Tips on Being a great assistant coach

One of the best tips on being a great assistant coach is to STFU and do as you are told. After that, I would say be the greatest recruiter out there to find the talent and potential to come to your school. Next is being extremely knowledgeable in your area of expertise and can convey those principles to your athletes that are under your direction. Coach those same athletes in a way that prepares them for performing very well at the conference and national championships.

Communication

A head coach or director shouldn’t have to track you down for information. If you put him in a position where he’s the last to know then your time at that program will be short lived. An important part of their job is promoting an atmosphere of compliance. If you can’t include them in the day to day then you will be fired. Imagine being an assistant and thinking you don’t have to report to the HC and sit in your office for days without even saying hello. I’ve seen folks get let go simply because they didn’t talk to their director. Let them know how your recruiting is going, or any community connections you’ve made. Don’t wait until you have an emergency and then bring stuff up. Not to mention your HC can’t protect you or have your back if you don’t let them know your day to day. And why would they if you want to live on an island. And trust you will need them. So yes, do what you’re asked to do, but also keep your HC updated. If they have to circle back with you to see if you got something done or if you haven’t gone to their office to talk then you’re doing it wrong and will be let go if they have a desire to lead a winning program. Plenty of these changes happening this summer are happening because you have assistants that don’t respect their directors enough to report to them.

This post needs to be bumped. There are too many assistants that think they know it all until they sit in the seat of a head coach. And there are a lot of head coaches that are brutal tyrants that give Director a bad name. Since this thread is for assistants I will say this.

Earn your way. Every coaching opportunity or task given to you is an opportunity to earn your way. If the goal is to be a head coach one day, or be promoted then you need to earn it. You earn it by being a great communicator, a team player, loyal and respectful.

Great communicator: There should be no program secrets. You meet with athletic trainers HC should know. You talk with compliance HC should know. You doing something in the community HC should know. Assistants that do there own thing can’t be trusted. A HC finding out things last or from anyone else but you is not good. Initiate a talk often.

A team player: Assistants who look out for everyone beyond their event group are great people to work with. Yeah you want your event group to do well but the program doing well is the goal.

Respectful: Easy. Don’t be an a-hole.

Loyal: Sneaking around doing interviews. Bouncing from job to job. Talking bad about your HC and program. All things that have negative outcomes. Other programs watch how assistants move. Our community know who the opportunists are. We know the stories of assistants going to admin with intentions of backstabbing the HC out of a job. 9 times out of 10 everyone gets fired or just the assistant gets fired. Be professional. The HC didn’t have to give you a chance in the first place. I bet if more assistants knew how many emails the director gets asking for a job or sending a resume they would be a-lot better off.

The best advice I ever received was that all promotions and even better coaching opportunities go through the head coach. I’ve rarely seen assistants move on, that didn’t get a referral from the HC. Carry out their vision. Do what they ask and you’ll be rising in this business.

Not to mention head coaches are the first to climb the ladder in this profession. If you’re working under a HC don’t get left behind because you can’t communicate or take direction. Seen plenty of mid major HC make the leap to Power 5 and not take their whole staff. One can only assume the person that got left behind wasn’t on the same page with the HC.

It’s been said a bunch of times but communication is key. The moment a director finds something out last, is the moment you’ve shown lack of trust and respect.

If you have a HC that you can go to for questions, then that needs to always be your first stop. They will either give you an answer or they will point you to where you need to go.

Lastly, email is your best friend. There are slimy athletic Directors, HCs and assistants that will set you up for failure. Follow everything up with an email and include your boss for your protection.

A lot of assistants complain about the head coach and they don’t really know what a bad head coach is. I thank God for my new head coach. First of all for even giving me a chance. There are A LOT of people still waiting for a shot. A director taking a chance on you is a big deal. They deal with disloyal people. Envious assistants that want their job or swear they can do a better job. Anyone they hire is a risk because what they do and don’t do directly reflects on them. Not to mention what happens to their program directly affects their ability to provide for their family.

I’m a head coach now. I never understood my head coach until now because I’m sitting in his perspective now. Hindsight is 20/20

Just do what your boss tells you to do and coach/recruit your butt off. They see the big picture and make moves for the entire program. As an assistant you don’t have the big picture only a piece of the puzzle.

As a well known assistant, I’ve seen too many head coaches that micromanage. That trait is not a good thing, it’s a personality disorder. Micromanaging is not a coaching style, but a psychopathic trait. I’m ready to leave a prestigious JC assst coach position in CA soon. And it’s a shame as I’m the best out here.

Bump, I'd like to hear more about this.

This is 1000% accurate. Most assistants are frustrated about what serves them individually. Well when you accepted your job as an assistant it was to make the program better, not prepare for the next job. Head coaches can see right through that nonsense and you won't last long.

Bump