IN a career spanning 25 years, Allistair McCaw has delivered mental stimulus to leading tennis lights such as Dinara Sifana, Svetlana Kuznetsova, and Kevin Anderson. He has provided inspiration to former South Africa cricket captain Graeme Smith, and been courted for advice by Olympians, professional golfers and world champions. A Scottish sporting audience will sit and listen eagerly to his tales this weekend, hoping some of that gold dust will maybe rub off on them.
McCaw, Belfast-born, South Africa-raised and now Florida-based, is a marathon runner who is always on the move. Where once the majority of his coaching centred on improving the physical well-being of his clients, now he focuses predominantly on honing their mental capabilities.
The author of three books on the subject, McCaw describes himself as a “sports performance consultant, mindset coach and team culture builder”. His work takes him all around the world, delivering keynote speeches and sessions to coaches, athletes and other leaders all looking for the one bit of insight that could make all the difference in an ultra-competitive world of marginal gains.
He will spend this weekend at Peffermill in Edinburgh – the invited guest of Scottish Hockey, Scottish Archery, Badminton Scotland and Scottish Fencing – where he will deliver the learnings he has picked up and developed throughout his career as both an athlete and now as a leading coach.
“A lot of my focus is on building team cultures and better team environments,” he explained. “I share my insights and experiences from what I’ve seen in winning team cultures, and the commonalities these groups all share. I also look at toxic cultures where a team environment has gone bad and examine the reasons for that.
“A win-at-all-costs mentality, as we’ve seen with the Australian cricket team, can be very damaging. And that’s also a mentality that is often present at club or even recreational level. In the United States they have that mentality sometimes even at under-12 or under-14 level and you see the repercussions from that later in life.
“I also touch on the All Blacks’ principle that better people make better players and that’s a very important message. Building winning cultures takes time but it’s a worthwhile investment.”
Self-confidence and self-promotion are traits that do not come naturally to many Scots who would rather chew off their own feet than boast about their achievements in public.
That inclination to keep our proverbial lights hidden under bushels would seem to be detrimental to Scottish success in the sporting arena but McCaw feels it is not insurmountable, nor a uniquely Caledonian problem.
“Nobody likes an arrogant person but inner self-confidence to me is someone who can express their strengths but also their weaknesses,” he added. “But that attitude is not exclusive to Scotland. Even in Australia, where they’ve produced so many world-class athletes, they talk about Tall Poppy Syndrome and a need to keep people in check.
“It all comes down to an individual, their journey and self-image. If you’re going to climb the ladder to success you’re going to get criticised and scorned, but you have to just get on with your journey.
“But you have some high-quality people working in Scotland now, including Steven Gerrard and Michael Beale [first-team coach] at Rangers, and Gregor Townsend at Scottish Rugby. I knew Michael when he was at Sao Paulo and then at Liverpool, and Gregor is someone I’ve chatted to over the years. So there are some great exponents of good team culture in Scotland.”
McCaw is, unsurprisingly, evangelical and passionate about his career. “I’ve been doing this for 25 years but I’ve never worked a day in my life,” he adds. “I consult with many world-class athletes who will call me to discuss issues they are maybe having within their team when they don’t feel comfortable going to an agent or a coach. Over the years you build up a reputation and trust that allows you to do that and be in that position.
“I’ve submerged myself in winning team cultures. I’ve surrounded myself with great leaders and great people since I was 15 or 16 and just absorbed and learned every day.
“I’m fuelled by my greater purpose and vision and that’s to help others achieve their greater potential. And that’s what drives me every day. I just love to see people succeed.”
Why are you making commenting on The Herald only available to subscribers?
It should have been a safe space for informed debate, somewhere for readers to discuss issues around the biggest stories of the day, but all too often the below the line comments on most websites have become bogged down by off-topic discussions and abuse.
heraldscotland.com is tackling this problem by allowing only subscribers to comment.
We are doing this to improve the experience for our loyal readers and we believe it will reduce the ability of trolls and troublemakers, who occasionally find their way onto our site, to abuse our journalists and readers. We also hope it will help the comments section fulfil its promise as a part of Scotland's conversation with itself.
We are lucky at The Herald. We are read by an informed, educated readership who can add their knowledge and insights to our stories.
That is invaluable.
We are making the subscriber-only change to support our valued readers, who tell us they don't want the site cluttered up with irrelevant comments, untruths and abuse.
In the past, the journalist’s job was to collect and distribute information to the audience. Technology means that readers can shape a discussion. We look forward to hearing from you on heraldscotland.com
Comments & Moderation
Readers’ comments: You are personally liable for the content of any comments you upload to this website, so please act responsibly. We do not pre-moderate or monitor readers’ comments appearing on our websites, but we do post-moderate in response to complaints we receive or otherwise when a potential problem comes to our attention. You can make a complaint by using the ‘report this post’ link . We may then apply our discretion under the user terms to amend or delete comments.
Post moderation is undertaken full-time 9am-6pm on weekdays, and on a part-time basis outwith those hours.
Read the rules here