{"id":17286,"date":"2023-04-03T09:00:00","date_gmt":"2023-04-03T09:00:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/leadersinsport.com\/performance-institute\/?post_type=article&p=17286"},"modified":"2025-12-15T05:11:17","modified_gmt":"2025-12-15T05:11:17","slug":"do-i-go-towards-coaching-or-something-else-i-had-no-career-plan","status":"publish","type":"article","link":"https:\/\/leadersinsport.com\/performance-institute\/articles\/do-i-go-towards-coaching-or-something-else-i-had-no-career-plan\/","title":{"rendered":"\u2018Do I Go Towards Coaching or Something Else? I Had No Career Plan\u2019"},"content":{"rendered":"\n\n
\n\t
\n\n\t\t
\n\t\t\t
\n\n\t\t\t\t
\n \n\t\t\t\t\t
\n\t\t\t\t\t\t

\n 3 Apr 2023 <\/p>\n \t\t\t\t\t\t\n\t\t\t\t\t\t\t<\/span>Articles<\/a>\n\n\t\t\t\t\t\t

\u2018Do I Go Towards Coaching or Something Else? I Had No Career Plan\u2019<\/h1>\n\t\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\n \n\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t<\/div>\n\n\t<\/div>\n<\/div>\n
\n
\n
\n
Category<\/div>\n Leadership & Culture<\/a> <\/div>\n
\n
Share<\/div>\n Facebook<\/a>\n Twitter<\/a>\n Email<\/a>\n Copy Link<\/a>\n
https:\/\/leadersinsport.com\/performance-institute\/articles\/do-i-go-towards-coaching-or-something-else-i-had-no-career-plan\/<\/div>\n <\/div>\n <\/div>\n <\/section>\n\n\n\n\n
\n
\n
\n
\n

In the first instalment of a two-part interview, Lisa Jacob of Hockey Ireland describes how she interprets her role as High Performance Director.<\/p>\n \n \n \n

\n

By John Portch<\/h6>\n
Lisa Jacob has worn several hats during the course of her sporting career.<\/h6>\n

She is a former dual international athlete, having represented Ireland at both field hockey and rugby sevens. In hockey, she accrued 139 caps and scored 17 goals between 2006 and 2014 and, upon retiring from hockey, took an 18-month contract to play sevens.<\/p>\n

In her post-playing career, she returned to hockey and coached the Ireland girls\u2019 under-16 and under-18 teams. She also worked as a coach developer. Then, in 2019, Jacob was appointed to Hockey Ireland\u2019s board of directors and she became the organisation\u2019s Strategic Director later that year. It began a run of several swift transitions.<\/p>\n

In 2020, Jacob became the women\u2019s programme\u2019s Team Manager, in charge of logistics and operations \u2013 \u201cthe glue that gets things moving\u201d \u2013 as she puts it. \u201cI had no career plan \u2013 I just ended up as Team Manager perchance,\u201d she tells the Leaders Performance Institute.<\/p>\n

\u201cI did that into the Tokyo Olympics and then we had a couple of coaches who finished up after the Olympics, but the team had a World Cup qualifying tournament maybe eight weeks later. So I went from Team Manager to an assistant coach. I knew the group and I had a coaching background anyway.<\/p>\n

\u201cI had that critical choice of \u2018do I go towards coaching or do I go towards something else?’\u201d<\/p>\n

Her decision was \u2018something else\u2019 and she became High Performance Director in September 2022. It is a role she discusses in the first half of a two-part interview with the Leaders Performance Institute.<\/p>\n

\u201cI sit overarching all of high performance over the men\u2019s and women\u2019s programmes and the pathway,\u201d she continues. \u201cMy role is trying to support the head coaches to enable them to focus on their role and take away some of the stakeholder management and fight for resources, and go between the institutes.\u201d<\/p>\n

Hockey Ireland identifies, develops, trains and selects players from across both jurisdictions on the island of Ireland, which means that Jacob works closely with Sport Ireland, Sport Northern Ireland, the Sport Ireland Institute, the Sport Institute of Northern Ireland, as well as the Olympic Federation of Ireland.<\/p>\n

\u201cThey would all be big stakeholders with whom I work directly and my piece is as a kind of advocate; planning; doing all of the policies and proposals.<\/p>\n

\u201cThe performance director\u2019s role is important because that fight for resources always exists, so there needs to be somebody who\u2019s always separate, who can oversee everything and go \u2018hold on, if we join these dots we can get more bang for our buck\u2019 or \u2018this is more important than this space, even if you don\u2019t like it, and this is why\u2019, \u2018this is the bit that\u2019s important for you\u2019 etc.\u201d<\/p>\n

Working under the programme\u2019s head coaches (Mark Tamilty on the men\u2019s side and Sean Dancer on the women\u2019s) is a mixture of Hockey Ireland employees and institute service providers.<\/p>\n

\u201cThere\u2019s a lot of staff around the team, which can be great, but it can also cause a disconnect,\u201d Jacob says. \u201cI see my role as checking where everyone is at. I feel by listening that you really get a feel for it, where things are at, what might need to happen. It might seem small but I am helping people with their performance challenges as they see them.<\/p>\n

\u201cI also have a role in working with the athletes. By and large, I work with the leadership group to address any issues. In some ways, I need to be separate enough but also connected enough to understand if there are issues or changes of direction needed. I need to be approachable enough for those to come to the fore.\u201d<\/p>\n

What have been some of her reflections on her first six months in the role? \u201cI\u2019ve learned that the role is quite hard to define,\u201d she says, adding, \u201cthere\u2019s more than one way to do the performance director role, certainly in Ireland. You take the piece around how you can position and engage yourself and engage everybody in a way that you can shift the dial.\u201d<\/p>\n

There is not always unanimity. \u201cIt\u2019s certainly not always an easy one but there\u2019s a lot of really good people in the programme and my job is to get the best out of them, make sure that things are working well, so they can do what they\u2019re best at.\u201d<\/p>\n

At the time of writing, both the men\u2019s and women\u2019s programmes are placed thirteenth in their respective FIH World Rankings (\u201cthat\u2019s probably accurate enough\u201d) but the women\u2019s team exceeded all expectations to finish runners-up at the 2018 FIH World Cup. It was a breakthrough moment for the women\u2019s game in Ireland and, in the subsequent time, the programme has enjoyed an increased range of, and access to, service providers. \u201cThat has allowed us to professionalise the programme for the girls. They get more direct support to be able to commit to hockey as well as pursuing work or study. They\u2019re not scrambling to make things work.\u201d<\/p>\n

While that silver medal provided a watershed, there have not been wholesale changes, and there will not be any on Jacob\u2019s watch.<\/p>\n

\u201cThe programme is in place and has had a really clear plan over the last four years or so,\u201d she says. \u201cWe\u2019re now in 2023, which is a key year for qualifying for the Olympics. You might sit down and look at something with the coach but it\u2019s really now small tweaks with a few key questions such as \u2018are you going to go on a warm weather tour?\u2019 So I\u2019d work with the coach to set the direction of the programme but it\u2019s not from a blank page or throwing out everything we\u2019ve been doing.\u201d<\/p>\n

To wrap up the first part of her interview, the conversation turns to social support for athletes and staff and how Jacob can make an impact. She discusses her role with regard to the Ireland women\u2019s programme, stating that the squad is a \u201creally good group of friends\u201d and \u201csometimes that can be good and sometimes that can make it harder to have honest conversations in the performance space.\u201d<\/p>\n

This is why the team have placed an emphasis on building relationships in the truncated time between the Tokyo and Paris Olympic Games. \u201cWhen we have lunch, we need to sit together, you need to be asking your mate what\u2019s going on in their life proactively rather than just hoping it will happen just because we\u2019re in the same training base for two days a week.\u201d<\/p>\n

Players and personnel may not always talk about themselves but they may tell other Hockey Ireland staff about a teammate or colleague. Jacob explains that the work of Hockey Ireland\u2019s head of performance services is invaluable in that regard. For her own part, she is sure to have contact points within the staff.<\/p>\n

\u201cI have realised in the last six months that there\u2019s one or two people who sit very naturally in the space of supporting people through performance challenges.\u201d She must ensure the right person is available for each challenge. \u201cIf you\u2019re on the ground observing, you can send the right support towards someone or even follow up with them yourself \u2013 but there\u2019s so many people I that I literally cannot do it all myself \u2013 with me, there are key people I try to keep across because I tend to be the glue for everybody else and it’s made me think quite a lot about how you structure and support people\u2019s wellbeing and mental health in a high performance environment.\u201d<\/p>\n

Lisa Jacob is a contributor to our latest Special Report, titled Navigating Your Way Through Major Competitions: a snapshot from Olympic, Paralympic and elite team sports<\/strong>. In addition to Hockey Ireland, it features insights from Swimming Australia, the Lawn Tennis Association, Athletics Australia and Welsh Rugby Union. Each has teams competing in major tournaments this year and all are bound to give you something to think about in your future projects.<\/em><\/p>\n