“There are many similarities in management and golf, as there are in teaching management and in teaching golf.” (Montana v) That is the idea and the objective of this paper, to illustrate the parallel relationship between managing and athletic coaching. Although coaching is already one of the essential skills of a good manager, I feel that athletic coaches are managers and visa versa. For example, in England soccer coaches are called and regarded as managers similar to baseball coaches. Management is working with and through other people in order to accomplish the objectives of the organization and its members while coaching is a process that enables learning and development to occur and thus performance to improve. To be successful, a coach requires knowledge and understanding of the management process as well as the variety of styles, skills and techniques that are appropriate to the context in which the coaching takes place.
Managers, similar to athletic coaches, focus on the entire organization from both a short and a long-term perspective. Management is the managerial process of forming a strategic vision, setting objectives, crafting a strategy, and then implementing and executing the strategy. Coaching involves forming a team and establishing a coaching philosophy. A coaching philosophy that is well thought through clarifies many aspects of the coach's delivery and presents a consistent and positive message to the athletes being coached. This is what is so interesting about this relationship; every aspect or function of management directly relates to an aspect of athletic coaching.
Management consists of four basic pillars: planning, organizing, controlling, and delegating. Management starts with planning and good management starts with good planning. For an athletic coach setting up for the season begins at the end of the pervious season. At the end of the season, the sports organization must first decide in firing or hiring a coach. Once that has...