who has been assigned the role in their high school but who is often not interested and who really does not know what to do. Despite all of the huff and puff teaching young athletes to vault really is not rocket science - but obviously does require some minimal levels of competence. What are those minimal levels?

[Tim McMichael]

The most basic requirement would be enough understanding to keep athletes safe. I would have no ethical issue with anyone's ideas about the vault if what they were teaching was putting athletes in the center of the pit. The problem is that most erroneous ideas are also dangerous. To pose an extreme hypothetical, if a coach were teaching that the fiberglass pole was what has been holding vaulters back for decades and what was needed was a return to metal, I wouldn't have a word to say about it. Wrong - yes. Limiting - yes. Dangerous - no. So perhaps this discussion could focus on what popular ideas are actually unsafe.

That may be a way of convincing those who hold such ideas that they should take another look at what they teach. If we can show why mechanically unsound jumps are hazardous, it may go a long way in persuading those who teach such vaults to abandon them. That might be an interesting new angle to approach this problem. We have spent a lot of time here discussing what is best and attempting to show why. I wonder what a discussion of what is worst and why would produce.

[altius]

Great to see you back Tim - trust all goes well for you.

[grandevaulter]

Despite all of the huff and puff teaching young athletes to vault really is not rocket science - but obviously does require some minimal levels of competence. What are those minimal levels?

I got by with the information that I was taught as a young lad and it was adequate. (kept them in the coaches box) It crossed the line of coaching "dangerous myths". Dangerous in the scope of less than optimal technique. I don't think that there is a gauge or a meter that measures common sense.

[altius]

Just found something I wrote for a piece on coaching any sport at the elite level!! It does give some idea of the challenge involved. Since it is clearly impossible for beginning coaches to approach a high level of competence - the question remains what DO they need to know and be able to do? Thanks to those who have contributed already and lets see if we have more ideas about the minimal levels of competence needed to begin coaching the vault.

"Here it is important to understand that at the elite level coaching is a highly complex task where success will often be determined as much by the environment in which a coach is working as it does by their knowledge and skill! The key elements of a perfect coaching environment ar
• Athletes with a determination to succeed that borders on obsession.
• An appropriate training environment.
• Time for training.
• The financial support – or athletes who are so committed to success that they will make any sacrifice as is often the case with some Olympic sports,
• Medical support – including doctors, physiotherapists, masseurs.
• Sports science support – this can range from the video analysis of games to blood testing.
• Sports psychology support.
• A varied and challenging competition program.
• The chance for athletes to begin a career path outside sport – if that is what they want to do.
• A supportive community.
• An intelligent administration that values coaching.

No matter how favourable the environment, coaching remains a complex undertaking. One way to make it more approachable is to identify the key processes. These are;
• Talent Identification*
• Recruiting*
• The integration of new athletes into a squad.
• Team building
• Player assessment.*
• Player counselling
• Planning.*
• Instruction.*
• Organising.
• Administration
• Technical coaching.*
• Tactical coaching.*
• Developing team strategy.*
• Preparing for competition – the game plan!*
• Coaching in the game.*
• Match analysis.*
• Physical conditioning.*
• Psychological management.
• Player wellness management
• Program analysis.*
• The political process/ Dealing with the owners/Dealing with the community /Controlling enthusiastic parents/Avoiding - exploiting the media"

[altius]

Just found something I wrote for a piece on coaching any sport at the elite level!! It does give some idea of the challenge involved. Since it is clearly impossible for beginning coaches to approach a high level of competence - the question remains what DO they need to know and be able to do? Thanks to those who have contributed already and lets see if we have more ideas about the minimal levels of competence needed to begin coaching the vault.

"Here it is important to understand that at the elite level coaching is a highly complex task where success will often be determined as much by the environment in which a coach is working as it does by their knowledge and skill! The key elements of a perfect coaching environment ar
• Athletes with a determination to succeed that borders on obsession.
• An appropriate training environment.
• Time for training.
• The financial support – or athletes who are so committed to success that they will make any sacrifice as is often the case with some Olympic sports,
• Medical support – including doctors, physiotherapists, masseurs.
• Sports science support – this can range from the video analysis of games to blood testing.
• Sports psychology support.
• A varied and challenging competition program.
• The chance for athletes to begin a career path outside sport – if that is what they want to do.
• A supportive community.
• An intelligent administration that values coaching.

No matter how favourable the environment, coaching remains a complex undertaking. One way to make it more approachable is to identify the key processes. These are;
• Talent Identification*
• Recruiting*
• The integration of new athletes into a squad.
• Team building
• Player assessment.*
• Player counselling
• Planning.*
• Instruction.*
• Organising.
• Administration
• Technical coaching.*
• Tactical coaching.*
• Developing team strategy.*
• Preparing for competition – the game plan!*
• Coaching in the game.*
• Match analysis.*
• Physical conditioning.*
• Psychological management.
• Player wellness management
• Program analysis.*
• The political process/ Dealing with the owners/Dealing with the community /Controlling enthusiastic parents/Avoiding - exploiting the media"

[AVC Coach]

I know that this thread is in the "Advanced" forum, but I'm assuming this question stretches across the board to encompass the beginner, intermediate, elite, pseudo coaches and the braggarts. I think some basic knowledge of the science of the pole vault should be a minimal requirement along with an equal amount of enough common sense to keep the athletes safe. If you can manage to couple those two, I believe the coach must be able to convey what he/she knows to the athletes without overloading them with information. There are times in the athlete's development where technical information injection is needed and a good coach will provide that insight when opportunities present themselves.

[PV2020]

This is kind of a side note on this.

People always like to throw around the idea of a 'coaching certificate' requirement for all pole vault coaches. Some kind of classes everyone must take to be a pole vault coach.

This sounds really nice on paper. And I am a fan of it for a lot of people. But there's the whole experience thing too.

Like you want someone that knows nothing about the pole vault to take a class. But should someone that vaulted through college need to? I know just being a good athlete does not make you a good coach by any means. But if the NCAA required every coach to take a pole vault class, would a guys like Dave Butler or Bob Phillips really have to take the thing?

I have heard coaches that are very respected by the NCAA and USATF talk about how to pole vault, and I do not agree with it at all. So what if they come out with a class and I just find it comical how much I disagree? I guess it becomes like college. Sometimes you have to do it their way before you can do it your way. And for a coach that knows nothing their way is better than just not knowing.

I also think the NCAA needs to look at one thing. As of right now universities can not pay for coaches education for volunteer coaches. A large number of universities rely on volunteer coaches to coach the event. If for some reason the NCAA required everyone to take a class that cost money, some of the volunteer coaches may not be able to afford it. I know starting young as a volunteer coach I could not afford a few hundred dollars and travel to coaching clinics. If the NCAA would allow universities to pay for training they could make the event safer by letting coaches be more exposed to the event.