The purpose of this case study was to construct a detailed profile of a successful youth wheelchair basketball coach. While there are many studies of teaching and coaching expertise, only a scant amount of research has been completed on disability sport coaching. This study is important because it provides insight into how a successful youth wheelchair basketball coach conducts practices and games while offering practical advice and suggestions for others who wish to gain expertise in coaching wheelchair sports.
The participant of this study was an experienced youth wheelchair basketball coach with over 10 years experience, and a winner of a national championship in junior wheelchair basketball. Qualitative data for this case study was collected from several sources. First, the research team observed team practices and games including the junior wheelchair basketball national tournament. At these events, the research team took field notes and collected coaching documents including practice and game plans. Second, the coach was interviewed on three occasions. The interviews included one semi-structured interview, one stimulated recall interview based on observations from the practices and games, and one q-sort interview in where the coach was asked to rank describe in detail how he learned to be a successful wheelchair basketball coach. Third, the coach was asked to submit and explain an artifact that symbolized what he felt was most important about coaching junior wheelchair basketball.
The interviews were tape recorded and transcribed along with the field notes and artifact explanation. All these data sources were analyzed by the research team using the constant comparative method to construct themes that paint a detailed portrait of this successful wheelchair basketball coach. The various data sources were triangulated and returned to the participant to in an effort to ensure data trustworthiness. The results for this study include a thick description of how this successful coach worked with his team during the season. The results are compared with other studies of coaching expertise, and a detailed explanation of the knowledge sources that the coach feels are important when learning how to coach wheelchair basketball is presented along with practical advice and suggestions to others who wish to gain expertise in coaching wheelchair sports.