“It’s just been learning on the job”: becoming and developing as a ParaHockey coach

Although the body of literature around disability sport has grown in interest over the last decade, there remains a lack of research focusing on contexts where athletes have intellectual impairments. Not only this, but despite recommendations made several decades ago to improve coach education for disability sport, there remains very few opportunities available. Therefore, this study foregrounds the experiences and opinions of ParaHockey coaches in becoming and learning to coach in this context. Data were collected via semi-structured interviews with 8 coaches and 2 staff from the International Hockey Federation (FIH). The essence of constructivist grounded theory was employed to analyse these data, from which two categories were constructed; 1) Becoming a ParaHockey Coach and 2) Developing as a ParaHockey Coach, which are discussed in light of Models of disability. The study concludes by advocating for integration of disability within FIH coach education provision and the value in utilising the social-relational model of disability to make sense of coaches' experiences.