Global Research in Higher Education ISSN 2576-196X (Print) ISSN 2576-1951 (Online) Vol. 6, No. 1, 2023 www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/grhe 57 Original Paper Multidimensional Meaning, Existing Problems and Optimization Path for the Management of Coaches in Chinese University Basketball League Feiyang Liu 1 , Yunliang Lei, Jingying Li 3 & Liya Guo 1* 1 School of Physical Education, Southwest University, Chongqing City, China. 2 School of Foreign Language and Literature, Beijing Normal University, China 3 College of Foreign Language, Chongqing Normal University, Chongqing City, China. * Liya Guo, School of Physical Education, Southwest University, Chongqing City, China Received: March 1, 2023 Accepted: March 13, 2023 Online Published: March 16, 2023 doi:10.22158/grhe.v6n1p57 URL:http://dx.doi.org/10.22158/grhe.v6n1p57 Abstract A well-managed level of competition and training by coaches is an essential catalyst for the achievement of talent development goals in the Chinese University Basketball League. This study compares the multi-dimensional meaning of the management of coaches in the Chinese College Basketball League, and analyses the existing management problems based on the SMART principle, the 4P model of human resource management, and the GROW model, to propose feasible measures to optimize the management of coaches. This research aims to provide a theoretical reference and practical basis for the improvement of the management and to provide a driving force for the realization of the long-term goal of talent training in the Chinese University Basketball League. Keywords Chinese University Basketball League, Coaches, Competition and Training Management, Human Resource Management, Existing Problems and Optimization Path www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/grhe Global Research in Higher Education Vol. 6, No. 1, 2023 58 Published by SCHOLINK INC. 1. Introduction The China University Basketball League was officially founded in 1998. It is one of the most important events in basketball in China and an important symbol of the flourishing development of high-level sports talents in China (Luo, Zou & Li, 2015, pp. 127-132). However, the current progress of the Chinese College Basketball league is still below the strategic goal of nurturing high-level sports talents for China and fulfilling the mission of the World University Games and major international and domestic sports competitions. Previous studies have shown that the level of competition and training management of coaches in the Chinese University Basketball League not only determines the competitive level of basketball in colleges and universities but also matters whether qualified talents can be delivered for the sustainable development of basketball at the highest level in China (Cheng, 2010, pp. 29-32, p. 61). Therefore, to develop college basketball, improve the competitive level of the league, and make the Chinese college basketball league among the advanced ranks of the world college basketball as soon as possible, based on clarifying the importance of the management level of competition and training of Chinese college basketball league coaches, it is necessary to investigate the existing management problems and feasible optimization paths of Chinese college basketball league coaches to become the focus of scholars today. 2. The Importance of the Management Ability of the Chinese College Basketball League Coaches’ Competition and Training 2.1 Strategic Significance to the Macroscopic Talent Cultivation of the League For the Chinese College Basketball League, the development of the league and the overall improvement of the main body of players have important strategic significance for its macroscopic talent cultivation, and the level of coaches’ competition and training management plays a significant regulatory role in it (Yang & Li, 2021, pp. 355-359). Firstly, from the perspective of league development, the Chinese university basketball league is an important reservoir for the cultivation of high-level sports talents, and the excellent competition and training management ability of coaches has a great contribution to the improvement of the competitive level, talent cultivation function and aesthetic spectacle of the Chinese university basketball league. Secondly, from the perspective of talent cultivation, coaches, as the direct organizers, implementers, and instructors of basketball training in universities, play a leading role in the improvement of the athletic level and the overall development of the comprehensive quality of university athletes. Therefore, the excellent competition and training management ability of coaches can positively contribute to the cultivation of high-level sports talents in the macro sense of the league, whether by promoting the growth of the Chinese college basketball league or the improvement of players’ level (Liu & Xu, 2020, pp. 78-85). www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/grhe Global Research in Higher Education Vol. 6, No. 1, 2023 59 Published by SCHOLINK INC. 2.2 Practical Implications for Team Performance in the Micro Sense of Competition In terms of the actual competition performance of the teams in the China University Basketball League, the competition and training management level of the coaches plays an important role in it. In basketball competitions, coaches play a central role in the preparation of training before the game, the competition during the game, and the adjustment and summary after the game (Bi, Chen & Li, 2014, pp. 113-118). In the pre-game training preparation, the coaches’ training requirements directly affect the players’ performance on the court, emphasizing that effective training is the basis for good performance in the game from a difficult, strict, and practical point of view. Pre-match player management cannot be ignored, as neglecting the development of the players’ mindset can have an irreplaceable impact on the performance of the game. In the game, if the two sides are very different, the game will often appear to be one-sided, while if the two sides are equal in strength, the game will be extremely anxious and difficult to distinguish. While the players on the field will decide the direction of the game, the coaching staff on the sidelines will also be a key part of the game. When the coach observes that the situation on the field has changed, the coach should promptly replace the players on the field, request a timeout, specify targeted tactics, and adjust the players’ mentality at the right time. After the game, the coach should arrange for the players to take nutritional supplements in time to ensure that the players have enough glycogen and other nutrients for replenishment after a highly competitive game, to prepare for the next game. The post-match summary is also particularly crucial. The coaches should appropriately lead the players to summarise the game, even if they find any deficiencies in the game, and immediately clear to the players how to make adjustments to lay the ideological foundation for the next game. If the coaches do not play their proper role in the above process, it will have a significant negative impact on the team’s performance. Therefore, it has become a key concern for all participating sports teams today to deeply explore the existing problems of coaching team management in the Chinese University Basketball League (Liu, Xu & Zhu, 2020, pp. 108-115). 3. Analysis of the Management of the Chinese College Basketball League Coaches’ Competition and Training Based On the SMART Principle, 4P Model, and GROW Model To make a profound analysis of the management issues of the Chinese college basketball league coaches’ competition and training, it is necessary to have scientific investigation tools as support. Therefore, it is necessary to return to the essence of management and select scientific, practical, and feasible model tools to guarantee support for the investigation of the management issues of the Chinese college basketball league coaches’ competition and training. Human resource management is the general term for a series of activities through which managers effectively use human resources inside and outside the organization to meet the current and future development needs of the organization and to ensure the achievement of the organization's goals and the maximization of the development of its www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/grhe Global Research in Higher Education Vol. 6, No. 1, 2023 60 Published by SCHOLINK INC. members (Zhao, 2005, pp. 15-20, p. 26). And any successful management model must have a reasonable management model as a guide. Based on this, this study selects the SMART principle, 4P model, and GROW model from the vast human resource management models to systematically analyze the management of Chinese college basketball league coaches’ competition and training, aiming to organically combine the logic of talent management with the characteristics of Chinese college basketball league competition and training, and to show the direction for the next feasible optimization path of Chinese college basketball league coaches’ competition and training. The aim is to organically combine the logic of talent management with the characteristics of competition and training of the Chinese college basketball league and to point out the direction for the feasible optimization path of the management of competition and training of Chinese college basketball league coaches. 3.1 Analysis Based on the SMART Principle The SMART principle is a classic law in the human resource management method, which has been proven to be scientific and widely applied in both theory and practice (Ning, Sun & Liu, 2011, pp. 25-27). Attainable, R=Relevant, T=Time-bound) is designed to facilitate employees to work more clearly and efficiently, but also to provide assessment objectives and assessment standards for managers to implement performance appraisals on employees in the future, making the appraisal more scientific and standardized, and better ensuring the fairness, openness, and equity of the appraisal. Among them, Specific means that performance indicators must be specific, not general; Measurable means that performance indicators must be measurable, and the data or information to verify these performance indicators is available; Attainable means that performance indicators must be attainable, and can be achieved under the condition of putting in efforts; Relevant means Attainable means that performance indicators must be achievable with effort; Relevant means that performance indicators must have some relevance to other objectives and need to be related to the job; Time-bound means that performance indicators must have clear deadlines and need to set a reasonable completion date for the objectives. Applying the SMART principles to the management scenario of coaches’ competition and training in the Chinese University Basketball League, both the team’s competition goals and the players’ training goals must conform to the above principles, and one of the five principles is indispensable, as shown in Figure 1. This study analyses the SMART principles on the management of competition and training for coaches in the Chinese University Basketball League. www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/grhe Global Research in Higher Education Vol. 6, No. 1, 2023 61 Published by SCHOLINK INC. Figure 1. Problem Analysis Content Diagram Based On SMART Principle From the point of view of specificity, many coaches in today’s Chinese college basketball league do not set out a clear expected goal, either during regular training or during the series. In particular, when training, they only train to complete the prescribed training items and lack the corresponding target, which makes the team’s training objectives blind and affects the quality of the team's training as well as its immediate performance at the time of the game. From a measurable point of view, many coaches in China’s college basketball leagues today often fail to assess the physical condition of their players and the ups and downs of their mentality on time. This is evidenced by the fact that the level of physical fatigue is not assessed during coaching sessions and the results of specified training programs are not statistically measured by relevant indicators. For example, the coaches did not have a reasonable standard to measure the physical progress of the players in the team when planning training. Many teams in the China University Basketball League do not adopt a reasonable standard to measure their physical fitness after training due to the mismanagement of coaches, resulting in a lack of targeted training, which makes the training less effective than expected. In terms of the achievability of the goals, the coaches did not set reasonable training goals and often put forward training requirements that were far greater than the players’ physical tolerances, causing some players to adopt lazy, small-circle training cheats to muddle through the training process, directly affecting the quality of training and eventually affecting their competitive performance in games. Moreover, some athletes suffer from overworked bodies and even injuries as they try to meet the excessive demands, which is also an undesirable consequence of having too high a training goal. www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/grhe Global Research in Higher Education Vol. 6, No. 1, 2023 62 Published by SCHOLINK INC. From the perspective of the relevance of goals to work, the coaches in the Chinese University Basketball League have made efforts to plan training but have failed in their approach in the area of relevance. Specifically, during series and holiday training, coaches tend to place too much emphasis on the completion of training programs, and blindly adopt a large number of training programs based on physical fitness and basic skills to achieve a certain training volume, regardless of the relevance of the training programs to the actual game, while the technical and tactical drills, the tacit understanding between players and the state of the game, which are crucial to the game, are to a certain extent neglected. As a result, many teams are not in the best physical and mental condition to compete in the tournament. In terms of time limits, the teams in the Chinese University Basketball League nowadays tend to have fluctuating training time limits and coaches generally fail to make reasonable arrangements. The coaches often give ambiguous targets to the players during training and do not set a time limit for completing the training program, which directly leads to a lack of concentration in the training process due to the lack of clear targets and time limits for completion. For example, during pre-tournament training, when the training program was arranged for fast break lay-ups, the standard time limit for completing the program and the number of training sets were not fixed, and there was a high degree of randomness, resulting in the original 2-hour training session often taking nearly 3 hours to complete the training content. This affects the overall performance of the team at the time of the match. 3.2 Analysis Based on the 4P Model of Human Resource Management The 4P model of human resource management means that the human resource management of an enterprise must be centered on the strategy of the enterprise, with “people” and “positions” as the two footholds of the enterprise, and its core contents are quality management (personality), position management (position management), and the quality of the team. The core contents are personality management, position management, performance management, and payment management, as shown in Figure 2, aiming at organically linking the development of the enterprise and the growth of the employees, to realize the development of people and people, people and positions, people and the enterprise. It is a strategic management method that can improve the performance of the organization and employees, effectively develop the potential of teams and individuals, and has a wide range of practicality (Guo, 2017, pp. 173-174). The problem of managing the competition and training of the coaches of the Chinese University Basketball League also belongs to the category of human resource management in essence, so we can also try to use the 4P model of human resource management to explore, as shown in Figure 2. www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/grhe Global Research in Higher Education Vol. 6, No. 1, 2023 63 Published by SCHOLINK INC. Figure 2. Core Content Composition Diagram of 4P Model of Coach Competition and Training Management Lack of position management. The coaching staff, despite their efforts to mobilize all factors, often produced a bias in the arrangement of basketball team personnel positions and their place on the court. In terms of training and team management, the captain of the basketball team has too many responsibilities in the team, leading the players to assist the coach in organizing training, managing daily chores, managing the team’s finances and fixed assets, and often dealing with disagreements between players. This overload also leads to inefficiency and limited results. On the pitch, coaches fail to place players in the right positions according to their characteristics and fail to develop technical and tactical arrangements that match the team’s personnel, resulting in games in which players do not play to their full potential and a situation in which 1”1 <2 often occurs (Miao & Huge, 2021, pp. 62-65). Neglect of quality management. The coaches failed to train the players’ overall quality, willpower, and sense of purpose to achieve the desired effect. The coaches did not organize regular motivational meetings for the players and did not take appropriate measures to regulate the mentality of the players after a period of boring training. When players are lax in their training, coaches do not ask them to learn relevant knowledge and do not pay attention to the development of their overall quality. These small details are magnified during matches, which will not only lead to instability in the players’ mindset at critical moments but will also harm the players’ long-term development in the future. Lax performance management. Coaches are not rigorous in assessing the effectiveness of their athletes’ training and their combat output on the field of play. When athletes failed to achieve the desired training results, they were not promptly raised and asked to correct the adjustments; when athletes www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/grhe Global Research in Higher Education Vol. 6, No. 1, 2023 64 Published by SCHOLINK INC. made significant progress, the coaches failed to provide timely feedback and encouragement to allow the athletes to continue to maintain good momentum. On the field of play, some athletes did not perform well, but did not receive timely reminders and adjustments, while some athletes who showed better performance on the field did not receive positive feedback, which directly led to the athletes not having a clear understanding of their performance and training results, and also affected the players’ mentality and physical condition adjustment on the field of play. Improper pay management. On the one hand, although college basketball players enjoy a certain degree of training and competition subsidies from their schools, college basketball teams do not have clear salaries and wages like professional basketball teams, so the management and details of the subsidies are often not taken seriously by coaches, resulting in some of the teams in the China College Basketball League failing to establish a standardized management system and monitoring mechanism for their salary subsidies. On the other hand, some coaches do not effectively link the players’ training efforts and on-court performance with the amount of salary subsidy, which harms the motivation of quality players in training and competition. 3.3 Analysis Based on the GROW Model The GROW model was introduced by John Whitmer in 1992 and has become one of the most widely used models in the field of human resource management (Gao & Wang, 2019, pp. 137-140). The basic GROW model is derived from the acronym of a four-stage model of decision making, i.e., the initials of the four English words Goal, Reality, Option, and Will, and this study applied it to the management scenario of the Chinese college basketball league coaches’ competition and training, as shown in Figure 3. www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/grhe Global Research in Higher Education Vol. 6, No. 1, 2023 65 Published by SCHOLINK INC. Figure 3. Application of GROW Model in the Management Situation of Coach Competition and Training At the same time, this model also emphasizes the four-step cycle of “goal setting-performance diagnosis-solution selection-implementation of improvement” (Jin & Huang, 2020, pp. 54-63). This study analyses the management of coaches’ competition and training in the Chinese University Basketball League from these four steps, as shown in Figure 4. www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/grhe Global Research in Higher Education Vol. 6, No. 1, 2023 66 Published by SCHOLINK INC. Figure 4. Four Loop Paths of GROW Model Goal setting. In training, the coaches were often unsure of the desired goals and did not adequately analyze the immediate physical and mental conditions of the university players, resulting in blind training sessions with poor results. In the pre-match preparation meetings, the coaches not only lacked targeted planning based on the opponent’s situation but also failed to listen patiently to the players’ inner thoughts, resulting in unclear requirements during the preparation meetings and often ambiguous guidelines for the match. Performance diagnosis. In terms of normal training, coaches in the current Chinese University Basketball League often lack comprehensive evaluation of players’ improvement of skills including dribbling, shooting, passing, and defending, and fail to conduct multiple assessments of the effects of physical training in terms of speed, strength, and endurance. The coaches do not pay much attention to the players’ tactical adaptability. When directing on the field, coaches often failed to grasp the direction of the game and the adjustment of the opponent’s tactical policy and often failed to make a correct judgment on the excitement level and attitude of their players during the game. Program selection. When choosing training programs, many coaches do not have the flexibility to take into account the specific training facilities, players’ abilities, and available training time, and most coaches still rely on the previous training paths and apply them rigidly, resulting in unsatisfactory training results. In addition, many coaches nowadays do not immediately analyze the situation on the field in the face of the rapidly changing situation and do not have many ways to make adjustments when they should take measures. For example, when the opponent suddenly changes his defensive strategy and adopts a three-two combination defense, expanding the defensive zone by half, the coach www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/grhe Global Research in Higher Education Vol. 6, No. 1, 2023 67 Published by SCHOLINK INC. should then assess the situation, change the attacking strategy and adjust the number of players on the field to break the opponent’s combination defense. Unfortunately, however, many coaches today do not have many coping strategies. When the game is still not effective after the players on the field subconsciously make simple adjustments, coaches often still fail to propose new coping strategies, which hurts the direction and outcome of the game that cannot be ignored. Implementing improvements. During normal training, coaches tend to dismiss the many adverse reflections of players as normal discomfort caused by the accumulation of training volume, ignoring the abnormal physical and psychological reflections of university players during training, leading to frequent aversion to training and even injuries among players. The coaches often do not have a clear tactical plan in the pre-match preparation meeting, do not instill in the players the key points to win the next match, and do not provide special tactical guidance accordingly. 4. Optimization of the Management of Competition and Training for Coaches in the Chinese University Basketball League At present, we must make it clear that the management problems of coach competition and training in China College Basketball League are a series of realistic problems with clear directions, which need reasonable and clear improvement direction to solve the problems in a targeted way. Therefore, it is necessary to return to the actual situation of coaches’ wisdom in daily training and competition to make an effective breakthrough. 4.1 Optimization of Competition Management Before the competition, determine the arrangement of the lineup according to the team’s personnel, and formulate the corresponding tactical system according to the individual technical characteristics of the players, so that each player can give full play to his or her characteristics, each doing his or her job and improving the overall technical and tactical level of the team. It is important to prepare a variety of tactical preparations in advance. In addition to the regular tactics that have already been developed, coaches need to develop appropriate preparatory tactics to prepare for unexpected situations on the field, to avoid not having the appropriate measures to deal with the situation when the field changes. In addition, it is important to incorporate the management of the players’ lives before a match into the coaching plan to ensure that the players are prepared for the match. During the game, the coaches react to the rapidly changing situation on the field and take appropriate adjustment measures to fight with the opposing coach, such as changing players, taking timeouts, changing tactics, and other strategies. Of course, this requires coaches to accumulate coaching experience and deliberate practice to achieve a certain level of command on the field. Therefore, in normal training, coaches should practice deliberately to improve their ability to adapt to the situation on the field. The coach should strive to take the team out to matches more often. While the players keep polishing their skills, the coach will also make progress together with the players, keep accumulating www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/grhe Global Research in Higher Education Vol. 6, No. 1, 2023 68 Published by SCHOLINK INC. clinical command experience, be brave enough to use the tactics they have formulated in real battle situations, dare to show their swords in the face of the opponent’s excellent coach, and be brave enough to fight with the opponent, to improve the coach’s clinical command ability in a highly efficient manner. After the competition, the coach organizes the athletes for meal supplements in time and organizes the team to hold a summing-up meeting at an appropriate time to solve the problems in time and do a good job of the players’ ideological work to prepare for the next competition. 4.2 Training Management Optimization Path When preparing the training plan, take the players as the center, make reasonable training rules, balance the training indicators, and reduce the training indicators that the players cannot reach (Yue & Zhao, 2018, pp. 15-19). For example, the time for the 400m sprint is appropriately generous, so that the players will not resort to taking small laps because of the difficult training tasks, and can also avoid the situation where some players take risks and overexert their bodies because they expect too much to complete their training targets, and eventually end up receiving due to excessive physical fatigue. When conducting training, strict requirements for the completion of training tasks, for athletes training speculative lazy behavior must be strictly stopped, and the principle of the issue must not be compromised. In the case of laziness, either severe punishment is imposed or training is stopped on the spot to warn against laziness. This also contributes to the development of team ethos and lays a solid foundation for good discipline at match time. After training, and during the rest periods after matches during the series, strictly control the athletes’ resting time and dietary intake. Always monitor the athletes’ living conditions and dietary intake after training to ensure that they have sufficient rest time to promote physical recovery and that they have reasonable dietary arrangements to prepare the athletes’ bodies for energy reserves. Finally, coaches should improve their ability to observe the emotional changes of players and the ups and downs of their physical and mental state. No matter in regular training or in actual matches, coaches should constantly observe the players and try to detect the athletic state of the players through some subtle actions, to lay a solid foundation for mastering the timing and making correct substitution decisions in matches. www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/grhe Global Research in Higher Education Vol. 6, No. 1, 2023 69 Published by SCHOLINK INC. 5. Conclusion The current boom in China’s college basketball league has provided the impetus for the continued development of China’s high-level sports talent-nurturing business. The coaches’ management of their teams’ games and training has played a key role in this process. However, the management of team competition and training by coaches is still a significant problem, and the potential pitfalls need to be taken into account. Therefore, based on the SMART principle, the 4P model of human resource management, and the GROW model, we analyze the existing management problems of coaches and propose feasible measures to optimize the management level of coaches’ competition and training in terms of competition management and training management, to help create a new situation in the Chinese university basketball league. Acknowledgement Fund Project: Key Project of the “14th Five-Year Plan” of Education Science of Chongqing in 2021 (Title: Research on the Cultivation Path of College Students’ Positive Psychological Qualities under the background of “Three Complete Education”, No.: 2021-GX-102); Chongqing Graduate Education and Teaching Reform Research Project (Title: Innovation and Practice Research on the Teaching Mode of PE Graduate Special Course Based on “Multi-Scene, Multi-level and Multi-Element”, No.: yjg223029). References Bi, Z. C., Chen, L. Z., & Li, Z. (2014). 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