Next month's newsletter at A Coaching Life is going to focus on building a coaching staff, so I thought it might be interesting to see how this fledgling network of Club 98'ers would go about building the perfect assistant coach for each position on the staff, starting on this post with an assistant varsity coach.
Here are the guidelines:
You get to list 3 traits / characteristics---ONLY THREE.
Each characteristic you list should be accompanied by an explanation / anecdote.
Explain a characteristic an assistant varsity coach might reveal in a first season that you didn't detect during the interview process that would be grounds for not bringing him or her back for a second season.
When we're done with this, it should be very valuable to the development of both head coaches and assistant coaches.
Let's see what happens here!
Loyal to the head coach. Anything a player tells you when he’s not there, is shared with him as soon as possible. The HC has to know what’s going on in his program. A kid being shy to talk to him can’t prevent him from knowing what is said.
Shared vision, with a willingness to suggest things. Not everything you suggest is going to happen, but the flow of communication has to continue. Don’t be a yes man, but don’t question the coaches decisions either. Bring up your suggestions in private and let them sit there to be used or not. NEVER undermine what then coach is doing to players or parents.
Be the Ying to his Yang. Players need…