There are plenty of reasons why you should go to university, one of the main reasons is to develop your skills and knowledge as a sports coach. There are a lot of opportunities to study content that you wouldn't or barely touch such as; promoting positive coaching environments and elements of sports science. Universities promote students to think critically, to ask why it and how it happened? A real positive is that you can adapt your degree to an area of interest, for example; in my degree I was interested in school sport and I had the opportunity to study modules relevant to school sport. Other areas that I could have studied were elite coaching and personal training. Some of the modules I rated highly were the reflection based modules, these modules allowed me to go and do some coaching practice and after doing the practice I had to reflect in various ways to create a portfolio. The portfolio consisted of a journal of every session I delivered, session plans, skills log, action plans and much more. These modules really helped me in my development as a coach, I had to plan, deliver and review these sessions and I learnt a lot about myself as a coach.
The tutors play a massive role in the course in terms or directing you to reading material and they provide excellent advice in terms of progression and career. Their knowledge is up to date and the tutors specialize in many different areas and also provide experience from past jobs or other sports. The other coaches you meet play a massive part in your development as a coach because you meet coaches that are more experienced than you and also from different sports which allows a lot of peer learning to take place. You do learn a lot over the 3 year course but you only really appreciate the knowledge and experience after you finish. I felt that when I finished the course I understood more of what the tutors were teaching and I could apply what I learnt in a coaching context outside university. I believe that this was down to the fact that when I started the course I was young and inexperienced because my role at the time was assisting coaches by putting cones out etc. As I took on more responsibility and gained more qualifications I could apply the knowledge and theory from coaching methods into my coaching.
There is an argument against doing a degree in sports coaching because you technically you don't need one to coach. Also with the cost of going to university to study a degree being so high it can put people off and question the worth of going. Looking at the average price of national governing body awards I can see why people would rather do these than go to university. The average level 1 costs between £60-£100 and the average level 2 costs between £150-£300. National governing bodies are starting to provide extra qualifications that are a lot more advanced and they say are equivalent to degree level. The qualification will be undertaken over 1 or 2 years and will consist of observations and different types of assessments such as; exams and practical assessments. Going down this route is beneficial if you just want to specialize in one particular sport and the people on the course will all be interested in the same sport.
The only negative I found from doing the course is the practical coaching side. There were students who were very academic but they really struggled to coach. They understood the theory side of things and could complete the assignments to a high standard however, they couldn't deliver a coaching session that was fun, effective and engaging. This student would be presented with a degree in sports coaching and employers will expecting them to be excellent at delivering because of the title, however I found that this was not the case. I felt that there should be more assessments that tested the students ability to deliver a session.
To conclude, if any coach wants to make a career out of coaching I believe that university is crucial in making that happen. You have to make yourself employable by having qualifications that are well respected and that seperate you out from the rest. At the end of the day coaches who coach for a hobby can gain qualifications such as NGB's awards over a weekend. A degree will allow you to think critically about issues in sport and also your own coaching. University allows you to learn off other students and their experiences in other sports, furthermore tutors provide excellent advice that can help develop your career and aid your coaching journey. I understand that university can cost an absolute bomb but there is financial support available in terms of loans. National governing bodies are offering higher qualifications that claim to be a similar level to degree, but the problem with this is that the people on the course will be from the same sporting background and will miss out on learning from other sports.
@dannymaynard92
