Pete Holmes

Pete Holmes joined NTU in October 2020 as senior lecturer in Sport Coaching. He teaches on the Sport Science & Coaching undergraduate programme, leading the year 1 Exploring Coaching Practice and year 2 Coaching Science modules.

Pete joined NTU from University Centre Doncaster where he led an undergraduate programme in PE & Sports Coaching and a distance learning top-up degree programme. Prior to this he has worked in various roles within the sport and exercise industry, including being an analyst with ProZone Sports and an exercise physiologist with BUPA Wellness, having begun his career as a fitness instructor and personal trainer with Living Well Health Clubs.
In addition to his role at NTU, he is a senior coach developer for the Rugby Football League and a qualified coach in both rugby league and football. He is also an external examiner for The Open University and University Centre Leeds.

Research areas
Pete's research interests centre on coach development and coaching practice, though he has a range of interests crossing sociology, psychology and athlete development. He completed his PhD through Leeds Beckett University in 2017, under the supervision of world-renowned Professors Richard Light and Andrew Sparkes. His thesis investigated the lifelong development and practice of professional head coaches in rugby.

His first journal publication came in January 2020, focused on coaches' early life experiences and how these began to shape them as people and coaches. He is currently working on a follow-up to this focused on coaches' experiences as professional athletes and what they leant from these.

Pete is also working on two other projects currently: the influence of brothers in the development of professional rugby players and the impact of relative age effect in athlete development in women's and girls' rugby union.