ABSTRACT
This chapter provides coaches with information on the importance of socially supporting athletes and how they can provide social support. A systematic review by Sheridan et al. examined social support among youth sport, across 73 different studies published between 1990 and 2013, and found that coaches were the most prevalent providers of social support to young athletes. Coaches were reported as providing emotional, esteem, and informational social support. A crucial role of coaches, in addition to providing technical and tactical knowledge to athletes, is to provide different forms of social support. Coaches can also set up a social support network in which he or she encourages teammates, friends, and parents of the athletes to provide social support. Coaches could also consider the age and the experience of the athlete when deciding how much social support an athlete requires.
