The Great Coaches: Leadership & Life

Our Great Coach on this episode is Frank Dick. Frank Dick is the current President of the European Athletics Coaches Association. From 1970 until 1979 he was Scottish National Athletics Coach. Then in 1979 he was appointed as the British Athletics Federation's Director of Coaching. In this position Frank led the British Athletics team into its "golden era" with Olympic gold medalists such as Daley...

Our Great Coach on this episode is Bas Du Bruin. Bas is a Dutch paratriathlon coach. He started his coaching in the late 1990’s eventually becoming the coach of the National Para-triathlon team in 2013. At the 2016 Olympics the paratriathlon team won a gold and silver medal, Bas has also coached athletes who have won World and European championships, as well as Geert Schipper, who famously won the...

Our Great Coach on this episode is Surf coach Andy King. Andy says he that started walking, talking and surfing all at the same time so it wasn’t surprising that he became a professional surfer in 1996. His career lasted for 8 years but then on a night out with his girlfriend and now wife, Nadene; he was hit from behind and fell to the round smashing his cochlear. When he woke he was deaf and had...

Our Great Coach on this show is Briony Akle. Briony is a former professional netball players and now coach. Briony played for the New South Wales Swifts in the Australian Super Netball League and was part of their premiership team in 2001 and 2004. After retiring she transitioned into coaching, and progressed through roles with junior and senior representative sides. In 2016 she became Head Coach...

Our Great Coach on this episode is Brad Dubberley. Brad is the Australian wheelchair Rugby Head Coach and former player. Brad took up wheelchair rugby at the age of 14 as part of his rehabilitation process from an injury. Within a year he was representing Australia in a Test against New Zealand. He then won a silver medal as an athlete at the 2000 Sydney Games. After retiring Brad transitioned int...

Our Great Coach on this episode is Australian Basketball coach, Rob Beveridge. Rob began coaching state representative sides at the age of 19. Over the next 27 years his career steadily progressed, with some of the key highlights being a Gold medal leading Australia at the World U20 Championships, a Paralympic silver medal, a Commonwealth Games gold medal, and a coveted National Championship...

Our Great Coach on this episode is American Basketball coach Michelle Clark-Heard. Michelle is a Louisville native and played basketball at Western Kentucky from 1986 where she was part of 4 NCAA teams. In 2005 she was appointed head coach at Kentucky State, before becoming the Head Coach for her alma mater Western Kentucky in 2012 and over the next 6 years won 77% of her games. In 2015 and 2017 s...

Our Great Coach on this episode is Alan Smith . Alan is the former football manager of Dulwich Hamlet , Crystal Palace , and  Wycombe Wanderers . In 1994 Alan coached Crystal Palace to the Division One Championship and was also awarded the League Manager's Association ‘ Championship Manager of the Year ’. In 1995, he led the team to the semifinals of both the League and FA Cups. In 1997, he w...

Our Great Coach on this episode is Olympic Gold medal winning coach Tim Walsh . Tim is a coach with a deep passion for learning and development, and in this interview, you will hear how he used this to transform a group of athletes from different sports into an Olympic Gold medal winning team that changed the way people think about female participation in contact sports. Tim is a former profession...

Our Great Coach on this episode is Basketball coach Felisha Legette-Jack. Felisha graduated from Syracuse in 1989 as the all-time leader for points and rebounds. She transitioned quickly into coaching and in 2002 was appointed Head Coach at Hofstra University . In 2006 she became the Head Coach of Indiana University in the Big Ten conference. During her six years there, the Hoosiers won 18 or more...

Our Great Coach on this episode is Mark Robinson . Mark is a former English cricketer, who played for three different English counties; Northamptonshire ,  Yorkshire , and  Sussex . He served as the coach of Sussex from 2005 to 2015 leading them to 2 county cricket championships. During this time he also coached English youth cricket teams. In 2015 he became the coach of the English Women's Cricke...

Our Great Coach on this episode is Dr David Parkin (OAM) who is a former coach, and former player in the Australian Football League. David played 211 games for the Hawthorn Football Club captaining the club from 1969–1973, and was a part of their 1971 premiership winning side. He started coaching with his old side in 1976, leading them to a premiership in 1978. He then coached Carlton Football Clu...

Our Great Coach on this episode is Valorie Kondos Field . Valerie, or Miss Val as she's more affectionately known, was the head of coach of the UCLA Gymnastics team from 1991 to 2019, leading the team to 7 national and 18 Pac 12 Championships . She was voted NCAA Coach of the Year four times by her peers and in 2016 was voted the Coach of the Century by the PAC12 Conference. Her 2019 TED Talk, tit...

Our Great Coach on this episode is Thomas Frank Thomas is the Head Coach of Brentford FC in the English Football League Championship. He started his career coaching youth teams in Denmark. His success with the National Under 17 team led to his first senior appointment with Brondby in the Danish Superliga in 2013. He turned their performance around delivering top four performances in successive yea...

Our Great Coach on this episode is NBA coach Jenny Boucek . Jenny is a former WNBA player, Assistant Coach and Head Coach. The first person to hold all 3 roles in the league’s history. She began her coaching career in the WNBA during the 1999 season as an assistant with the Washington Mystics .  In 2000, she joined the Miami Sol , also as an assistant coach, for three seasons. Jenny was an As...

Our Great Coach on this episode is Heyneke Meyer .  Heyneke is a South African rugby coach. He started his coaching career in 1988 and by 1998, was a Head Coach for the South Western Districts Eagles . From the 2000 until 2007 he coached the Blue Bulls , and in that time the team won the South African championship 4 times.  He also coached the South African based Bulls in the Super...

Our Great Coach on this episode is Mirel Rădoi . Mirel was the former captain and now Head Coach of the Romanian National Football team. He retired in 2015 and was immediately appointed as head coach of his old side FCSB. He was sacked because of the sides under-performance however in 2018 he was appointed coach of the Romanian under-21 side, and led them to the semi-finals of the 2019 UEFA Champi...

Our Great Coach on this episode is the coach of the Italy National Football team, Roberto Mancini . We were lucky enough to get a few minutes with Roberto as he prepares the Italian National team for the 2021 European Football Championship . Roberto had a successful playing career winning the Serie A , Coppa Italia and the European Cup with both Sampdoria and Lazio . He also represented Italy as a...

Our Great Coach on this episode is football coach Tanya Oxtoby . Tanya is an Australian soccer coach who is the current Bristol City Women Football Club Manager in the English Women's Super League, as well as the Under 19's England Women's assistant coach. As a player, Tanya captained Perth Glory in their first four seasons in the W-League in Australia where she was the first indigenous captain in...

Our Great Coach on this episode is Bill Curry . Bill is a retired American Football player and coach. He played for Georgia Tech and then spent 10 seasons in the NFL, most notably playing in first super bowl and winning with the Green Bay Packers in 1966. He retired in 1974 and transitioned into coaching and by 1980 was head coach of Georgia Tech, leading them to the 1985 All American Bowl , for w...

Our Great Coach on this episode is Tamsin Greenway. Tamsin is a retired Netball player and now coach. She represented England on 67 occasions and along the way, was part of the team that won bronze medals at the 2010 Commonwealth Games and at the 2011 and 2105 Netball World Cups . In the English Superleague, she has won 7 championships; 4 as a player, and three others as player-coach, a coach and...

Our Great Coach on this episode is rugby coach Ben Ryan. Ben is the most successful men’s rugby sevens coach in history, he is the only coach to have won Continental, World and Olympic titles. He started his international career in 2007 with England 7’s, coaching them in over 300 matches. In 2013 he took over as the coach of Fiji 7’s, and led the team to the gold medal at the 2016 Rio Olympics. Th...

Our Great Coach on this episode is Lisa Fallon . Lisa is a Northern Ireland Football player and now coach. She played in England as a central midfielder before a knee injury ended her career. Her coaching career began at the early age of 14, but it wasn’t until 2013 when she gained prominence as the coach of the Lakelands Men’s team in County Dublin, Ireland. From there, she went on to coach Cork...

Our Great Coach on this episode is Anthony McGrath Anthony is an English cricket coach and former England team cricketer. He played first class cricket for  Yorkshire County Cricket Club  from 1995 to 2012, and captained the team in the 2003 and 2009 seasons. During that time, he scored more than 23,000 runs and took 240 wickets in all formats of the game. Between 2003 and 2004 he also played play...

Our Great Coach on this episode is rugby's Damian McGrath . Damian started his career a teacher before moving into coaching and has now coached teams across multiple countries in Rugby League , Rugby Union , as well as Rugby Seven's . At Club level, he coached the Leeds Rhinos in England’s Super League and was England’s Assistant Coach at the 2000 Rugby League World Cup . He has also been the...