Creativity in Sport

Introduction

The following script is drawn from many presentations attended, articles read, experimenting with athletes and experience gained from coaching in multiple sports. It is probably more relevant to the high performing coach working with players who perform at a high to elite level. Of course, all coaches are welcome to ponder and try or apply some or all the ideas.

“Good coaching makes people confident about improving their competence and encourages creative and individual ways of performing. It leaves people connected to sport and physical activity and builds character through being positively involved with others.” (Jean Côté, (2012) is a professor in and director of the School of Kinesiology and Health Studies at Queen’s University at Kingston in Canada. His research interests are in the areas of sport expertise, children in sport, coaching, and positive youth development).

When Jean Côté devised the above quote, he was doing so to deliberately introduce the language of the ‘C’ system to British coaching.

The ‘C’ system helps coaches refine and develop their craft by suggesting ways in which they can build:

Connection Confidence Competence Creativity Character Caring.

The football coach who is seeking to work in a creative environment with both players and coaches, who are seeking new ways of approaching challenges, will need to tap into many facets of the ‘C’ system.

Players connected with coaches and each other and playing with confidence will happily experiment appropriately and build up a level of skill to allow them to be creative. A key role for the coach is to create an environment where players feel comfortable when trying new challenges, thinking differently and being innovative. Making mistakes, blunders, breakdown in the process, must be allowed for and not harshly or petulantly criticised.

Defining Creativity in football

There are clear differences between definitions of creativity.

Some focus on the idea of producing something completely new; others talk about creativity producing changes, and it is these types of definitions that are most useful to football.

The completely creative player happens once in a lifetime. Players who can produce positive changes should be on every single football pitch in the country. Here are some of the useful definitions:

Creativity is defined as the tendency to generate or recognize ideas, alternatives, or possibilities that may be useful in solving problems and communicating with others. Franken, 2006

Creativity is nothing more than seeing and acting on new relationships, thereby bringing them to life.

Anderson, 1992

Creativity is the act of turning new and imaginative ideas into reality. Creativity involves two processes: thinking, then producing. Innovation is the production or implementation of an idea. If you have ideas, but don’t act on them, you are imaginative but not creative.

Naiman, 2012

These definitions give us creativity as:

Generating or recognising ideas and alternatives

Useful in solving problems

Seeing and acting on new relationships

Turning new and imaginative ideas into reality

Thinking then producing.

The last sentence in the quote by Linda Naiman really does define the work of coaches as; they are the people who are charged with giving players imagination and helping them act on it appropriately.

A Model for the Creative Player

A useful model for player creativity uses an ‘S’ system:

This breaks down as follows:

Skill – To perform the creative thought.

Spatial Awareness- To understand the space required to produce to skill.

Sensing – The ability to see and feel what is going on.

Social Awareness – To understand whether the others around need to be involved or not.

Self-awareness – To understand one’s own personality, strengths, weaknesses and behaviours

This fits well with what is termed the four-corner model, with the factors shown here aligning with the physical, technical, social and psychological development of players.

Creativity in football requires players to know themselves, work with each other, and understand the very best ways in which they can combine. Practising therefore must include the development of skill, spatial awareness and an awareness of how individuals themselves and others play.

Alongside all types of practising is the notion of positive social bonds between players and within teams.

This not only helps towards players developing a good understanding of their individual and team playing style(s) but also contributes to helping create a good team spirit in which creativity can flourish.

Redefining Player Creativity

There are multiple definitions of innovation, helping to define how different people can respond creatively.

This is helpful when defining creativity for games players. We tend to be stuck with the notion that the creative player is the brilliant stand-out person. You will see their goals, their brilliant passes, their touch of genius. But that is a problem: the media brings us so many moments of genius, it becomes difficult to see the generation of ideas and alternatives as genuine creativity.

What is offered here is a framework for creativity in football to enable every coach to see creative qualities and potential in every player.

The framework begins with three broad categories of player and then specific sub categories:

Building players: This type of player will have good spatial awareness and recognise the space in which a team can make progress. Specific sub categories here are “Play Designer” who creates situations for others where they can do their best work and “Includer” who Knows others’ needs and looks after them.

Organising players: This type of player will help others perform at their best. They will have enhanced personal and social awareness, and understand how others play, how fast they move and where they like to receive the ball. Specific sub Categories here are the “Director” who sparks the creative talents of others and the “Collaborator / cross pollinator” who helps bring things together and leads from the middle.

Soloing players: This is probably the old model of creativity – players who have a spark of genius and produce something all on their own. Specific sub categories here are “Hurdler / Experimenter” – Develops a knack of overcoming challenges and keeps trying new things. The “Weakness Finder” Has a high level of intelligence, memory and strategic ability. Finally, the “Threshold Breaker” who has a high level of skills necessary to be able to react during important part of the game or in a key area of the pitch.

The structure above offers coaches a different way of thinking about creative players. All players will have one, two or several of the qualities listed. This language should help coaches design practices that foster these talents and give players direction on how they are trying to be creative and then an appropriate practice to try it out.

References: (acquired over many years of listening, learning and experimenting)

Sport Coach UK

Coaching Edge

Jean Cote

American Swim Coaches Association

S. I Conferences

Coaching Ireland conferences

GAA Conferences