Sports science is important in advancing our knowledge of training. I am a huge supporter of sport science, during my career I have had the opportunity to work with some of the best, but today we have a problem. The but is that sport science and the sport scientist do not captain the ship, the coach does. The same with sport medicine; under that term I put the pysio (ATC in US), physical therapist, chiropractor and doctor, they are important, but they should not captain the ship. The captain of the ship should be the coach. The coach is the ultimate authority on what needs to be done to get his individual or team into the performance arena in optimum condition to perform. This means the coach must be a great a communicator and organizer. The coach must be knowledgeable enough in sports science and sports medicine to be able to direct, detect and ask the correct questions. I have seen first hand what happens when sport science or sport medicine runs amok and it is not pretty. The athlete suffers and the coach loses games and matches, the athletes underperform and no one is willing or able to take responsibility. The performance team is the team behind the team, they should be invisible, there are no super star sport scientists, sports medicine practitioners, there are only star athletes and great teams. The spotlight should be on the athlete, not the support team. Lets just make sure that we have the horse before the cart and the coach is driving the cart.
