Gábor Géczi

The Coach-Athlete Relationship in Successful Hungarian Individual Sports

The purpose of this qualitative study of coach-athlete relationships was to utilise perspectives and experiences of four well-known male coaches and one male Olympic medalist from each of the following successful individual sports in Hungary: kayaking, swimming and wrestling. Using relationship constructs of Closeness, Co-orientation and Complementarity, it seems that in coach-athlete relationships are based more on the characteristics and needs of the individual athlete than the characteristics of the given sport discipline.

Anxiety and Coping of Hungarian National Ice Hockey Players

The purpose of this study was to identify those major psychological factors that affect ice hockey performance. The exploration of the differences in CSAI-2, ACSI-28 and STPI-Y psychometric measures targeted the adult national team members and the U-18 age-group of ice hockey players in Hungary. U-18 (n = 27) and adult national ice hockey players (n = 25) filled out the tests during a training camp before international preliminary round matches. It was found that State Anxiety, Cognitive Anxiety and Somatic A-State were significantly lower in the adult national team players than in the U-18 group of players. Also, the adult team demonstrated a significantly higher score in relation to Peaking under Pressure and also in Freedom from Worry than the 18 year-old group. Discriminant analysis showed that Cognitive A-State, Trait Curiosity, Coachability, State Anger, Freedom from Worry, and State Depression differentiate the adult team from the U-18 players. We can conclude that the members of the adult team are generally in a more beneficial state from the standpoint of anxiety pressure, and worry than the U-18 group. It seems that the experienced players can better manage unexpected events (stress situations) than the younger players.

The new system of the talent development program in Hungarian soccer

Summary Study aim: due to a series of failures and the drastic reduction in the quality of Hungarian soccer, greater emphasis should be put on coaches’ professional development and talent development programs. The aim of this study was to present the newly established Hungarian Soccer Development Program that focuses on the development of youth talent. Methods: document analysis and in-depth interviews were utilized during the research process. All Program leaders were interviewed in the Hungarian Soccer Development Program (N = 5). The interviews were preceded by thorough document analysis of the Program and the new strategies and plans of the Hungarian Football Federation. The authors systematically examined the Program and were able to prepare systematically for in-depth interviews whose focus was the specific areas that weren’t present in the document. Results: the main aim of this Program is to give a mass base for the selection of soccer talent and to promote the development of Hungarian soccer in the long run. The measurement and evaluation systems chosen for the identification is a complex process: children go through several selection phases until they achieve the best in their age cohort. For the successful realization of this Program, there is a need for a change in attitude and also for the development of a mass base in Hungarian soccer. The number of players under the age of 18 years should reach a solid 200,000 players. Those who established the Program also introduced a control and assessment system to improve efficiency, which helps to keep the different programs and sessions of the Program at a high level. Coaches’ education and professional development is also in a focus: the Program’s content and methodology is specific for the age cohort and constantly changing for better practices. Discussion and conclusions: the Program reinforced opinions that emphasized that selection is a long-term and systematic process in which regular tests and measurements are needed. Gifted young soccer players should not be selected simply for their physical outlook but rather on those conditions that are difficult to measure: the way they play the game, their skills, and their motivation for success. Talent selection and management should depend on their individual and team abilities and skills, technical skills, and assertiveness. Only those coaches with high-level understanding, competencies, and motivation can make changes in the sport.

Motivation and motivational climate among elite hammer throwers

Summary Study aim: The purpose of the study was to explore the characteristics of the motivational factors and the motivational climate of elite hammer throwers in the most prestigious and most successful club in Hungary. Material and methods: The Sport Motivational Scale (SMS) and the Perceived Motivational Climate in Sport Questionnaire (PMCSQ) were used to assess the motivation and motivational climate among hammer throw athletes (N=23). Data were analysed with descriptive statistical methods. The independent sample t-test was applied for the determination of differences as related to success level, age, and gender. Also, correlation was used to find out what relationships exist among the variables. Results: Amotivation tends to be at low levels (M=2.48±1.40), while extrinsic motivation (M=4.68±0.79) and intrinsic motivation (M=4.40±0.95) can be considered to be at medium levels in the sample. There were no differences in motivation between elite and non-elite athletes and between athletes under and over 18 years of age. However, male throwers had a significantly higher level of intrinsic motivation (t=2.941, p=.008) and a significantly lower level of amotivation (t=-2.428, p=0.025) than female athletes. The sample had higher values of Task orientation (3.97±0.40) than Ego orientation (2.63±0.47). There were no differences detected in success level, gender, and age in the athletes’ motivational climate. The correlation in all cases seems to be generally low. Conclusions: The coach of this successful club focuses on creating a positive climate in which the athletes’ skill levels, goal orientation, age, and gender are matched with challenges and expectations. The relatively few differences in motivation and motivational climate prove that the coach provides continuous support on both the individual and group level. The coach does it not only with the athletes’ skills and conditioning, but also with their motivation and motivational climate.

Women on ice - gender equalization

In the last decades the women started to do sports which were originally masculine (Pfister, 1990). The parity led to the slow transformation of the old-school thinking about the traditional roles of sexes (Hall, 1996). The main questions of our investigation were whether the athletes’ thought of the figure skating and the ice hockey are different according to their sport or to the existing stereotypes in the Hungarian sport society. We used semi-structured interviews to gather opinions of two different gender type icy sports’ top women athletes (figure skating and ice hockey) to see their viewpoints about the gender equalization. We can verify Metheny (1965) findings, that the social acceptance or refusal of women in sports on the basis of traditional features is changing slightly. Research questions were: Are there differences in the childhood sport socialization processes of the representatives of the two sports? What was the motivation behind their choice of sports? Are there differences in the gender identities of female athletes? What is the athletes’ opinion on one another and the representatives of the other sport? Method was semi-structured in-depth interviews and the samples were the members of the Hungarian women ice hockey and figure skating national team. According to our results family and siblings were decisive in the childhood socialization process. Early age patterns do not seem to have much influence on the selection of sport. Although among water polo/ice hockey girls there were a few tomboys. Among the ice hockey team members there were girlish girls and boyish girls as well, but among the figure skaters there were no one who was boyish. No differences can be observed in their views on gender roles concerning for example employment or housework.