| The health or unhealth of a coaching staff flows down. The staff ALWAYS effects the rest of the program. Healthy staff, healthy program.
There are four things that make up an elite coaching staff (or executive staff).
1. Unified- Relationships matter. I think it is vital to have good relationships with the other coaches on the staff. Can a staff be good if relationships are just okay? Probably. Can it be elite? I really don’t think so. Creating an atmosphere where the staff is unified is difficult. It is important that you have differing personalities, wirings and giftings and at the same time make sure they are unified. Humility might be one of the most important attributes for a unified staff.
2. Aligned- An aligned staff is when every coach on staff is bought in when it comes to vision, values, strategies, etc. Think of a row boat. All rowers are rowing in the same direction on the same cadence. If someone puts their oar in the water it creates drag. They don’t even have to row in the opposite direction to slow things down. Just simply not rowing is troublesome. Now take that person and have him/her row in the opposite direction and you have big trouble. It is paramount to be in 100% alignment.
Competent- This is obvious but not necessarily a given. There is a competence bar at every level. Each level a coach goes up, the competence bar is raised. Some might think that all coaches at the higher levels (college athletics…D1) would all be competent. I have seen some who are not above the competence bar for that level. Again, obvious…but a weak link in your staff can hurt the program.
Complementing- If everyone on the staff is the same, someone is not needed. Bill Belichik talks all the time that his role is not to gather all the best players but it is to gather the best team. Same with coaching staffs. It is critical that the sum of your parts equal elite. Not necessarily hire all elite coaches. One key component is making sure the staff complements each other (I don’t mean saying nice things). If you have several guys who lean towards recruiting, you will need a couple that lean towards player development. It is important that everyone can recruit and develop their athletes. However, my experience says that each coach has a natural bent in one of those two areas. It is vital that you make sure that all the areas are covered by competent coaches.
Want an elite staff?
Work towards having a unified, aligned, competent, and complementing staff!!! |
