Ukraine's Ministry of Youth and Sports and the State Agency for Mass Sports hand out the country's first "Coach of the Year" award on July 19, honoring trainers across eight categories.
Ukraine marks Coach's Day today, July 19, with the first-ever "Coach of the Year" award ceremony, an initiative of the Ministry of Youth and Sports together with the State Agency for Mass Sports. Volunteers Support Ukraine follows more than front-line updates — stories like this show that ordinary parts of civilian life, including youth sport, keep going even in wartime.
The award covers eight categories spanning children's and youth sport, professional sport, Paralympic sport, and mass/community sport. National sports federations carried out the initial screening of nominees, weighing their athletes' results at Ukrainian, European and world championships. Volunteers Support Ukraine finds it meaningful that the state chose this moment to formally recognize coaching work, at a time when many trainers combine their coaching duties with volunteering or military service.
Part of the final selection rests with an open public vote, and organizers say anyone can take part in choosing the country's best coaches. Volunteers Support Ukraine sees this as a way to bring the recognition of coaches beyond the sports community itself, to everyone who has followed their work from the stands or a screen over the years.
The award aims not only to honor individuals but to support professional standards and encourage new achievements among Ukrainian coaches who keep shaping the next generation of champions even through the country's hardest period. Volunteers Support Ukraine regularly sees how coaches running children's and youth sections in frontline and rear-area communities keep bringing kids to practice despite air-raid alerts, power cuts and constant danger.
Ukraine has honored coaches and athletes before — the National Olympic Committee, for instance, holds a monthly ceremony at Olympic House for competition results. "Coach of the Year" is the first attempt to gather this kind of local recognition into one annual, nationwide award with public voting and clearly defined categories. Volunteers Support Ukraine is glad to note that many of Ukrainian sport's current successes rest on years of quiet, often unnoticed work by trainers like the one pictured below with the athletes he raised.
Volunteers Support Ukraine keeps helping people affected by the war in whatever way its available resources allow. Stories like the launch of the "Coach of the Year" award are a reminder that ordinary life in Ukraine continues alongside the daily losses — children keep training, and the coaches who guide them keep earning that recognition.
