Coaching and Care of Athletes

THE ENGLISH SUMMER SCHOOL METHOD This first School was, of course, mainly experimental, and we soon learned that a close routine and the placing of students in squads would be .necessary, as, not unnaturally, perhaps, the students themselves showed a tendency to follow the chief foreign coach around like a flock of sheep, thus placing a great deal more work upon his shoulders than was necessary, and sometimes leaving the English amateur coaches without pupils. We learned also that it would be essential in future to separate the sheep from the goats. In other words, it was obvious that we should have to hold separate courses for the sports officers, games masters, and others who wanted to learn the technique of coaching, and for the active athletes, who would come to the School mainly ·in the hope of improving their own personal performances. In 1935, therefore, E. A. Montague, the old Oxford Blue, who was acting as my assistant organizer, drew up a comprehensive scheme of instruction by squads in the various events for Course I, which was for those who wanted to learn the art of coaching. A third week was devoted to the instruction of active athletes, incidentally, with some surprisingly good results. In r 935 I was honoured with the title of Director of Studies, the Assistant Director being M. C. Nokes, the greatest hammer– thrower this country has yet _produced, while the chief foreign coaches were J aakko Mikkola, former Finnish Olympic coach and at that time field-events coach at Harvard University, and Charles Hoff, of Norway, former holder of the world's pole vault record and a very great all-round athlete. In the next year Mikkola was promoted to the position of head track and field coach at Harvard, but again .came to England to give us his assistance. The Sc-hool at Loughborough was then in full working order, with anything from tyvelve to fifteen amateur coaches giving their services each year for three weeks and some two or three hundred students attending regularly. The reports that c~me in afterwards from those who had attended the School for the purpose oflearning ho~ to coach were most encouraging, while the performances of those young men who had attended the active athlete's week spoke for themselves. E. A. Montague's scheme of instruction by squads worked admirably, and it was now clear that Course I, lasting for the first fortnight of the School, was well calculated to meet the needs of schoolmasters, sports officers, club coaches, ;:tnd others who wished to learn how to coach. On account of the accom~odation available, 39