The Coach's Role in Young Athletes' Emotional Competence and Psychological Well-Being

This paper presents a model that analyses the relationship between the coach's emotional competences and the training climate as predictors of the youngsters' emotional competences and psychological well-being. In the present study, 309 athletes and 17 coaches participated in the study. A general predictive model was estimated with path analysis and the maximum robust likelihood (MLR) estimation method. The results showed that the coach's emotional competences are associated with autonomy-supportive climates ([beta] = 0.15, p < 0.005). This climate is related to youth's emotional competences ([beta] = 0.30, p < 0.005) and lower emotional ([beta] = -0.27, p < 0.005), behavioural ([beta] = -0.51, p < 0.005), and social ([beta] = -0.33, p < 0.005) symptomatology. These results have important practical implications in designing interventions that promote coaches' emotional competences given its association with autonomy-supportive climates, which in turn are related to athletes' emotional competences and psychological well-being.