ABSTRACT
This chapter focuses on the mentoring of athletes by coaches, and highlights the opportunities and challenges to well-being for coaches that result from some relationships. The reason for asking the first question is that mentoring is certainly a popular term, but it likely has different connotations for various people depending on their circumstances. An ongoing issue identified in the research literature is the lack of consensus regarding what mentoring is and is not and what it means in relation to a coach-athlete relationship. The field of education is where the largest body of literature related to mentoring can be found. Mentoring is a prominent topic in the field of business, and most common understandings of mentoring are in some way derived from business. Mentoring has also achieved great prominence in health-related fields – especially nursing and medicine. Regardless of the nature of the arrangement or the setting, mentoring relationships are premised on a degree of compatibility between coach and athlete.
