Sport coaching and mentoring: Lessons learned from an evaluation of a sport-related mentoring initiative

The role of mentoring in sport coaching education and development has become a common feature of the associated academic literature, particularly in relation to the support given to coaches. Much less attention has been paid to the coach’s role as a mentor to her athletes. This paper draws upon the lessons learned from a mentoring initiative in which elite athletes and coaches acted as mentors to young people who had become disengaged from education and social expectations. The findings from an evaluation of the programme are considered in the context of the coach’s role. Three distinct approaches to the mentoring role are identified – external, internal-discrete, and integral. The impact on more-episodic participation may be more transitory but the coach’s support role in offering security, a sounding board, experience and expert insight to issues such as coping with success and failure, education and key lifestyle transitions form performance athletes should not be underestimated and ought to be acknowledged in coach education and development.