"Not everybody has the ability to see talent, but I can". A longitudinal case-study of a coach's process of identifying and selecting talent.

Abstract

Athlete selection is a necessary component of many sport systems around the world. To inform selection decisions, coaches and recruiters utilize various sources of information to better understand athletes and their strengths, weakness, likelihood of success, and degree of 'fit' with the program/system. However, little is known about how the coach experiences identification and selection, the information incorporated in decision-making, or how opinions and perspectives change over time. As such, the present case study documents the in-situ decision-making process of a coach during a real talent identification and team selection period. Over the course of 18 months, regular semi-structured and field interviews were conducted with an elite coach tasked with selecting athletes. Results from the inductive thematic analysis indicate the coach's perspective shifted (sometimes dramatically) regarding the athlete's future likelihood of success, sometimes even over relatively short time frames. Further, a six-year follow-up of athlete performance demonstrated that the accuracy of the coach's predictions about which athletes would and would not succeed, were mixed. This paper advances our knowledge of the coaches' eye, demonstrating the value of having a multidimensional and holistic approach to athlete assessment, and supports the growing call to delay selections for as long as possible.