Recorded in 2020, my guest is Robin Williams MBE, a coaching legend! He helped Helen Glover win an Olympic gold medal in London 2012, with her rowing crewmate Heather Stanning, after only two years in the sport. Also, Robin was steering the ship (no pun intended) when they repeated the feat four years later at the Rio Games. All this even though Heather famously had to stand on tiptoes to be accepted into the GB rowing’s performance programme. The pair, along with Polly Swann, won an unbroken sequence of twelve gold medal victories at world level and became world record holders under Robin’s tutelage. 

Robin had a 7 to 4 win/loss ratio in the Boat Race as Varsity Head coach at Cambridge University during the 1990s and early 2000s. 

Robin was appointed a Member of the Oder of the British Empire in 2013, for services to rowing.

We talk about how writing makes you a better coach, how to collaborate with your athletes, creating a framework for your sessions with a narrative, coping with a severe illness when coaching … and stick around to the end to discover how you should be communicating with your athletes.

Robin was the first person on my list of “dream guests” when starting the podcast, so I’m incredibly honoured to be speaking with him. He’s one of my heroes, so I’m playing the fan-boy in this episode. I also completely screw up a question I felt I needed to ask him, but found it very difficult to ask. How do you ask a hero of yours about his dealing with cancer? Anyway, I do get around to asking, but in a very roundabout way…

Sue Dewhurst is an expert in Internal Communications having been Head of Internal Comms for Barclay's Bank, the Royal Mail and NTL (before it became Virgin Media). Over 6,000 people have been through her Internal Comms training course. The second edition of her book Successful Employee Communications was released recently. 

Sue's Book: Successful Employee Communications - https://geni.us/SbUBGiP

Amanda Coleman was Head of Communications for the Greater Manchester Police for many years, until her retirement in 2019. It was her role to coordinate all communications following the Manchester Arena suicide bombing in 2017. Since her retirement, Amanda had started a consultancy using her wealth of experience to help organisations with all types of communication, but especially communication in a crisis. She released a book titled Crisis Communications Strategies in 2020. Amanda's website: https://amandacolemancomms.co.uk/ Amanda's book: https://geni.us/PWyoBCM

Hey Folks… 

This episode is a little different from the others I’ve produced in the past. My intention with this episode was not to talk about coaching. 

My guest today came across my horizon with an article he wrote, in two parts, posted on LinkedIn. 

The post was about the business of rowing. 

The start of this podcast interview with John Voykevich is a discussion about improving the funding in the sport of rowing. Hopefully, if you coach another sport, you can relate to the topics we cover.

If you think this sounds deadly dull and you’re just here for the coaching tips, then I suggest you skip to the last quarter of the interview.

My guest today, John Voykevich, is a rowing coach based in Los Angeles, California. He’s the Varsity Coach for the UCLA Junior Rowing Team, who row out of UCLA's Marine Aquatic Centre in Marina Del Rey.

John also started and runs Madder Consulting a business which helps different rowing clubs meet their challenges.

Today I’m talking with R. Sasikumar, also known as Sasi. Sasi is a former Singapore International and Professional footballer. 

He’s the Founder and CEO of Red Card Marketing Group. 

Sasi has recently started a new project helping sports coaches become sports entrepreneurs. If you’d like to find out how he can help you with your business go to his website - https://sportsbusinessmentor.com 

Sasi had also published a book about starting and expanding a sports business, specifically for people who coach sport already, called The Sports Coaching Business Formula 

He’s very kindly agreed to offer the book to listeners of this podcast for free

There’s a link in the show notes for you to get it.

Today I’m talking with Caitlin Glenn Sapp - Caitlin has a doctorate in Physical Therapy and runs a practice - Crew Racing - in Youngstown Ohio, which is a small rural town between Pittsburgh and Cleveland.

Caitlin also coaches triathletes and has competed herself.

She has run 7 full Ironmans including the 2015 World Championships in Kona. She is also the 2015 Ironman USA National Champion in the 25-29 age category.

In this episode you’ll learn about recovery after exercise, grieving and mourning injuries, setting goals in a time of global pandemic and stick around to the end to find out about coaching what NOT to do...

Today I’m talking with Ashley Neaves - Director and Head Coach at The Avenue Tennis Club located in the town of Havant on England’s South Coast.

Ashley is a Lawn Tennis Association Senior Performance Coach and an LTA Coach Tutor. He was nominated Best British Tennis Coach in 2017.

In this episode you’ll learn how to coach for a competition with unusual and difficult conditions, how becoming a YouTuber can improve your coaching, helping athletes avoid burnout and stick around to the end to discover two key and unusual pieces of advice for new and improving coaches.

More from Ashley:

https://www.theavenuetennis.com/team

https://www.instagram.com/the_tennis_mentor/

 https://www.youtube.com/channel/UC2LVXfuqbYGE82WsxElBuEw

In this episode, I speak with Cheryl Anderson, a golf pro who coaches at the Mike Bender Academy situated in Florida.

Cheryl is a top 50 coach on the Golf Digest list, Top 100 coach on the Golf Magazine list, she has been LPGA National Teacher of the Year and has played on the Ladies Pro Tour. 

You’ll learn about using teaching aids in coaching, using metaphor to explain things to your athletes, how to coach an athlete with a physical limitation and stick around to the end to discover what a jar of marbles has to do with perfection.

 In this episode, I’m talking with Tony Mee, Lead Youth Development Phase Coach at Doncaster Rovers - a soccer club in the county of Yorkshire, towards the North of the UK.

This episode was hastily arranged as I discovered Tony Mee is raising money for a fantastic charity by releasing a book on coaching.

All proceeds for the book, which is titled Through The Thirds - A Systematic Approach to Planning Your Football Season go to The Huntingdon’s Disease Association.

Tony has a very close connection with the charity as his wife suffers from Huntingdon’s Disease. 

There’s a link to the book in the show notes to this episode and whatever sport you coach, I encourage you to buy a copy. Not only is it high on great content, but you’ll also be supporting a wonderful cause!

You’ll learn about Mentoring, how to teach young players about behaviour, how a grassroots coach can make a positive difference to their next coaching session … and stick around to the end to find out how grassroots coaching can benefit from having a coaching syllabus.

Jeremy Lazarus has been consulting as a master coach and NLP trainer with his business The Lazarus Consultancy since 1999.

He’s also worked extensively with sportsmen and women, including the GB shooting team, as a performance coach.

However, it was Jeremy’s book, titled Ahead of the Game - which is currently at number 35 in the Amazon bestseller list for “sports coaching” - which brought him to my attention. 

Ahead of the Game outlines a step by step “how-to” for sports coaches to use NLP to help athletes improve their performance. 

I’ve provided links to Jeremy’s book Ahead of the Game in the show notes to this episode. We also mention a few other books and some resources which I’ve provided a link to as well.

In this episode we talk about small words having big meanings, how people interpret information differently, how to talk with your athletes about their life outside of their sport … and stick around to the end to find out how to come up with better questions for your athletes.

If you enjoy this episode then you might consider sharing it with someone else who might like it as well!

More from Jeremy Lazarus:

https://www.thelazarus.com/