Young royals’ coaching dream now reality
Princes on hand to see apprentices graduate ‘They are mentors and leaders of community’
Five years after he had watched the Olympic closing ceremony at the London Stadium, Prince Harry was back there. This time he and the Duke and Duchess of Cambridge were at the graduation ceremony of the latest group of apprentices from Coach Core, the organisation the Princes had established to create a whole new generation of sports coaches.
It was, Harry said, the most appropriate place he could be – because it was on that occasion, watching the finale of London 2012, that he and his brother had come up with an idea that they felt would provide a tangible, lasting Olympic legacy.
“We believe our graduates are the future of coaching,” he said in a speech delivered from a podium which had been built roughly where Usain Bolt crossed the line to win the 100 metres in 2012. “We believe they are not just great coaches, but great mentors and great leaders of their community.”
Watching him speak were some of the 250 young people who have gone through the intensive, yearlong apprenticeship programme. People such as 18-year-old Alisha Wilson, now working as a full-time swimming coach in Glasgow after graduating in June; or 19-year-old Muhammed Mumin, who spent a year on Coach Core before heading off to college to study business; or Andre Nathaniel-george, an 18-year-old from Harrow, now working as a tennis coach for London school sports charity Greenhouse.
“It’s been amazing,” said Nathaniel-george of the course. “It’s not just the people who you coach who benefit from this. I’ve learned so much about myself. I’ve become so much more confident, more outgoing. In all honesty, I don’t reckon I’d have been able to stand here and talk to you a year ago.”
The statistics Harry delivered about the programme are impressive: 98 per cent of Coach Core graduates are now in employment or further education; 80 per cent are still engaged in coaching six months after graduating.
But the Princes’ purpose in setting up the scheme was not simply to create an employment pathway. They wanted to change the way in which coaching is learned, to ensure that their graduates were as versed in psychology as they were in the technical aspects of their chosen sport.
When an England football coach can be sacked for inappropriate behaviour and a Paralympic swimming coach removed from his position over allegations of systematic bullying, it is clear there is work to be done. To that end, Coach Core involved elite coaches, asking them to mentor those on the programme. And on graduation day, the London Stadium was given over to sessions being led by Will Greenwood, Judy Murray, Mark Hunter and Max Whitlock.
In truth, some of those taking part were more interested in getting a selfie with West Ham players Mark Noble and Javier Hernandez who, along with their manager, Slaven Bilic, were interested bystanders,