Scott McNeill is a Performance Coach Developer for GB Hockey, a Performance Director for the Canoe Association of Northern Ireland as well as a mentor for the Premier League.
He has been part of a group of people that have led a transformation within GB Field Hockey to redevelop the player development system in line with the principles of Ecological Dynamics.
In this fascinating conversation, Scott describes the journey of bringing about this change within the sport and some of the key pillars of embedding these concepts and ideas into the psyche of the playing and coaching community.
While this discussion explores how this is done on a whole sport scale, the ideas and approaches that are shared by Scott apply to anybody looking to foster a player centred environment which allows players to thrive and develop.
Even though I have been on this journey with Scott and his colleagues as a coach and coach developer, I still found the conversation fascinating and insightful. I know you will too!!
Enjoy!!
This Podcast is brought to you by a great new book called 'Conversations for the Journey - 40 ways to build sporting character' by Richard Shorter from www.non-perfectdad.co.uk. It is a great book packed full of useful ideas and questions to engage the young sports athlete. It is great to parents but also great for coaches (a proper stocking filler!)
Subscribers to The Talent Equation can get a special 10% discount if they click on this link
Richard Shorter has spent his life committed to supporting families to improve their communication and relationship dynamics. He set us www.non-perfectdad.co.uk to provide a space for sporting parents to help to navigate the dynamic world of sport for young people.
In this illuminating and energising conversation Richard unloads 20 years of knowledge about the challenges of parenting into an hour and a half conversation that is rich with valuable ideas!
Many of these ideas have been encapsulated in Richard's new book 'Conversations for the Journey - 40 ways to build sporting character' which can be purchased at his website using a special promo code especially for Talent Equation subscribers. Use the link below to get your discount.
The book has been really useful for me in the few short weeks that it has been in my possession so I can't recommend it highly enough.
Hope you enjoy our conversation as much as I did!!
It's Parents in Sport week!! A week dedicated to providing parents with support and guidance about how to have a positive sporting experience for parents and children.
So it is only fitting that I had a conversation with Gordon MacLelland of Working with Parents in Sport
In this conversation I am actually being a sport parent and recording the podcast on my phone while watching my son play his first game of 'proper football' (this gets me into trouble so stay listening until the end to hear me try and make amends with my son for not paying enough attention to his first game....Bad Dad!!!)
Gordon and I explore the challenges of being a sports parent, we also look into how parents can navigate the increasingly competitive and ruthless world of talent identification as well as looking into some practical ideas around how coaches can build better relationships with parents.
If you can cope with the sounds of enthusiastic parents in the background and my occasion outburst as my son does something good in the game then I am sure that you will get a lot from this.
Enjoy!
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Don't forget to buy yourself an early Christmas present and book your place on the upcoming learning event on 4th January where I will be exploring the next evolution of coaching with John O'Sullivan from Changing the Game Project and Mark Bennett from Performance Development Systems. Click here for more details
I am also running another event in Scotland called 'Talent Equation Live' with the kind support of Stuart Melville's College in Edinburgh on 29th March. Details can be found here.