Coaching is important. 

Damn important, it turns out.

In fact, recent research suggests the importance of a head coach is greater than anyone anticipated.

The term “coach” originated from the idea that an instructor tutor literally carried someone through a specific task (like a stagecoach taking someone from A to B). As sport became more professionalized and commercialized, coaches began to take on increasingly more sophisticated and significant roles. What started with simply carrying the team from start to finish became a requirement to organize, scaffold, and help players build skill — with the idea that the players would ultimately carry themselves. 

In that transition, we lost sight of the larger role of the coach in sport: to help win games. Sport has become increasingly player-centric, and rightfully so — the credit goes to the man in the arena, after all. But the mistake here isn’t giving the players more credit, it’s the implicit assumption that the coach isn’t in the arena with the players at all.