Something has to change for coaches in Ontario. This groundbreaking new report could be the start

But according to a groundbreaking new report on the state of coaching in Ontario, this all makes her a rarity: female, diverse — and actually trained. 

The 2023 Ontario Coaching Report says coaches are predominantly white men and only 42 per cent of all coaches have any NCCP training. Just half have some form of safe sport education and a third of coaches did not complete a background check or sign a code of conduct. As well, a third reported being aware of hazing rituals within their club or organization, with the vast majority of them saying it was part of team building or the way it was done was OK.

"A lot of it was not surprising and it sucks," Bunag said of the report. "It's stuff that you'd hope as a woman, especially a woman of colour, you'd think, OK, maybe it's a little bit better now. It's not."

The Coaches Association of Ontario report also found that coaches with NCCP training were more confident in handling issues such as concussions and were more likely to say they're trying to end hazing practices.

Those findings and others demonstrate that training for coaches is beneficial and should be mandatory at all levels of sport, says Jeremy Cross, executive director of the Coaches Association of Ontario.

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"We would love to see every athlete out there being coached by a competent, certified NCCP coach. That would be huge. It's standardized training, it's wanted around the world. Canada is a global leader in coaching education and yet we fight it in Canada," Cross said.

But the need for better trained coaches comes at the same time sports are increasingly struggling to find coaches willing to volunteer their time and small, underfunded organizations have little capacity to pay for training or even monitor compliance with coach requirements, he said.

The report is based on a survey of 1,000 Ontario coaches in 80 sports carried out by Leger. A sample of this size would have a margin of error of 3.1 per cent 19 times out of 20.

The Ontario association has previously reported on coach demographics and training but this year, with funding from Hydro One, they were able to reach broadly into the community for a more accurate picture of the state of coaching.

The association estimates that at least 250,000 coaches are needed annually across all levels of sport in Ontario — approximately double the number of teachers in the province — and the majority of them coach for less than five years, further complicating the issue of training.

"It's going to take a village to do this — athletes, parents, guardians, all the way through the system of administrators, coaches, officials and government," Cross said. "It's going to take some financial investment to support the organizations that are going to have to hold people accountable to doing this work."

He says coach training also needs to be offered in consumable bite-sized pieces that are affordable and accessible to the majority of coaches who are unpaid volunteers (76 per cent) and make sport possible for kids.

"We have to make sure that we don't overwhelm the coaches. Right now we have a mom and a dad who takes a whistle and says, 'yeah, I can do it.' And then we tell them take your NCCP training, do your safe sport training, do your background screening, and it's on and on," he said. "I hear it in my own circle of friends — we've all got nine year olds — and they're like, 'no one was going to coach, so I did it.'"

At the national sport level, increasing concerns about athlete well-being and safe sport have led to the introduction of the Office of the Sport Integrity Commissioner to independently investigate maltreatment cases and universal code of conduct violations as well as better governance rules for organizations. But those federal measures don't generally filter down to provincial sport organizations and the community level where most sport in Canada takes place.

At the grassroots level, sport programs for kids are held together largely by volunteers who are often overwhelmed with managing increasing costs and expectations.

Bunag grew up in Scarborough playing basketball and, early on, developed a love for coaching the sport as well as playing.

"I always liked coaching recreationally and being able to teach grassroots and their skills," she said. "But I wanted a little bit of a challenge with my coaching and being able to start drawing plays and having the focus no longer be just on their self-improvement, but now on their team improvement."

In September she started coaching an under-12 competitive girls team with Toronto Lords Basketball. She's now in the midst of the NCCP Learn to Train workshop, which is designed specifically for the age group she's coaching, but says she wouldn't have taken that step if it hadn't been required by the sport association.

It's not free — unlike the training she had previously taken — and it's hours of online modules, multiple days of in-class training and to become certified it requires an in-person assessment of her coaching, she explained.

"It's a lot of time, especially for someone who works."

The 24-year-old works in human resources at a law firm and already spends 10 to 20 hours a week, depending on the game schedule, as an unpaid basketball coach. She agrees with the vast majority of coaches who said coaching is a positive addition to their life and even improves their mental health.

"If I were to stop coaching something would definitely be missing in my life," Bunag said. But she's already starting to experience some of the report's other findings first hand.

Continuing with an unpaid coaching job becomes a more difficult choice each year as the cost of living rises, she said. And she wasn't surprised to see that 65 per cent of coaches said their club or organization has a hard time finding coaches.

According to cross, the survey data will help guide the association in its education, training and support of coaches. "We want to do this again every one to two years so that we can track changes," he said.

"Are we moving the needle? Are we are we changing the game?"