Coaching and Care of Athletes

MAKING A CHAMPION required for strenuous effort. That is one of the reasons why one gives an athlete only a light meal at least two hours prior to a competition. The point is that if a heavy meal is eaten there is not time to digest it properly, and so the muscles are starved of their proper supply of blood, which is the fuel on which those muscles do their work. Similarly, after a very great effort it takes quite a considerable time for the blood to get back from the muscles into the digestive tract, so that, in the case of some athletes at any rate, it is a very bad thing for them to eat a hearty meal soon after a contest, or in certain cases even to eat a heavy meal on the evening following such a competition. Change is very important to the athlete, and when the training is to be carried out over a protracted period, then I think it is necessary, from time to time during such training, to take the athlete away to the seaside or to some place of interest, so that he may have a break in the routine of his schedule and get tight away from all matters connected with athletics. It is essential that such a change should be arranged if the athlete shows the slightest sign of going stale. I have spoken already of the great friendship which must exist between the coach and any individual athlete whom he is preparing for a championship or other important competition. I think I have indicated also that it is necessary for the coach to keep the athlete keen, and also to shoulder as much as he can of the ath– lete's burden oL anxiety by inducing the boy to place implicit faith in him. Here we come to something which is -influenced largely by the coach's state of mind, .as well as by that of the athlete. The thing for the coach to do is, as I have said, to get the athlete to trust ·him imRlicitly, so that the boy may have a feeling that no matter what may happen when the competition comes along, win or lose, no one is to blame, because both th~ coach and the athlete have done their best. On no account should the coach allow the athlete to think that if he fails he will be bringing dis– credit upon his mentor. I say this the more particularly because I have in mind the case of one of the world's greatest milers, who came to Engla;nd some years ago with a foreign team and failed to make good in the race for which he had been training both long and carefully. That runner undoubtedly had the ability to break world's records. It may be that he was beaten on the day by a better man, but there was so little to choose between the two men that I think, personally, that it was more the fault of the coach 93