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Dr. Roger Jackson |
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A noted sport leader places coaches on the front line in ensuring
doping-free sport.
There is no question that coaches of high performance athletes can play
a vital role in creating a doping-free sport environment. Coaches of
young children and of developing athletes have an equally important
role, particularly in shaping attitudes and behaviour. Providing a
doping-free culture for everyone involved in sport requires positive
action rather than passive support. How then can coaches for any age
and stage of athletic development ensure that they are actively
coaching doping-free sport?
The coach’s role starts with an understanding of the policy framework
that supports anti-doping in Canada and around the world. The Canadian
Anti-Doping Program is administered on behalf of our sport community by
the Canadian Centre for Ethics in Sport (CCES). As a signatory to the
World Anti-Doping Code, Canada is revising its program to incorporate
and comply with the Code’s standards and requirements. Doping is
defined in the World Code as violating rules pertaining to the use,
possession, or trafficking of prohibited substances and methods and
includes failing to comply with doping control procedures. The
substances and methods prohibited under the Code are characterized by
their potential or intent to enhance sporting performance, risk health
or otherwise contravene the intrinsic values of sport — that is,
contravene what we call “the spirit of sport”. But what brings these
words to life is a set of attitudes, beliefs, character traits, and
influences leading to the decision to cheat, factors that can take root
and grow from very young ages, factors that can be reinforced or
redirected in subsequent years. Doping materializes from the broader
fabric of societal and individual values and ethics.
Where do athletes’ values come from? A national public opinion poll
conducted for the CCES in 2002 found that Canadians see community sport
as second only to the family’s influence on young people developing
positive values and building character. However, less than one in five
Canadians feels very confident that community-level sport is fulfilling
this potential. The survey also highlights the importance of quality
coaching and supervision for community sport to be a positive
experience for participants. Coaches therefore are in a unique and
powerful position to help youth develop positive values and make
principled decisions that ultimately provide the foundation for ethical
sport. Coaches’ words and actions, as well as their silence and
inaction with respect to ethical issues in sport, including doping, can
have a lasting impact on their young athletes.
To build on the results of the national poll, the CCES convened five
regional consultations across the country leading up to The Sport We
Want Symposium held in Ottawa in September 2003. The main objectives
were to initiate discussion on the values we want sport to impart and
to consider where action is needed. Input was obtained from a diverse
range of experience, knowledge, and backgrounds that included youth,
parents, athletes, coaches, officials, sport administrators,
researchers, educators, and other experts. Here are some of the
concerns we heard.
Sport is not adequately recognized as having a social responsibility to
participants and communities. Consequently, the extraordinary role
sport could play in helping to develop individuals and strengthen
communities remains a potential rather than a realized opportunity. Our
sport culture is not values driven, with the foremost focus on the
well-being of participants. Winning is too often overvalued. Fun is too
often undervalued. Communication and collaboration need to be improved,
both to establish commitment to common values and to share and build on
effective approaches. Appropriate organizational support for speaking
out about ethical concerns and finding solutions is too often lacking.
The education and training of coaches and volunteers are too often
given inadequate attention and insufficient resources, though these
roles are defining elements in participants’ sport experiences.
In my opinion, these conditions combine to create an environment where
doping and other unethical behaviour can be seen by some as a way to
succeed. Still, this is an unprecedented time for change, with the
individual and collective leadership of coaches central to what sport
is now and will be in the future.
We have a new Canadian Sport Policy that recognizes the vital role of
coaches and calls on coaches, athletes, and all others involved in
sport to take responsibility for “ethically based behaviour enshrined
in codes of conduct.” The new federal Physical Activity and Sport Act
affirms the importance of sport in our society. The new Canadian
Strategy for Ethical Conduct in Sport provides a comprehensive,
collaborative plan to “enhance ethical conduct in all aspects, and at
all levels, of sport throughout Canada.” The new Canadian Anti-Doping
Program will include an education standard and related roles for the
CCES, the Coaching Association of Canada, the Canadian Professional
Coaches Association, sport governing bodies, and provincial and
territorial governments. And the new World Anti-Doping Code is a
landmark in international cooperation to achieve doping-free sport in
order to “promote health, fairness and equality for athletes
worldwide.”
So what should this mean today for the coach’s role and
responsibilities? How can coaches actively coach in a way that ensures
a doping-free sport environment? Here are some of the concrete actions
I believe are required:
- Signed codes of conduct and working protocols that
consistently
promote ethical values and include a specific commitment to doping-free
sport need to be in place for all coaches.
- Relevant personal and performance criteria need to be
priorities in the recruitment and review processes for
coaches.
- Anti-doping education needs to be
specifically included in all coach training and certification
programs.
- Coach training and certification at all
levels should be
values-based, with the values evident and reinforced throughout all
program modules in addition to a separate ethics module.
- All coaches need to explicitly promote anti-doping with their
athletes and within their sport.
- Coaches of
athletes who are subject to doping control must be
well versed in what constitutes doping, as well as in athletes’ and
coaches’ rights and responsibilities regarding doping control
procedures.
- Coaches need to inform themselves
about topical and pertinent
doping issues such as the risk of inadvertent doping from the use of
nutritional supplements.
- Coaches need to be aware
of the signs of doping and notify their sport governing body or the
CCES when warranted.
- Coaches need to be aware that
they are responsible for
supporting, applying, and meeting the requirements of the Canadian
Anti-Doping Program, and that they can face a two-year to lifetime ban
from sport if they are found to have committed an anti-doping rule
violation.
The World Code calls upon coaches and other athlete support personnel
“to be knowledgeable of and comply with all anti-doping policies and
rules … applicable to them or the athletes whom they support” and “to
use their influence on athlete values and behaviour to foster
anti-doping attitudes.” Great progress is being made; however,
doping-free sport cannot be achieved through powerful words in
authoritative documents. We must rally around a shared vision of
ethical sport in a way that transforms words on paper into our
attitudes, beliefs, and day-to-day actions. Let’s see Canada become a
leader and set the standard for actively coaching doping-free
sport.
Dr. Roger
Jackson
is the new chairperson of the CCES's board of directors after serving
as vice-chair since the centre's inception. He is a professor in the
Faculty of Kinesiology at the University of Calgary. Dr. Jackson
represented Canada at three Olympic Games, winning the gold medal in
rowing (pair oars) at the 1964 Olympics. His past positions include
director of the University of Calgary’s Sport Medicine Centre, dean of
Physical Education at the university, director of Sport Canada, and
president of the Canadian Olympic Association.
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COACHES OF CANADA
