La Trobe

Coaching legacies: influence propagation through temporal social networks in the Australian Football League

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posted on 2024-01-11, 01:59 authored by G Marmulla, Geoff DicksonGeoff Dickson, H Wäsche, U Brandes
We study the lineage network of coaches in the Australian Football League (AFL) using a novel process of influence propagation through temporal social networks. Coaching and being coached are considered major opportunities for learning, and the vast majority of AFL coaches are former AFL players. We, therefore, establish influence via two antagonistic components: as players, future coaches are influenced by their coaches, and later liberate themselves from these influences while being coaches themselves. Influence thus propagates through time-dependent player–coach relationships, and we obtain a ranking of coaches by their aggregated influence on others. In addition to being based on an explicit process, we argue that the ranking has face validity, because it indeed favors highly reputed coaches, and is not determined by temporal or activity indicators such as the starting year of a coaching career, its length, or the number of future coaches coached.

History

Publication Date

2023-07-25

Journal

Frontiers in Sports and Active Living

Volume

5

Article Number

1172264

Pagination

12p.

Publisher

Frontiers

ISSN

2624-9367

Rights Statement

© 2023 Marmulla, Dickson, Wäsche and Brandes. This is an open-access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License (CC BY). The use, distribution or reproduction in other forums is permitted, provided the original author(s) and the copyright owner(s) are credited and that the original publication in this journal is cited, in accordance with accepted academic practice. No use, distribution or reproduction is permitted which does not comply with these terms.

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