副标题：为什么最佳运动员往往不是最佳教练员？
这是冠军级教练员的入门课。
Short answer:
because being a top performer and being a top teacher/leader are two different skill-sets.
(注：学生就像运动员。尖子生就像一流运动员。学生不断钻研和提高自我的应试技能/ 竞技技能。而老师需要帮助学生识别心理、生理和技能上的障碍，并帮助克服障碍！因为老师相比学生，具备更高水平、更全面和深刻的见识、经验和实践型科学方法论；老师想方设法和学生形成一个合作团队，就像冠军教练和运动员是一个合作团队，发挥1+2+3 >100的功效。同理，神枪手和教导员（甚至将军）所掌握的技能组合是不一样的。）
The scientific literature shows that playing skill alone is a poor predictor of coaching effectiveness — instead coaching success depends on pedagogy, communication, emotional intelligence, leadership, and task-/practice-design — skills that elite athletes don’t automatically have.
(注：教练员是一个高度专业化、科学化的职业。)
Below it indicates the main mechanisms and cite research evidence for each point.
Why the best athletes often aren’t the best coaches — mechanisms + evidence
- Expertise doesn’t equal teachability (the “expert-blind-spot” / expertise-reversal).
- Experts develop automatic, highly compressed knowledge and often omit steps they find “obvious.” That makes it hard for them to explain, sequence, or scaffold learning for novices. Cognitive-science research on the expertise-reversal / expert-blind-spot phenomenon documents these effects and explains why instructional methods that work for experts can fail novices. SpringerLink+1
- Coaching is largely a pedagogical + interpersonal job, not just technical demonstration.
- Effective coaches design practice, give appropriate feedback, structure progressions, and adapt instruction to each athlete’s learning stage — skills studied by coaching researchers and shown to predict athlete outcomes. Studies find coach behaviours (supportive vs controlling), transformational leadership, and coach-athlete relationship quality strongly link to athlete motivation, learning, and performance. PMC+1
- Emotional intelligence & relationship skills matter — and these are independent of playing ability.
- Meta-analyses and systematic reviews show emotional intelligence (EI) and quality coach–athlete relationships are important determinants of athlete performance, burnout, and satisfaction. High EI helps coaches manage athlete anxiety, build trust, and keep athletes in optimal states — things world-class athletes don’t automatically know how to do with others. ResearchGate+1
- Psychological and leadership skills distinguish top coaches.
- Quantitative research on Olympic and world-class coaches finds psychological skills and leadership behaviours discriminate the very best coaches from merely good ones — again a different profile from what makes someone an elite performer. In short: coaching excellence has its own psychological fingerprint. ScienceDirect
- Empirical studies: ex-pro status is not a reliable predictor of coaching efficiency.
- Econometric and league-level studies (for example analyses of Spanish professional basketball) show that being a former pro player does not guarantee coaching efficiency — foreign coaches or coaches with better pedagogical/management profiles are sometimes more efficient. Systematic reviews of coach-education interventions also show coach training (pedagogy) improves outcomes — which implies training/teaching skill matters more than playing pedigree. ResearchGate+1
- Real-world variability & selection effects.
- Some superstar players become excellent coaches (when they also develop teaching, leadership and organisational skills). But many do not because (a) they received coaching aimed at making them the best rather than teaching how to teach, and (b) organisations sometimes hire famous ex-players for status/marketing rather than instructional competence. Sports journalism and reviews note many high-profile examples of great players who struggled in coaching roles. SI+1