“I’m a coach because of the game. How it is played, how it evolves and how it’s taught just fascinates me. It captures my imagination more than anything else in life, but don’t let my wife hear you say that. And I just have a wish to be able to understand it better and to help other people understand it better.”

--- Dick Bate

Dick Bate is the Elite Coaching Manager of the Football Association, the governing body for football in England. He was a Sheffield schoolteacher and spent his early playing career with Alfreton Town before joining Boston United where he made a name for himself as an accomplished center. His coaching career started in 1978 when he joined Sheffield United as a youth team coach. Since then, he has worked as a Technical Director for various teams and organizations in Malaysia, Canada and England. (Via Wikipedia)

During our interview, Coach Bate emphasized his “sheer fascination” for coaching, which motivates and keeps him coaching with great enthusiasm. Also, Coach Bate highly praised National Soccer Coaches Association of America’s Coaching Academies and the Convention; “The NSCAA just works so hard to give the opportunity to coaches from all over the world to learn through their courses… It’s quite a valuable asset you have in the United States in the NSCAA. ”

NSCAA: What motivates you to continue coaching?
Dick Bate (DB): It’s just the sheer fascination of it all and the interest. There’s nothing else that interests me, and holds my attention, more than coaching. It’s the game itself and transferring what I think I understand to other people, it’s why I just keep going; nothing else rivals my love. In a sense, for coaching, it’s difficult to describe what love means, but there’s nothing else in sports that I want to be involved in other than coaching and teaching the game of football.

NSCAA: What are your thoughts on coaching education and its role in developing coaches?
DB: It’s central; it’s vital to the development of coaches. If you mean the normal, formal NSCAA courses, they are valuable, very valuable. But the continued learning outside of the NSCAA courses is as valuable, if not more, in turn. It’s a multi-faceted structure of how you can learn the game, but certainly, if you mean the formal it’s vital, but as I said, outside the formal is just as vital.

NSCAA: What has the NSCAA meant to you?
DB: It has shown me the interest Americans have in the game of soccer. Everyone told me it was all about the three games: baseball, American football and basketball; but I sense that there is more interest in association soccer than people give them credit for. The NSCAA just works so hard to give the opportunity to coaches from all over the world to learn through their courses.  And the conference you have in January, I think its first class. I don’t know anyone in the world that stages seminars or conferences like that -- the informal interaction between coaches when they’re there; and the formal interaction where you learn from other coaches and talk to other coaches about their sessions -- I think it’s just first class. It’s quite a valuable asset you have in the United States in the NSCAA.

NSCAA: What is your most memorable moment as a coach?
DB: There have been many, many memorable moments. I think the proudest moment I’ve ever had was being named an FA Staff Coach. It doesn’t mean you’re paid by the FA, but the FA recognizes you as an asset, you’re being recognized as being at the top of your profession. Other memorable times would be when I coached in the Premiership with Watford. I thoroughly enjoyed working abroad; I worked a lot in Korea, Malaysia and Canada and I did enjoy those. They’re all memorable moments.

NSCAA: What sort of qualities do you feel a coach should have?
DB: I think you have to have a deep understanding of a game from a technical and tactical viewpoint. I think you need to have an understanding of how you handle people, an emotional intelligence and an interpersonal intelligence.
I think, if you can develop it or have it naturally, being inspirational. It means when people go away from you, they wish that they could be like you and they could transfer your talks and knowledge and it becomes part of them.
I’m not sure that’s what inspirational means, but people take you and your thoughts away and it gives them more life, more energy to go out and do what they need to do. I think inspiration is vital that you should have a philosophy, a vision, of how the game should be played, and being able to explain that to people and the ingredients of what your philosophy is are crucial.
And there are the normal formal things: the organization, the observations… are all vital; but the understanding and philosophy are the major factors. I don’t think you can be a top class coach without those.

NSCAA: How do you describe the relationship between you and the players?
DB: It should always be a learning environment. That’s the first thing. It should be respectful, from coaches to players and vice versa. As you get to know the players, it will begin to move away from the professional attitudes and become a more informal, personal relationship you strike up with them. During training sessions you should treat all players similarly if you could. I think it needs to be a trusting relationship between people. They’re searching for credibility from you and you need to have credibility. As it goes on, it goes beyond respectful and goes into personal and friendly relationship with people with trust and credibility.

NSCAA: Why would you recommend coaching as a profession?
DB: I think it’s one of the professions where you never find the answer; it’s a continuous search for knowledge, for finding the answers to the game. Once it captures you, it’s really a fascination you have; beyond a fascination, some could call it an obsession. It can give you great memories of relationships you’ve started with people and great memories of experiences you will have outside the jobs. Just the sheer fascination and intrigue about the art of coaching, the science of coaching and of course the way the game is played.

Share your passion along with world renowned clinician, Dick Bate, at NSCAA.com/icoach.  
Twitter: #imacoach

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