Hugh LawrenceMar 214 minPower of the dog and white (film industry) privilegeA topical post this week as this month we acknowledge world class women cricketers here in New Zealand for the Women’s Cricket World Cup....
Hugh LawrenceMar 54 minCritical race theory and sport – who won?Race and sport usually go together when ‘race’ has another meaning! But in this case, the nonsensical debate in US about the so-called...
Hugh LawrenceFeb 273 minSkating on thin ice: doping young athletes and Russian rule breakingI started this post to talk about the recent adverse analytical finding against the Russian Olympic Committee’s 15-year old skater,...
Hugh LawrenceFeb 73 minPolitics and sport: mix well for realityAfter a long break and recent events in the world of sport, I thought it time to resurrect Coach Lawrence’s blog. The next few are about...
Hugh LawrenceMar 30, 20203 min'Sciency stuff', experts, sport and public comms'More on my theme of trusting experts or Mrs Jones down the corner shop (apologies to Mrs Jones - it might have been Mr - and the corner...
Hugh LawrenceFeb 29, 20201 minSmashing vials - just normal!Time for a bit of visualisation - Imagine yourself as an elite athlete. You've had a blood test as part of your participation in the...
Hugh LawrenceDec 15, 20192 minPeter Snell in UK – a personal memoryIn 1971-72, Peter Snell attended the legendary Loughborough Colleges Physical Education Department as a Scholarship student from New...
Hugh LawrenceOct 19, 20193 minCoaching and science collideIt’s axiomatic that coaching is an art and a science. Many presentations have been given and papers written under the title “the art and...
Hugh LawrenceOct 19, 20193 minCoaching and science collideIt’s axiomatic that coaching is an art and a science. Many presentations have been given and papers written under the title “the art and...
Hugh LawrenceApr 11, 20193 minAssessing skill performance & cheating parentsI ended my last post signalling the next topic of assessing skill performance. To reiterate an earlier point, even professional scouts...
Hugh LawrenceMar 20, 20193 minJunior sport (2): selection trials - do they work?Selecting your junior team by a skills assessment. A friend was struggling with his innate reluctance to agree with a coaching colleague...
Hugh LawrenceMar 1, 20193 minJunior sport and future success (1)North Harbour Rugby’s decision over the last few days to scrap its junior representative programmes below the age of 17 has,...
Hugh LawrenceJan 28, 20193 minBroken racquets and highly strung playersNow the Australian Open is over I thought I’d make some coaching observations about player behaviour and ask questions about what coaches...
Hugh LawrenceJan 9, 20193 minCorruption in sport: teaching ethical behaviour in practice sessions (Part 3)As I’ve suggested in previous posts, it’s essential that the ethics and morals of ‘good clean sport’ are taught, learned and practice....
Hugh LawrenceDec 30, 20183 minCorruption in sport: moral code or just rules? (Part 2)My last post addressed the essence of corruption as a matter of morality. This second post in the series on corruption focuses on how to...
Hugh LawrenceDec 21, 20182 minCorruption in sport: society or sport itself? (Part 1)Yesterday, Russian President, Vladimir Putin acknowledged that Russian sport was affected by widespread doping, but that the Russian...
Hugh LawrenceSep 8, 20184 minDivided by a common language (and a post script)In a 1988 speech Chair of the US Federal Reserve, Alan Greenspan said disarmingly, “If I seem unduly clear to you, you must have...
Hugh LawrenceAug 23, 20184 minCoaches: where are our better angels?In the last three years, a sequence of formal inquiries into coach behaviour have revealed the worst in unethical coaching. Not only in...
Hugh LawrenceAug 13, 20183 minDid you ‘consent’ to a punch in the face?My last blog on sports field assault, foreshadowed a conversation about the ‘consent defense’. Most people I’ve spoken to have either not...
Hugh LawrenceAug 8, 20184 minA new punchline, an old problemLast weekend’s dreadful assault in an AFL game by Andrew Gaff on 18-year old Andrew Brayshaw, raises yet again, the question of ‘what was...