A brief historical look at the organised approach to coadh education in SA

History is a word that means many things to many people and is a great base for reflection and consideration for future development.

South Australia should be proud of its input into Coach Development in Australian Football and through the care and concern for the Game and its participants over the past 40 or so years the SANFL, in conjunction with a variety of agencies, has produced some great leadership to assist the development of the Game through formal Coach Education - there is a great tradition of support for coaches in SA.

Life is punctuated with examples of people who have contributed as assistants to the development of personal and team skill and have shown great initiatives over the 150 years since the origins of the Game.

However, it was in the 1960s that we saw some huge initiatives in Game Development with people becoming very inquisitive about athletic performance as part of a general administrative will to grow the Game in all aspects, eg the VFL and the Stadium at Waverley, and the SANFL and the Stadium at West Lakes as physical, structural indicators. There was a settling of Australian Society after the Second World War and a sense of consideration about life and a formalization of education as a key base for development. Physical education was introduced as a formal option in Universities and Teacher’s Colleges.

Probably the most significant decision with regard to the SANFL’s input into sport education development was the appointment of Donald Vivian Roach as Publicity and Promotions Officer for the SANFL around 1970 to include the key responsibilities of Promotion of the Game and act as Editor of the SA Football Budget. Don had an outstanding record as a player at West Adelaide in the late 50s and early 60s, gaining selection in the All-Australian team after the 1961 Carnival in Brisbane. He then moved to Hawthorn, VFL, in 1964/65, before returning as playing coach of West Adelaide in 1966/67. Like most coaches he was ‘dumped’ and after the WAFC refused to clear him he stood out of the Game for over a year and then joined the Norwood FC where he became a playing assistant to a most exciting group of young players.

The Norwood Football Club was strongly into the development of school football, including rule modification for young players and recruiting and welfare of talented players under the guidance of prominent Master Builder and President Albert (‘Bert’) W Baulderstone. As fate would have it the Sturt Football Club had taken the SA football world by storm winning 5 consecutive premierships from 1966 to 1970 and it had unearthed a leader, Raymond W Kutcher, who had almost ‘begged’ legendary coach Jack Oatey to resurrect his coaching career at Unley in 1962. Ray, an engineer with the Electricity Trust of SA, and Bert were members of the Norwood Rotary Club and the Club provided a great meeting place for two men who were visionaries in the true sense of the word. The well healed cliché that the team was greater than the individual, the Club was greater than the team, and the Game was greater than all the aforementioned was truly a maxim for these two passionate men. Ray and Bert discussed the building of Football Park and Ray, as the Sturt delegate to the SANFL, was a leader in pushing that the SANFL to have its own home while Bert was building a new Norwood FC.

It was through Ray and a small band of cohorts, including Justice Don Brebner, Norm Grimm and Kim Smith, that Australian Football saw the need for not only a physical home but the education of administrators and staff, the most significant being coaches. And so the appointment of Don Roach was made to get the process off the ground.

Athletics throughout the world was looking at training techniques, including the use of ‘medications’, to improve the physical attributes of endurance, strength, speed, (power and agility), and flexibility. Australian Football was being influenced by coaches who were starting to use athletic coaches and trainers to assist physical performance of players.

With the educational examination of sports also came the consideration of technical development of skills and the associated development of team/game play skills. The coaches knew that there were tactics and they had employed them since the inception of the Game. Now there was the start of an era of how all the parts could be best put together in any one team for optimal performance through the agency of education.

At the SANFL Don Roach led the way in SA to a growth of the game in the key educational institutions, the schools, and in the community, that saw a cooperative input from experienced coaches from many sports as well as academics that resulted in,

• Cooperation with Jess Jarver, the famed athletics coach, who was leading the way in Coach Education for Athletic Coaches.
• The 1st official coaching course in Australian Football being convened at the Norwood Football Club in 1971 with coaches receiving a certificate with photo on completion.
• The birth of a Newsletter and the birth of the ‘Australian Football Coach’ Year Book in 1972. Two further publications were compiled in 1973/74 and 1974/75 and the first manual of coaching was not far away.

Through Ray Kutcher’s incredible will to not only have the Game in SA recognized, but to include the picture of a great National Game, Ray was appointed to the National Australian Football Council as SA’s delegate, and with lobbying and zeal a National Director of Coaching was appointed in the mid 1970s – Daryl Hicks, a SA school teacher and coach, SA State representative and former Sturt Player.

Daryl Hicks involved coaches from around the country to develop the National Football League of Australia Coaches Manual. The Manual was compiled by the National Coaching Committee of Cliff Semmler (Chairman), J. Davies, C Andrew, Dr Colin Davey, Dr Ken Fitch, Jack Oatey, Ross Smith, K Webb, and R. W. H. Kutcher (ex officio) and Daryl. (It is of note that Cliff Semmler was himself a football initiator and key mover in the establishment of the West Adelaide FC’s development of their home ground at Richmond in the 1950’s.

It is worth noting the acknowledgements in the front of the first Manual and the considerable input from SA. Let us also remember though that there were some people in Victoria who were also very keen to extend the knowledge base of the Game and people like David Parkin from Hawthorn and Ross Smith from St Kilda were key protagonists in the examination of the Game from an educational perspective that integrated both theory and practice.

There has been reluctance by some coaches and clubs to share their coaching practice for fear that it may jeopardize their ability to have a ‘winning edge’. The discussion in this area has been most interesting and one leading coach of over 20 years experience felt strongly that no matter how much information one has about another team’s strategy, the fact that his team played together 20 times and trained together at least another 50 times was enough in itself to always give an advantage over any team that only played against them twice per season. Hence knowledge sharing meant very little in stopping the opponent and, in fact, probably hindered any team’s ability to realize its own coordinated endeavours while placing too much attention to the opponent.

Education has reinforced much of this observation. It is acknowledged that for very high personal skill levels the player should indulge in around 10,000 hours of practice. It would not seem unreasonable to apply such a principle to learning game tactics to read each other’s play? And as we have studied more about the nature of the game and its very ‘openness’, (ie, very little restriction of movement), the casual observation of the ‘old coach’ has been reinforced by educational theory.

So, for the past 30+ years we have seen the birth of education for coaches to the present stage where information sharing is mandatory and introduction to coaching practice through education is compulsory in all bodies affiliated with the AFL through its Game Development Department.

The SANFL remains a positive and proud contributor to Coach Education through theory and practice in conjunction with the AFL and the Australian Sports Commission and the principles promoted through the National Coaching Accreditation Scheme.

The more we discuss the wide variety of aspects relating to the Game the more we realize the ‘openness’ of its nature and the fantastic opportunity there is to develop team tactics for one’s own team and the personal fitness and technical skills of the players.

• For example, “Are we doing enough in each aspect, are we doing too much of one, or whatever, to get the balance right for a sound team performance.

There remains a thirst for knowledge about the game by players, coaches, and the wider community in what seems to be such a simple game. But those who have played and coached realise only too well how difficult it is to perform the simplest technical skills let alone have a coordinated team movement of the ball to get it through the “the two big sticks”!

Historically the SANFL has understood the huge difference between the coach and the player.

As a player we receive information, we practice, we play, we socialize, and in general we are united through astute help.

As a coach we give game and technical information and probably a lot more. Giving is something that has associated with it huge responsibility for it presumes a high degree of genuineness/honesty/integrity through sound knowledge and respectful understanding of the whole picture to impart such knowledge.

It is lovely to receive, but to give, often whist subject to the severest criticism, and not a lot of ongoing help, is not easy.

But history has shown that, on reflection, people who have had the opportunity to have been assisted by a true ‘giver’, who cares about knowledge and respect for others, really appreciate that opportunity to have shared in the teamwork and hence the Game is the winner, and so is the community. The coach is often respected by players many years after they have left the game for the opportunity given and the manner it was presented. The tradition developed in SA has been one of a healthy respect for Coach Education in both theory and practice and those basic activities pursued some 40 years ago are now well and truly engrained in the new AFL and its clubs as well as the whole Australian Football community.

Click here to view the ‘Foreword’ by Raymond W H Kutcher from the original NFL Coaches Manual.