"I am passionate about growing the game and, in particular, giving girls the opportunities that my generation did not necessarily have"
Name: Katie Wales
Age: 29
From: Oxford, Oxfordshire
Activity: Football
Where Katie coaches: Oxfordshire FA, Chinnor FC, Queens Park Rangers, ACS Hillingdon School
Katie’s coaching journey: I’ve coached across several organisations for a number of years.
I am passionate about growing the game and, in particular, giving girls the opportunities that my generation did not necessarily have.
I’d like to get to a place whereby we eradicate any barriers that exist and prevent girls getting involved in sport.
It’s not entirely selfless either, there is a massive satisfaction factor from seeing the outcomes of the time and effort you put into developing young people, be it better equipping them for football or for life in general.
There is a quote about how a coach will impact more people in a year than some do in a lifetime - it’s both a privilege and great responsibility which I subscribe to whole heartedly!
I have become a master of logistics and advanced planning! Coaching in London, Oxfordshire (sometimes on the same day), balancing a full time (and more!) consultancy career, and of course home life as well.
A lot of people look at my lifestyle and don’t understand how I do it, but the coaching really complements all the other areas and I simply wouldn’t be able to do it if it wasn’t fulfilling.
It has also helped me interact with such a wide variety of people, with different backgrounds, different challenges, different motivations.
Having to quickly assimilate what makes people tick is now my day-in-day-out, and developing emotional intelligence really influences the relationships you can build, be it in a coaching, work or life context.
I am not sure I could pick out a single area within my coach development which has not stretched beyond the boundaries of the coaching context and into other areas of life.