ABSTRACT
This chapter deals with the question of what coaching is about and what makes it distinctive from other roles. This may appear to be a rather unnecessary deliberation over what might turn out to be quite small differences in role or purpose. However, there have been significant inter-role and intra-role confusions. The ambiguity between teaching and coaching roles is a good example, as is the interpretation in some sports of the coach’s sole purpose as technique and tactics specialist. The question of boundary markers is a key part of the conceptual framework for which arguments were presented in the previous chapter. In fact, the rationale for clarifying the precise nature of coaching is very similar to that outlined in Chapter 2.
