Leave school sports coaching to

teachers
By Santokh Singh, Deputy News Editor

SCHOOL sports have been making headlines lately, but not all of them for the right
reasons.

A rugby player, seriously injured in a semi-final match and threatened with permanent
disability, had barely moved out of the intensive care unit when a judoka was rushed to
hospital for an emergency operation to remove a blood clot.

In between, there was the bad press about a free-for-all at the Schools National Under-
17 rugby final, and claims that a bowling coach was biased in his selection of players
because he owed money to a parent from the school.

The question being bandied about in some circles is: To what extent is the Ministry of
Education's (MOE) policy of outsourcing sports coaching contributing to such routs on
the sports field?

Some retired teacher-coaches feel the policy may need a relook. One of them rang me
over the weekend to remind me of their dire warnings in the past, and added his
analysis: 'For teachers, coaching is a full-time job. It involves coaching the child both
on and off the field.

'It is not just about imparting the hard skills to win competitions, it is about inculcating
the soft skills that come with the game.'

No doubt such teacher-coaches are biased towards the view that school teachers
perform better coaching their wards in sports than do professional coaches brought in
just to coach a game. For what it is worth, as a former teacher who used to coach
hockey, I also think there is merit in this view.

But let's go back to MOE's reasons for outsourcing sports coaching in the first place.
The rationale was that teachers were bogged down with classroom teaching, marking
and administrative work. Freeing them from the sports field was meant to help them
focus on their core teaching responsibilities.

As not all teachers were qualified coaches, it was felt that the professionals would do a
better job in imparting sporting skills. In some schools, teachers who knew nothing of
a sport were relying on older students or unqualified old boys to conduct training.

The active outsourcing of sports coaching to professional coaches started more than a
decade ago. Today, most schools employ coaches, especially in secondary schools and
junior colleges.

Sports like hockey, soccer, cricket and rugby are handled almost entirely by external
coaches, most of whom are either former national players or retirees.
These are perfectly legitimate reasons for outsourcing sports coaching. But some issues have
arisen which need to be ironed out.

First, not all coaches employed by schools are properly trained. Some are not even registered
with the National Registry of Coaches.

Second, in a bid for more income, it is not uncommon for coaches to train more than one
school in the same sport and division. They get caught in a bind when these teams meet in a
competition. Which team should a coach inspire to win? Students end up with mixed signals
on a coach's split identity.

Third, the current system creates incentives for professional coaches to chase results, not
build character or sportsmanship. Schools often hire professional coaches to help them clinch
competition prizes, with bonuses tied to such performances.

Finally, there have been media reports of coaches 'fixing' school matches and abusing their
authority in punishing their charges.

So it is no surprise if some of these coaches teach their wards to win at all costs, rather than
teaching them the soft skills of teamwork and sportsmanship.

Schools may get the coveted trophies, but do the students end up with the right set of values?
Is such a system of chasing after trophies ideal for school sports?

While sports coaching has certainly improved the standards of many sports in schools, I feel
that many sports need not be played at the professional level.

Having taught for 10 years and coached hockey in all of those years (and yes, helping some
of the teams win national titles while watching some of my players in the national team later
on), I learnt two lessons early on.

• One: We don't want to burn our kids out too early - at that stage of their lives, they
should enjoy the game, so that they want to better themselves on their own.

• Two: If you get the basic discipline right, and build the character that comes with the
sport, the rest falls into place. Of course, the talent must be there first.

I am a firm believer that experienced sports teachers are able to help students raise their game
and build character at the same time. After all, teacher-coaches of yore had no problems
training an entire generation of excellent sportsmen.

There were the likes of Mr R.B.I. Pates of Raffles Institution, Mr Retnam Pierre of Victoria
School and Mr John Chia of St Gabriel's Secondary - teachers who taught mathematics,
history or physical education during curriculum time, yet produced some of the best
schoolboy soccer teams, with national players to boot.

On the hockey pitch there was Mr S. Sooceleraj from Victoria School, Mr Rudy Mosbergen
and Mr Koh Boon Long from Swiss Cottage, Mr Peter Martens from St Joseph's, Mr Himmat
Singh Gill from RI and, of course, Mr H.S. Loomba, who as a teacher helped Singapore win
its only South-east Asia Games men's hockey gold medal.

And who can forget Mr Natahar Bava (also a former national coach) and Mr Yee Teck Peng
producing some of the best clashes in the Kiwi Cup between the Saints and the Rafflesians in
rugby, with players who went on to play for Singapore as the best of friends.

And some of these teacher role models, like Mr Lim Tiang Quee and Mr Patrick Zehnder, are
still at it, producing some of the best in school athletics.

As a parent of four sports-loving kids aged 12 to 17, I would like to see my children handled
by the likes of Mr Bava and Mr Lim, even if they do not win any medals in their chosen
sports.

At least, I know that my children will grow up with the right values and approaches to sports,
and to life.

This article was first published in The Straits Times.