|  | Feature: “Ethical Issues in Coaching” | No.58 January 2010 |
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Ethics and Sports Coaching Richard Bailey |
Coaching, like sport in general, is laden with issues of value and morality. Indeed, one does not need to spend very much time with coaches or sport scholars before someone starts talking about fair play, drug-taking and doping, equity and equality, and so on. This tendency to drift into otherwise unworldly debates about morality may be partly due to a common assumption among those involved that sport in its different forms can act as a sort of laboratory for life. Players and coaches are confronted with ethical dilemmas as a routine feature of their sporting participation, and so, the argument goes, they come to experience, reflect on and learn about moral concerns whose relevance and importance extend far beyond the gym or playing field. For what it is worth, I am inclined to agree with the popular view: to engage with sport is to engage with ethics, whether we recognize it or not (or whether we like it or not!). Coaches, then, have an extremely important role to play, as they are often gatekeepers to the world of sport and its moral implications. The contributions that make up this collection are all concerned, in one way or another, with ethical aspects of coaching. The presentation of the collection, as a whole, is rather more diverse than is usual for an ICSSPE Bulletin, and that is partly due to the fact that we were keen to include some presentations from the recent international conference of the International Council for Coach Education in Canada. So, many of the articles that follow are ‘hot off the press’, and represent some of the latest thinking and research in coaching and coaching ethics. We hope you are challenged, entertained, intrigued and / or educated by this diverse collection of articles. Contact Prof. Dr. Richard Bailey Birmingham , UK ICSSPE Editorial Board Email: baileyrichard1@me.com http://www.icsspe.org/portal/index.php?w=1&z=5