By Ryan Flaherty for Coaches Association of Saskatchewan
On the surface, coaching is about helping athletes learn and improve and giving them the tools they need to succeed. But at its heart, coaching is about people – getting to know them, building relationships with them, and understanding what’s going on in their lives. The best coaches know that tailoring their approach to the individual needs of each athlete they work with can not only lead to greater rewards in the field of play, but in the athletes’ lives outside of sport as well.
For Indigenous athletes, those needs may be quite different from those of their non-Indigenous counterparts. That is the driving force behind the Aboriginal Coaching Module, which was created in response to the call for a national coach training curriculum that reflects Indigenous culture, values and lifestyles. Originally designed for coaches of First Nation, Métis or Inuit heritage, the ACM is now available for all coaches and especially encouraged for those who work with Indigenous athletes or in Indigenous communities.
Knowledge keeper Chuck Thomas helps to deliver ACM workshops across Saskatchewan and believes they play an important role in the ongoing Truth and Reconciliation effort to foster greater understanding, empathy and respect between Indigenous and non-Indigenous people.
“These athletes are coming from communities where they have, in most cases, absolutely no facilities, no funding, they all have to travel away from the reserves to go into the city and participate. That’s very difficult because of the socio-economic conditions. The ACM basically creates an authentic and meaningful way that [coaching] is delivered,” Thomas said.
“For many years we basically said that you needed physical and mental ability to do a sport. But you also need to have that spiritual and cultural perspective, and if you don’t have all four of those elements you’re going to have difficulty participating in any sport.”
The ACM promotes a holistic approach to coaching that embraces those four elements along with the emotional and intellectual needs of the athlete. It also focuses on the unique health and lifestyle challenges that Indigenous people may face and tackles issues of racism in sport.
In doing so, the ACM directly addresses several of the TRC’s Calls to Action; in particular, number 90, which calls for sport policies that are inclusive of Aboriginal peoples, coaching programs that are culturally relevant to Aboriginal peoples and anti-racism awareness and training programs.
“If reconciliation is really going to come then the coaches, the organizations, the club level, the institutional level has to understand where the Indigenous athlete is coming from,” Thomas said.
By going through the ACM, coaches broaden their understanding of the lives of Indigenous athletes and gain perspective that can help them connect with those athletes on a deeper, more fundamental level. That, in turn, has the potential to lead to better results on the playing surface.
For Indigenous athletes, the rewards can be even greater and extend well beyond sport. Simply being heard and understood can make a huge difference.
“The hardest thing probably for most [Indigenous] athletes to participate is acceptance,” Thomas said.
“We’re not telling [coaches] to change their ways; we’re just making them aware that the Indigenous athlete is different.”
The response from those who have taken part in the ACM workshops has been overwhelmingly positive, he adds.
“I think most of the coaches are walking away saying, you know, there’s one piece of the puzzle that I didn’t think I knew; now I know,” Thomas said.
And as more coaches take the opportunity to learn through the ACM, more pieces of that puzzle will hopefully fall into place, leading to a more inclusive and supportive environment for Indigenous athletes that helps them reach their full potential. For a coach, there’s no greater reward than that.
There are three upcoming dates available for ACM workshops:
- Nov. 29, 2025
- Dec. 6, 2025
- Dec. 13, 2025
