The Coach’s Role in Young Athletes’ Emotional Competence and Psychological Well-being

This paper presents a model that analyses the relationship between the coach’s emotional competences and the training climate as predictors of the youngsters’ emotional competences and psychological well-being. In the present study, 309 athletes and 17 coaches participated in the study. A general predictive model was estimated with path analysis and the maximum robust likelihood (MLR) estimation method. The results showed that the coach’s emotional competences are associated with autonomy-supportive climates (β = .15, p < .005). This climate is related to youth’s emotional competences (β = .30, p < .005) and lower emotional (β = -.27, p < .005), behavioural (β = -.51, p < .005), and social (β = -.33, p < .005) symptomatology. These results have important practical implications in designing interventions that promote coaches’ emotional competences given its association with autonomy-supportive climates, which in turn are related to athletes’ emotional competences and psychological well-being. Keywords: coaching, athletes, autonomy-supportive climate, mental health, well-being.