I read that Darren Hall offered his services to BAofE. For those of you who don't know, Darren Hall was England's no.1 singles player for absolutely ages....more than 10 years. Now, it seems that Darren offered to coach and BAofE asked him to 'learn his trade'. I assume that means take up some coaching courses i.e. learn how to teach. Is that unreasonable? I've met some pretty qualified professionals(who haven't learnt how to teach) who were absolutely rubbish at teaching, some are who are OK, and some who absolutely inspire. However, teaching is like any skill - although there are some naturals, most people could benefit from learning techniques of teaching. OR... Is it that BAofE does not have a position available for Darren Hall at all and he's a bit peeved at the prospect of being unemployed? Any comments?
might be a matter of certification Most of the coaching positions require certification. Putting in your time to get certified is probably what they are refering to. That being said, i have seen advertisements for coaching position, which required the applicants to be a particular certification level - HOWEVER, in some of these ads i noticed there was no mention of any game playing or competition experience required.
I would not pay too much attention to what the BAof E say or do. The fact is that in England badminton is an amateur sport run in an amateur fashion by amateurs. You only need to go and have a look around at Milton Keynes to come to that conclusion. The coaching is no better, on the one hand people like Darren Hall are told to piss off and get a certificate and on the other the active coaches up there tell you 'not to bother about that nonsense.' As I understand it the BAofE have only got proper grading criteria for the lower levels of coaching, and most of the coaches with the highest levels have been 'awarded' the grading rather than have to actually earn them, as in the example of Roger Mills. There are good and bad of both highly qualified and non-qualified coaches regardless of whether they earned the grading or not. On the one hand I understand that the BAofE is on some level attempting to rectify this but asking Darren to work through the coaching grades but on the other I do wonder whether that will effect what he can offer as an individual. Meanwhile how many of the coaches currently managing the national team have come up through the coaching grades? Personally I believe that you need a combination of both types of individual, you need the coaching professional to ensure stability, efficiency, effectiveness and professionality exists within the system, but you also need inspirational figures to be around the team, preferably before the current batch of players forget who they are and they forget all they knew about the game.
It is a tough decision. It has been demostrated in the past that not all good players necessarily make good coaches and vice versa. As pointed out, teaching needs skill not only in conveying your message across to all type of people but also the psychology that goes with it. A coaching course is a discipline which forces the student to undergo a systematic approach which can help him become a better coach. I can understand the frustration that England's former top singles player has to undergo a coaching course before he can coach officially. Having himself been coached in the past by so many others, he should be quite "experienced" yet it could be a differenct cup of tea as a coach. The authorities are hard pressed to maintain a policy which is applicable to all aspiring coaches and should therefore not set a precedent of making exceptions. Maybe a compromise would be to allow Darren to coach and attend a specially designed course at the same time.
Darren's doing private coaching around where I used to live. He's probably better off sticking with that rather than offering services to the inefficient and inflexible BAofE. That said, anyone is going to have a hard time working as a full time coach in the UK.
I think by learn his trade the BAOFE meant go away and coach somewhere else then come back. For instance Steve Butler coached USA before coaching England under 21 and now england senior singles. But as usual with Hall, BAOFE handled the situation badly and got more bad press. Coaching is something you learn by working with players, its about organisation, observing, comunicating, not just about the coach's personal playing standard. Also it makes me laugh when internationals charge 5 x the normal rate for coaching, I've met a lot of internationals who are terrible coaches.
