Long-needed collection of perspectives on multiple coaching roles and environments

Sanna Erdoğan
University of Lapland, Rovaniemi, Finland

Coaching Stories: Navigating Storms, Triumphs, and Transformations in Sport is a book that people working in coach education or as coach developers have long been expecting. The book consists of 28 chapters, each following the same structure. Every chapter begins with a unique coaching story and questions related to the narrative. After that, the authors provide literature enhancing the understanding of essential themes presented in the coach story. Finally, the chapters provide practical considerations and guidelines for more nuanced coaching practices. Additionally, other reflective questions are provided to engage literature in a broader understanding of various coaching experiences, competencies, successes, and barriers, to name a few.

The 28 chapters are divided into six parts. Although all chapters have interesting and vital content, I have used an all-encompassing perspective to summarise the key topics. The book is 312 pages long, so the extensive review can be considered a reasonable choice. Hence, this book review is more about introducing the book than providing a profound analysis. To put it another way, my compendium ignores the individual characteristics of each article, which must be considered when reading this review.

Ultimately, I will propound some interpretations from my reading experience and suggest how to navigate this book regarding coaching, coach education, and research.

Summary of the six parts of the book

The first part, ‘The Performance Context’, discusses coaches’ career development, learning, and the influence of surrounding culture or circumstances. The authors underline the impact of cultural context and recognise how it influences learning in formal and informal ways. Reading a story about a female coach’s experiences of dismissive behaviours in her sports club, a coach’s reflections on para-sports, and perspectives about coaches with intersectional identities gives a comprehensive picture of diverse and intersecting environments in coaching in the performance context. Moreover, the articles provide essential questions on how to support coaches of minoritised backgrounds. The authors take account of the changes in different organisational structures and consider, for example, the demands of leadership in comprehensive organisations. As a reviewer, I find it delightful to notice that sports are no longer seen as a separate area of society with extraordinary rules. On the contrary, sports are intertwined with the changing world and current phenomena, and coaches can take responsibility for making sports more diverse and equal.

Even though coaches’ stories reveal many challenging situations in various environments, the authors provide practical examples of how to handle emotions, learn to cooperate with others, or find a solution that can make coaching more tolerant and resilient.

The book’s second part, ‘Athlete Focused Relationships’, illuminates coaches’ leadership skills and focuses on relationships with athletes. Stories give practical examples of developing a team culture that positively influences athletes’ outcomes and performance success. On the other hand, narratives reveal the struggles to balance connecting with athletes and striving for success. Additionally, the authors shed light on how coaches navigate between results and holistic approaches or manage emotions when coaching their children. All these themes are related to personal coach-athlete relationships and, in a broader sense, building a dialogic and communicative coaching environment. Coaching stories emphasise how the paradigm moves away from “traditional” authoritative coaching, where coaches are assumed to hide their feelings and vulnerabilities. Authors raise vital questions about how much coaches should share their feelings or personal attributes such as sexual orientation. These questions are underlined when considering a discussion on coaches’ mental well-being in a situation where discrimination towards LGBTQIA+ people persists.

The third part, ‘Managing Multiple Relationships’, reveals intense coach-athlete relationships when making challenging decisions, such as coping with injuries, ensuring safe environments or finding effective collaboration in interdisciplinary teams of experts. The authors consider relationship tensions with athletes’ parents or sports clubs’ operational structures. Aiming to find solutions rather than concentrate on difficulties is expansive in these articles. Even though coaches’ stories reveal many challenging situations in various environments, the authors provide practical examples of how to handle emotions, learn to cooperate with others, or find a solution that can make coaching more tolerant and resilient. Furthermore, the narratives reveal how coaches manage multiple relationships, intending to strive for excellence and do their best to achieve common goals.

The fourth part, ‘Coach’s own Performance and Skills’, informs the reader of the pressure coaches may have. These include pressures to win, struggles to create togetherness with athletes from diverse backgrounds, managing intense emotions during competitions or tackling stress.  Focusing on coaches’ performance and skills, the stories reveal how coaches’ interpersonal pressures relate to coaching environments or stakeholders’ demands. Additionally, coaches belonging to minority groups can build more obstacles than support from peer coaches. The chapters provide an extensive understanding of how unique the coaching field is as a workplace and working environment – full of passion, care, self-care, pressure, enjoyment, fun, disappointment and/or anxiety. All these multiple coaching tasks and demands underline the need to support coaches in their work, especially in high-performance sports with achievement-orientated goals.

Focusing on uncertainty and adversity, the fifth part, ‘Performing through Adversity and Uncertainty’, discusses coaches’ demanding work, complex tasks and numerous uncontrollable elements in coaching. The increasing understanding of holistic, athlete-centred coaching style increases demand for coaches’ competence, especially in mutually respective sporting cultures. The articles raise vital notifications about a coach’s power relationship with athletes and, respectively, the difficulties when changing coaching culture from a coach-centred, authoritative style to a more holistic one. Furthermore, frameworks are offered to coaches to learn self-reflectivity, communication skills, and openness to change. The chapters provide a good starting point for revising the policies of sports organisations that support coaches in adverse situations. Additionally, the authors call for all people working within sports disciplines to make plans to support coaches in their precarious work.

The final part, ‘Self-care, Well-being, and Ill-being’, continues on topics of coaches’ characteristics and self-management. Stories from slightly different perspectives advise finding personal learning paths and help recognise motivation to coach, provide hints on self-care, and discuss the importance of well-being. Honest and sincere stories reveal pressures, stress, difficulties, and problems coaches may have with work-life balance. On the other hand, even though coaching at a high-performance level is demanding, it can be full of joyous excitement, learning together, amusement and satisfaction. With that in mind, the connective element in these texts is never-ending learning and, significantly, finding an individual learning and coaching style that supports one’s values. In turn, I would like readers to consider whether these stories could reduce persisting expectations of coaching as a 24/7 work.

Reviewer’s comments

Various books and articles have previously emphasised coaches’ essential role in coaching effectively. This is a long-needed collection of perspectives on multiple coaching roles and environments. The book’s clear structure and precise construction in every article make reading chapters in mixed order easier. The similar order allows choosing “an evening story” daily. The personal narratives contribute to a nuanced understanding of coaching, with abundance and organisational coherence, making it enjoyable for a reader to summarise analytical understanding.

The book is a fluent and delightful combination of theory, practice, and real-life stories that adapt to various environments, sports disciplines, and coaching domains. Reflective questions help contextualise a comprehensive understanding of research literature, evidence-based knowledge, and coaching practices. Engaging stories and accompanying literature resources are informative and relevant, and practical considerations are explicit, accurate, and easy to apply to coaching. Those include various examples, such as cheerful games or conversation topics coaches can use with their athletes.

The book provides a clear and accessible introduction to coaching themes, pedagogical tools, and research outcomes, making them more understandable for educators and scholars seeking theoretical engagement.

I recommend the book for coach educators, mentors, and people facilitating coach education. It is a convincing collection of stories that reveal the importance of coaches’ roles in sports. The text is commendable for its clarity and organisation, making it a valuable tool for instructional purposes. The book provides a clear and accessible introduction to coaching themes, pedagogical tools, and research outcomes, making them more understandable for educators and scholars seeking theoretical engagement. The book can support developing a broader understanding of coaching and can be used to increase pedagogical options in coaches’ education. Although the book offers a well-structured overview, every chapter has limited space, positioning it primarily as a resource for teaching rather than for advanced scholarship.

Potential considerations

The diversity and prosperity of multiple coaching stories is a fantastic idea. While including numerous individual stories offers a comprehensive perspective on the subject matter, their sheer volume and fragmented presentation may overwhelm the reader, potentially obscuring the book’s central argument. Furthermore, it would have been interesting to revise a structure where there would be one coach story and then, for example, three different perspectives from that story. It would have been interesting to read how one story can be analysed from multiple points of view and theories. Additionally, the absence of a more structured synthesis may limit the book’s usefulness for researchers seeking a systematic and analytically rigorous examination of the topics.

The book consists of diverse coaching stories, which is significant for me as a feminist reader. Examining female coaches’ experiences is vital since many sports disciplines are male-dominated, and equality needs to be improved. Understanding how to create a more inclusive coaching environment and support coaches from minoritised backgrounds, together with an intersectional approach, is vital. On the other hand, using my critical gender scholar lenses, there is a tendency to provide a thorough analysis of women’s gender and treat men as a neutral or unmarked category rather than as gendered subjects. This reinforces the problematic notion that gender is a concern primarily for women rather than a relational and socially constructed phenomenon affecting all individuals. By focusing exclusively on women’s gender without examining how masculinity is constructed and maintained, the analysis risks reinforcing the assumption that men exist outside of gendered structures.

While the editors make a conscious effort to adopt a gender-inclusive approach, some stories inadvertently reinforce male normativity through their framing, language, and choice of examples. This limits the book’s effectiveness in truly challenging dominant gender paradigms, thereby perpetuating rather than deconstructing normative gender hierarchies. There is potential for a more comprehensive understanding of gender dynamics. In the future, coaching research could analyse, for example, how male coaches feel about gender dynamics in coaching practices. Coaching literature could use expertise from scholars engaged in critical studies of men and masculinities. Transformations in gender balance in sports need to emphasise that gender is a relational construct shaped by both femininity and masculinity. This opportunity explores how male gender norms contribute to the broader social structures under discussion.

Conclusion

To conclude, the book weaves together powerful stories of individuals who navigate the complex world of sports, facing personal and professional storms. Through challenges and setbacks, coaches find strength, for example, in mentorship and personal well-being strategies, with stakeholders’ guidance and support playing a crucial role in their journey. Coaches struggle to lead to moments of triumph, highlighting the resilience required to succeed. Ultimately, the book explores the profound transformations that emerge from perseverance, revealing how sports coaching catalyses personal growth and change. The book responds to having a broader evidence-based understanding of coaching. It is paramount to scholars looking for practical considerations when discussing coaching and to people willing to change traditional norms or expand their knowledge of coaching practices.

Copyright © Sanna Erdoğan 2025