What's Driving Elite Athletes?

By Imago Group
Monday 8 October, 2007

In a highly competitive environment, understanding the process that drives elite sports people offers a powerful advantage for coaches and their charges. Drawing upon his research, leading expert Dr Cliff Mallett, will explore the topic in detail at Sport Knowledge Australia’s (SKA) intensive live-in symposium for elite level coaches. (12-15 November, Sydney Olympic Park.)

A psychologist, University of Queensland lecturer, and himself an elite athletics coach who has guided many teams through the Australian Institute of Sport (AIS) and at Olympic Games (1996 and 2004), Dr Mallett has a keen interest in the integration of sports psychology into coaching.

“During the Sport Knowledge Australia course I will be educating coaches to appreciate that motivation comes from the self and detailing how they as coaches can design learning and coaching environments conducive to adaptive forms of self motivation,” says Dr Mallett.

“I’ll also be addressing common problems such as sports people reaching a plateaux and how they can gain confidence to go to another level - an in-depth understanding of motivation helps to achieve that.

“One of the things I look to challenge is the myth that there is a single motivation. There are a multitude of motivations and they wax and wane weekly, monthly, yearly. People are motivated by different things.”

For the many Australian sports people who strive for excellence without material gain, it may come as a surprise that their counterparts in the ranks of paid professionals, some reaping millions of dollars, are seldom motivated by financial reward, “My research shows that they are not driven by money per se, but by what the money represents to them – that is a measure of how good they are.”

Dr Mallett, who is widely known in sports circles for his cutting edge research, recently completed an AFL-funded project examining how its coaches learn. He is currently leading a team of researchers examining learning and mentoring in high performance at the Australian Institute of Sport (AIS).

Background:
A lecturer at the School of Human Movement Studies at the University of Queensland, Dr Mallett has coached 15 international athletes (12 medals), including six Olympic athletes, and national relay teams (six medals) in major international competitions. He has been a team coach on several Australian teams at two Olympics and five World Championships. Dr Mallett is a leading international coach educator consulting to the International Association of Athletic Federations (IAAF) and Sport Knowledge Australia. He also consults with the Brisbane Lions Australian Football Club, AIS, QAS, and the UQ Rugby Academy.

Dr Mallett is on the Editorial Board of the International Journal of Coaching Science, which is the official journal of the International Council for Coach Education (ICCE).

At SKA’s Elite Sport Coaching Symposium (Sydney Olympic Park 12-15 November) Dr Mallett will be joined by an influential group of academics and coaches including Canterbury Crusaders mentor, Robbie Deans.

Also presenting -
John Buchanan (former coach, Australian cricket team),
Gerard Murphy (founding director of Athlete Development Australia and leading teams),
Kenneth Graham (Head of Sport Science, NSW Institute of Sport),
Dr Donna O’Connor (Faculty of Education, The University of Sydney),
A/Prof Peter Reaburn (Head of School, School of Health and Human Performance, Central Queensland University),
A/Prof Martin Thompson (School of Exercise and Sport Science, The University of Sydney).

For more information on the course, please visit here.

ABOUT SKA: Launched in June 2005 with a Federal Government grant, SKA is jointly owned by the University of Sydney, University of Technology, Sydney and the Sydney Olympic Park Authority. SKA assists the continued global growth of the sports industry, helping more communities around the world to benefit from Australia’s strong sporting culture. Since its launch, SKA has delivered sport management programmes at the prestigious Indian School of Business in Hyderabad, run facility management courses in China and various seminars and courses in Australia on topics as diverse as player valuation strategies, genetic doping in sport, player welfare, executive sport management, elite sport coaching, major event management and facility management.

ATTENTION EDITORS AND PRODUCERS: For enquiries regarding interviews with presenters contact –Imago Group – Liz Herbert, Mobile: 0407 234 221 Tel:+61 2 9331 7222