Play Practice: Engaging and Developing Skilled Players from Beginner to Elite, 2nd Edition

Play Practice: Engaging and Developing Skilled Players From Beginner to Elite, Second Edition, provides an alternative to traditional sport instruction. This innovative and authentic approach to teaching sports combines contemporary theory with the experience of practical and reflective work in real sport environments.

Coauthors Alan Launder and Wendy Piltz, both with wide-ranging experience as players, teachers, and coaches, expand and update the play practice approach they presented in the first edition and show how it can be used to help improve sport skills for players of all ages and abilities. This flexible model of sport pedagogy can be applied as a whole or one element at a time. It covers a wide range of team and individual sports, including archery, table tennis, flag football, snow skiing, cricket, and track and field. Plus, you’ll find a wealth of field-tested ideas for working with diverse learners in schools and communities. 

The second edition highlights the significance of key terms such as games sense, technique, resilience, and fair play. It also provides new information relating to the complexity of learning and addresses the difficulties beginners face in the learning process. The second edition of Play Practice integrates a thorough analysis of skilled performance with an understanding of the conditions under which people best learn. It also shows how the strategies of simplifying, shaping, focusing, and enhancing can help you create situations to maximize learning and positively influence the attitudes of learners. 

Over 130 illustrations and photos demonstrate specific approaches, ideas that can work for multiple sports, and ways to apply the approach with beginners through elite players. Summary sections in each chapter help you quickly identify and review key topics. And two bonus chapters about the origins, evolution, and theoretical bases for Play Practice are available free for download at www.HumanKinetics.com/PlayPractice. 

Play Practice is based on the idea that an individual’s commitment to achieving mastery is a powerful motivator for learning. Learn to harness these motivators and create enjoyable practice situations in which learners young and old, whether resistant beginners or highly motivated professionals, are encouraged to strive for excellence.

About The Authors:

Alan Launder has been involved in sports for more than 50 years as a competitor, teacher, and coach. He has worked in Great Britain, the United States, and Australia.

He has taught at elementary, secondary, and tertiary levels with considerable success. His period as head of the physical education department at Dr. Challoners Grammar School in England in the 1960s was especially rewarding because in a relatively brief period the school became a sporting powerhouse.

For the last 20 years of his professional career he was a senior lecturer at the University of South Australia, where he helped to develop a four-year degree course in physical education teacher education that became a model for programs in other countries. He won the 1992 Rothmans Prize in recognition of his ability to develop and communicate innovative ideas in sport education.

Launder holds senior coaching qualifications from Great Britain and Australia in soccer, cricket, basketball, track and field, and table tennis. In 1984, he was a coach of the Australian track and field team at the Los Angeles Olympics. In 1986 and 1988 he was the head coach of the Australian team at the World Junior Championships. In 1991, 1993, and 1995, he was a coach of the track and field team at the World University Games. Most recently he has served as a consultant to the Australian Track and Field Coaches Association and to the Australian Lacrosse Association as they revised their coach education programs.

Since 1973 Launder was also involved in developing and teaching the curriculum for the Australian Track and Field Coaches Association and was a primary contributor to the internationally respected coaching magazine Modern Athlete and Coach. As the national event coach for pole vault, he has seen Australia move into world-class standing with many fine results, including a female world-record holder, the men’s world champion in 2001 and 2009, and the men’s Olympic champion in 2008.

Launder considers his major career achievement to be the development of the philosophical and pedagogical principles that underpin the Five Star Award, an innovative approach to teaching track and field that has been adopted by more than 20 countries. In 2000, Queen Elizabeth II made Launder a member of the Order of Australia for services to Australian sport.

In his spare time, Launder enjoys sporting art, travel, snow skiing, and fine wine. He lives with his wife, Jennifer, in Salisbury East, South Australia. He has two sons, David and Richard, and four grandsons.

Wendy Piltz has been involved in physical education and sports for many years as a player, teacher, and coach. Her involvement in a range of sports and various outdoor pursuits is a significant aspect of her lifestyle and expertise. An accomplished athlete, Piltz has competed at the district level in basketball and netball, the state level in touch, and at the national level in women’s cricket and lacrosse.

Wendy is a committed and enthusiastic educator who has worked in elementary, secondary, and tertiary sectors. She completed her undergraduate degree in physical education from the University of South Australia (formerly ACAE) in 1978 and her master’s degree in social psychology from the University of Oregon in 1980. Wendy taught in the public secondary school system in South Australia for 10 years as a specialist health and physical education teacher and a school coach of basketball, lacrosse, cricket, volleyball, touch, athletics, and netball. In addition, she worked with elementary-aged children and served as a volunteer for 5 years as the basketball coach of children in grades 3 to 7 at her daughter’s primary school. Her coaching experience extends to a state level in women’s cricket, and she is currently coaching lacrosse at the North Adelaide club in South Australia.

Wendy began working at the University of South Australia in 1990, where she joined Alan Launder as a colleague on staff in the health and physical education faculty working in teaching and curriculum, sport pedagogy, and group dynamics. Since 1998 she has redesigned the preservice programs in health and physical education to accommodate changing program structures and has embedded Play Practice models into these programs. A key area of Wendy’s research focuses on teaching and learning oriented to practice-based study on the efficacy of this approach. Her expertise in teaching, innovation in course and program design, leadership, and mentoring have been acknowledged through numerous teaching awards at the university. In addition, Wendy has received two national Australian Sports Commission awards for outstanding services to sport and innovation in lacrosse coach education.

Wendy regularly presents at international and national conferences in sport pedagogy, focusing on teaching and learning using Play Practice, team development, and teacher and coach education. She also maintains a sustained service to local communities, conducting professional development workshops for teachers through the Australian Council for Health, Physical Education, and Recreation (ACHPER), sporting clubs, and state departments of sport and recreation. Wendy has served as a consultant for the American Sport Education Program (ASEP), Australian Sports Commission (ASC), Australian Football League, South Australian National Football League, Women’s Lacrosse Australia, and Australian Touch Association.

In her free time, Wendy enjoys being with friends, swimming, cycling, and adventure travel. She loves the mountains and is passionate about snow skiing. Wendy resides in Adelaide, South Australia, and has one daughter, Kelsey.