Exploring professional coach educators’ realities, challenges and workplace relationships

Despite scholarly interest in formal coach education, there is a paucity of research with professional coach educators (tutors). To date, and despite their crucial role in certifying and developing coaches, their perspectives have lacked consideration and/or have been limited to empirical enquiry in a specific team sport. Therefore, the aim of this research was to explore the realities, challenges, and workplace relationships of 16 coach educators from different sports in the United Kingdom (UK). Semi-structured interviews were used to gain insights into their experiences and workplaces and the data were analysed thematically through inductive and deductive processes. The sociological framework of Bourdieu was adopted to provide an advanced analysis, drawing on the under-utilised concept of illusio in particular. The analyses showed that coach educators’ roles and realities were typically pressurised, challenging and repetitive. Their experiences were generally, however, contrasting depending on the sport and size of the sporting governing body (SGB). Notwithstanding, each participant exercised compliance in the workplace and performed their roles unquestioningly as they appropriated their SGBs’ methods. The findings highlight the need for further examination and critical inquiry with coach educators, coach developers, senior SGB employees, policymakers and stakeholders to shed light and facilitate greater understanding of coach educators’ realities, challenges, relationships and practice within formal coach education cultures. Only by understanding these environments from all perspectives can experiences, policy and practice be enhanced.