CON-X 2023 welcomes Jean Côté and Rob Gray

CON-X 2023 welcomes Jean Côté and Rob Gray
09/01/2023
Jean Côté and Rob Gray represent two of the most authoritative researchers on youth sport. Côté and Gray will make three presentations each at the CON-X 2023 Italian baseball and softball convention at Palacongressi di Rimini on January 28 and 29, 2023. All training courses will be of special interest to coaches working from the youth level and above.

Jean Côté is a professor and the director at the School of Kinesiology and Health Studies at Queen's University in Kingston, Canada. His studies have produced a sports particpation model that has received critical acclaim and credit for successive implementation in such major sports organizations worldwide as the International Olympic Committee, the National Basketball Association (NBA) and the International Ice Hockey Federation.

The model defines the various stages of development of young athletes using relative methodological indications. The model, supported by a solid scientific basis, represents an effective tool for achieving and reconciling the three objectives that correct sporting practice should:

  1. Improve the well-being of young practitioners
  2. Increase the number of young sportsmen
  3. Achieve excellent performance results

The main features of the model is an enhancement of sports differentiation to the detriment of sports specialization (more sports disciplines especially in the initial phase) and a didactic approach based more on deliberate play to the detriment of deliberate practice (more play than technique in starting sport).

Another field of study by Professor Côtè is represented by the leadership function of sports coaches. The proposed model is that of Transformational Leadership consisting of 4 dimensions and 11 behaviors. It is a very practical approach that aims to improve the coach's teaching skills by enabling him to measure and be aware of his own behavior and the relationship with his students/athletes. During CON-X 2023, a workshop on Transformational Leadership will be held to introduce this theme in the training of baseball and softball coaches.

Rob Gray is an Associate Professor of Human Systems Engineering at Arizona State University and is a consultant to the Boston Red Sox. His studies involve the mechanisms underlying the control of movements and consequently the processes whereby athletes improve the execution of technique used by the various sports disciplines. During his presentataion, Professor Gray will share what is known about how to learn and develop both baseball and softball pitching and hitting.

The approach used is the ecological one, one of the dynamic mechanisms which is opposed to the cognitivist approach. Traditionally it is thought that the student controls his own movement and consequently learns and develops the technique in a conscious way and with a control of his own movements aimed at making an ideal execution.The ecological approach instead represents the movement as a response to three variables that intervene in the realization of the technique: the athlete, the task and the environment.

The result that each athlete obtains is the interaction between these three variables and is not subjected to a central control of who moves, but derives from a sort of self-regulation mechanism of the athlete. Before and especially during the movement, the athlete implements mechanisms, largely reflexes, taking advantage of and exploiting the opportunities that the environment presents.

Professor Gray will present practical examples of how the ecological approach applies to the teaching of batting and throwing. Useful indications will be provided to coaches who do not have to correct the mistakes of their athletes by referring to a hypothetical ideal model of the action to be performed. But, on the contrary, the main task of the coaches will be to create situations where the athlete is forced to vary and self-regulate his movement in search of the best possible result to solve each time the task to be faced in that given situation.

The following presentations are scheduled for the CON-X on Saturday, January 28, 2023 and Sunday, January 28, 2023:

Prof. Jean Côté (on the left in the photo )
1. How Activities, Social Dynamics, and Settings Affect Development in Sport
2. Models of Athlete Development: Early Specialization and Sampling in Youth Sport
3. Coaching Effectiveness: Connection Before Correction

Prof. Rob Gray (photographed on the right )
1. An Ecological Approach to Baseball & Softball Coaching
2. An Ecological Approach to Developing Adaptable Hitters
3. An Ecological Approach to Developing Anti-Fragile Pitchers

The presentations will be translated and explained by Claudio Robazza, Sport Psychologist and Full Professor at the 'Gabriele D'Annunzio' University of Chieti – Pescara.

by Claudio Mantovani
Scientific Coordinator for the Technical Area of the School of Sport

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