To Be a Successful Coach

[Improviser]

What do you have to do?

Is it at all parallel to raising a successful family?

 

[8893]

Chop wood, carry water.

 

[Fishy]

Win more than you lose?

 

[Hey Adrien!]

Depends on what level you coach.

I coach at my school, grade 5-8 but most experience with boys grade 5-6. No playoffs, no standings but we compete against other schools throughout Fairfield and Westchester county.

At that age and level of ability, what’s important to me is grit, team work, fundamentals, game awareness and respect to players and refs.

I love high energy players who work their butts off on the boards and with on-ball defense. I tell the kids I don’t care if you miss shots, just don’t take bad shots.

Thankfully, where I coach, the record doesn’t matter. As long as the kids are supported, have fun and are good examples for our school. It does suck sometimes to coach against a few clueless coaches who treat their players and the refs like it’s a varsity high school game. That’s often a time I’ll share a chuckle with the ref.

 

[HooperScooper]

Win more than you lose?

And if you win much more than you lose then you're a really successful coach.

 

[Ts5034]

If it’s college, you need to have the ability to recruit. You can’t win if you don’t have good players. That’s the bottom line. I guess when it comes to family, you need to be able to recruit a good woman by your side in order to start a good family.

 

[MDHuskFan]

Chop wood, carry water.

Underrated comment & a good book

 

[8893]

Underrated comment & a good book

It’s a great, grounding concept and I am glad that I read the book.

But it could have been a pamphlet, and I was surprised that it wasn’t that well written.

 

[navery12]

Anyone who doesn't review course catalogs on a recruiting visit

 

[Improviser]

Underrated comment & a good book

Chop wood, carry water.

Maybe there is more than meets the eye with this comment.

If the recruit visits the coach at the coach's home and the coach is chopping wood to build his own deck and is carrying water to pour concrete for his own patio, the coach can say to the recruit that he works hard for himself and expects his recruits to work hard for themselves to build their own career and to be successful in what they do.

Maybe this interpretation is out there, but my AC has broken down and my fatigue is growing. I am going to sleep in the basement tonight.

 

[RichZ]

When my son was a wee lad I coached his team in the town rec league. I found dealing with overbearing parents to be the biggest problem. I had one kid on the team who was really good., one who was ok, but thought he was great, one who was awful but thought he was great, and a handful of kids who needed to be reminded to dribble. The two who thought they were better than they were had fathers who fed their illusions of grandeur. One of them, whenever he got the ball, would dribble to the corner at the baseline where he father stood, and wait for instructions. ALWAYS got trapped there. The kid who was really good could bail us out every game, but his father asked me not to put that pressure on him. Turns out he had been the coach until the previous year, when the two know-it-all fathers made him quit out of frustration. I ended up doing the same.

 

[glastonbury50]

Being a good college coach is like being the CEO of a company. There are so many facets of that job it is hard to say if you haven't actually done it.

 

[TheChamps990411]

It does suck sometimes to coach against a few clueless coaches who treat their players and the refs like it’s a varsity high school game. That’s often a time I’ll share a chuckle with the ref.

Those coaches are pathetic. I agree with kids that young score is irrelevant. You seem to know what your doing. Well done.

 

[Hey Adrien!]

Those coaches are pathetic. I agree with kids that young score is irrelevant. You seem to know what your doing. Well done.

Thanks.

I was fortunate to have good mentors early on in my teaching career. In my 3rd year in, when I was like 26, the head coach of a local high school retired and volunteered as our school's "director of basketball". He was part of a push to help take athletics more seriously at our school. I learned so much from him, especially how to talk to players, refs, other coaches and parents.

As @RichZ said, parents are the most stressful part of coaching, but it gets easier each year. This year, the one annoying dad on my team sent me an email with suggestions of how to run practice. He used his "semi-pro soccer career" as a feather in his cap when writing the email. I shared it to my AD and we shared a good laugh.

 

[TheChamps990411]

Thanks.

I was fortunate to have good mentors early on in my teaching career. In my 3rd year in, when I was like 26, the head coach of a local high school retired and volunteered as our school's "director of basketball". He was part of a push to help take athletics more seriously at our school. I learned so much from him, especially how to talk to players, refs, other coaches and parents.

As @RichZ said, parents are the most stressful part of coaching, but it gets easier each year. This year, the one annoying dad on my team sent me an email with suggestions of how to run practice. He used his "semi-pro soccer career" as a feather in his cap when writing the email. I shared it to my AD and we shared a good laugh.

Did he tell you he scored 4 goals in a single game for Polk High School?