Abstract

Coaching, according to The Oxford Dictionary of Sports Science and Medicine (Kent, 2006) is “the organized provision of assistance to an individual athlete or group of athletes to help them develop and improve the performance of their chosen sport” or, as Lyle (2002) puts it, “an integrated, interdependent and serial accumulation of purposeful activities that are designed to achieve a set of objectives centred on improved competition performance.” Following these definitions, a coach should be seen as a person who provides assistance in whatever form necessary to promote the athlete’s performance. Seen from this point of view, a coach is not only a “motivator and teacher of athletes”, or “moulder of theoretical and practical training, and translator of technical information” (Kent, 2006). He or she is also an administrator, a marketing manager, a computer specialist, an educator (Jones, 2006) as well as a person who provides social and even material assistance. Perhaps, the definition of the coach as a “manager of sport performance” (Lyle, 2002) best covers all these various aspects of the coach’s activity. This broad view of coaching underlies this bibliography, which includes articles and books covering almost every aspect of this complex process of supporting the athlete in all facets of his or her existence – beginning with recruiting and ending (perhaps) with the assessment of the athlete’s performance. The range of coaching-related topics dealt with may seem diffuse at first sight. However, this impression of multifariousness is consciously intended to show how complex coaching is. Apart from all-encompassing manuals and handbooks and books focusing on coaching in athletics, this bibliography contains articles and books dealing with the following special aspects of coaching: athlete-centred coaching; coach education; coaches’ decision making; coaching behaviour; coaching communication; coaching in different countries; coaching young athletes; psychological and personal considerations of effective coaching. This bibliography includes 61 literature sources published between 2000 and the present. Aus der Einleitung