The purpose of this study is to explore the good coach and the bad coach perceived by elite sports Athletes. To achieve this purpose, 191 elite sports Athletes who participated in college lectures on the theory of sports coaching and were registered at the Korean Sport & Olympic Committee were selected as subjects. Data were collected by using an open-ended questionnaire and a focus group, and inductive content analysis was used to analyze the data. Results derived from the above process are as follows: First, the best coach in the eyes of the elite sports athletes was found to be an expert coach (210, 43.29%), followed by a coach of good communication (122, 25.12%), a coach who creates a team atmosphere (94, 19.38%), and a coach who has a good grasp of players (59, 12.16%). Second, the worst coach in the eyes of the elite sports athletes was found to be a coach who discriminates (191, 38.35%), followed by a headstrong coach (162, 32.53%), a coach who inflicts corporal punishment (64, 12.85%), a coach who has a bad attitude (60, 12.04%), and an unethical coach (21, 4.21%).