'The art of coaching is recognising the situation, recognising the people and responding to the people you are working with... that's the big thing, to handle people'. Steve Harrison, Coach, Middlesbrough Football Club.

Responding to the fast growing subject in academic sports departments, this groundbreaking new coaching studies text offers a view that focuses the coach as a person and the coaching practice as a complex social encounter.

Unlike existing titles in the field which look at coaching as a science, this book examines the personalities, histories, relationships and individual styles of eight coaches at the top of their profession.

One-to-one interviews with some of the best-known and respected elite sports coaches include Steve Harrison, Hope Powell and Graham Taylor from football; Ian McGeechan and Bob Dwyer from rugby; Di Bass from swimming; Lois Muir from netball; and Peter Stanley from athletics; and form the basis for subsequent exploration of four key themes in sports coaching:

* coaching pedagogy * the coach's role * the coach's interaction with athletes * the coach's power.

This text will be of significant interest to students of coaching science and sports science, and will appeal to the considerable body of amateur sports coaches with an interest in the styles of those at the top.