Developmental Paths and Activities of Successful Sport Coaches

The purpose of this research report is to present an overview of an ongoing, international project designed to chart the developmental paths and activities of sport coaches. This brief report includes three sections: (a) conceptual framework used to guide the project, (b) project design and methodology, and (c) results from pilot studies with a sample of 15 successful coaches working in different sport contexts in the United States Unlike the findings for athletic profiles, where several trends across coaching contexts were evident, only one trend was found in how these diverse groups of coaches invested their time in coach developmental activities. In relation to other coaching activities very little time was devoted to formal coach education on an annual basis. The results reinforce the need to consider the coaching context when examining coach development and when designing coach development initiatives.

Bioaccumulation Trends of Ten Metals in a Pelagic Food Web of Lake Champlain

Many metals have serious toxic effects when ingested by aquatic organisms, and the process of bioaccumulation intensifies this problem. A better understanding of bioaccumulation trends of anthropogenically introduced metals in freshwater food webs is necessary for the development of effective management strategies to protect aquatic organisms, as well as organisms (including humans) that consume top-predator fish in these food webs. Various fish species representing different trophic levels of a pelagic food chain were sampled from Lake Champlain (VT/NY). Atomic absorption spectrometry (AAS) was used to determine levels of chromium, copper, cobalt, cadmium, lead, zinc, nickel, rubidium, cesium and potassium in the fish samples. Metal concentrations for chromium, cobalt, nickel, cesium, cadmium (<5.0 ppm) and lead (<10.0 ppm) were found to be all below detection limits. Carbon and nitrogen isotopic ratios were analyzed to determine the trophic relationship of each fish species. Stable isotope and AAS metal data were used in tandem to produce linear regressions for each metal against trophic level to assess biomagnification. Both potassium and zinc showed no biomagnification because they are homeostatically regulated essential trace metals. Copper was under the detection limits for all fish species with the exception of the sea lamprey; but showed a significant biodiminution among the invertebrates and lamprey. Rubidium, a rarely studied metal, was shown to increase with trophic level in a marginally significant linear relationship suggesting biomagnification is possible where more trophic levels are sampled.