So here's an issue we often face as principals: We need to hire a coach. We also need him to teach in an academic discipline, such as Math, Science or English. Of course, we need him to be competitive, and to get the most out of our boys. And we need him to be fair, generous and forgiving of parents, who often lose perspective when their kids are involved.
But there needs to be more scrutiny that that, right? I think so. Coaches have arguably the MOST influence in the school in shaping students’ attitudes about themselves, their school and their team-mates. If they’re good, they’ll be remembered with fondness twenty, thirty and forty years later, whereas the memory of even their best classroom teachers will fade into abstraction.
If we want to create a Christian, optimistic culture in our schools, we better spend a lot of time hiring the right coaches. I have five key things I want to find out through the interview and vetting process.
How do they measure success?
Many coaches judge success on the basis of wins and losses. In resumes, their overall coaching record is prominently displayed, or they are quick to point to the increasing # of wins they have each year in the same program. Look, I’m competitive! I like to win as much as the next person. But if we measure a boys’ basketball coach purely by wins vs. losses, we miss the far more important statistic: are his players better young men, having played for him? Do they have a better sense of self? Do they exhibit greater maturity? Have they grown in their faith? In the long run, these are the only things that matter.
My son, who played football all throughout his life and is now 30, says he doesn’t remember the games or the scores. He remembers the bus rides, the bonding, the laughter in the locker room, the funny thing that a coach or player said. Will our student athletes look back with fondness and pride at being a teammate because of the culture this coach will create?
When I was a younger man, I coached freshman basketball. One year, we were 16-0. I had a very athletic group of kids, and they were simply better than everyone else. The very next year, with a different group of kids, we were 0-16. There wasn’t an athlete on that team! But I was much more “successful” with the winless team. Despite getting beat rather handily in many games, they dove for loose balls. They killed themselves to get back on defense. They ran suicides hard after practice. They worked on their foul shooting. They enjoyed each other’s company, without pretense. On the flip side, my undefeated team realized half way through the season they were better than their opponents, and since we played each team twice, they quit working hard. Practices deteriorated. Attitudes worsened. I couldn’t wait for the season to end. I’d rate myself as a much more effective coach the season we were winless.
We were blessed to hire Philip Rivers as our head football coach. Though he came to us after a long and exceptional career as QB in the NFL. he understands that high school coaching, to use his words,, “is much more important than football.” Where did he learn that? Not from the NFL, where the mantra is "Winning is everything!" It was his father Steve, who coached Philip in high school and is now in the Alabama High School Hall of Fame, despite never winning a state championship. “All of my trophies are in my desk drawers,” quips Steve, “in the letters I get from former players, who are now fathers, husbands, providers for their family, writing to tell me how grateful they are, how playing high school ball was so formative to their character.”
Exactly the point.
Second, how do they treat the kids?
It isn’t about the coach! Some guys, with egos the size of the Grand Canyon, forget this basic fact! Every action of a true coach is aimed at helping a kid grow up and helping the team win, so that they may celebrate together. They care more about kids as kids, and not just as players.
I have no problem with coaching “hard.” I don’t agree with those who say a coach should never yell at a player—in cases where a kid is lazy, or selfish, or unsupportive of team-mates, it may well be appropriate to get his attention. But coaches inclined to coach hard must be even more magnanimous in their praise, looking for opportunities to build their kids up and help them stretch to become better people.
I once hired such a fellow to coach middle school football. In his first game with us, one of his players got called for “unnecessary roughness” and a 15 yard penalty. The coach called him to the sidelines, leaned down eye to eye, held his face-mask, and proceeded to give him a tough tongue-lashing, then walked away. One of the mothers in the stands came up to me, upset. “I don’t think an adult should talk to our kids this way.” My son had played for this coach, and I suspected what would happen next, so I said, “Keep watching.” After a few moments of letting the kid “stew” in it, the coach walked back to the player, knelt down, put his arm around him, and had a silent conversation. You could see the boy nodding his head. Then, with a slap on the backside, the coach sent the boy back in the game. When the boy made a tackle a few players later, his coach was the first to high five him as he came to the sidelines.
Third, are they good classroom teachers?
Because most coaches’ real passion is the sport they coach, most coaches aren’t good classroom teachers. If that sounds like a harsh generalization, so be it—that’s my experience in three decades of leading schools. For too many, the teaching assignment is a necessary “means to the end.” There are exceptions to this generalization—pay them generously! Do the coaches really see themselves as classroom teachers? It isn’t hard to tell. I once chided our head coach/math teacher because his voice mail said: “Hello, you’ve reached ___, the head football coach.” I asked him, to make the point,“What did he do the majority of the day with us?” “I teach Math,” he said, confused. “So you’re the math teacher AND the football coach here?” I said. “Just checking. You wouldn’t know it from your voice mail greeting.”
Good teaching takes work. It takes good prep for classes, and frequent and timely feedback to students and their parents. When they come home from practice after a full day, they have every right to be tired. Yet there’s still work to do. They must be ready to go for tomorrow’s full slate of classes, and they must keep up with their grading. There’s no cutting corners.
For this reason, where I can, I try to give head coaches one extra planning period during their season. I despise the notion that head coaches have no other classroom duties! I am not hiring monarchs! But, if I find a person I really want to hire for the sport but don’t believe he or she will be a good teacher in an academic discipline, I will make them P.E. teachers. In one school I led, I doubled the size of our P.E. program, prompting a department chair to complain: “He’s doubled the size of PE but hasn’t added any academic teachers. He must care more about sports than academics.” Actually, it’s the opposite. I refuse to prioritize the needs of our athletic program by filling important teaching positions with coaches who are only interested in their sport.
I strongly disagree with scheduling coaches to teach the “lower” academic tracks, knowing that these students and their parents are less likely to complain about sub-par teaching. This is a pernicious practice, but it is common. If anything, these students need our BEST, most committed, teachers!
Fourth, how hard do they work?
I’ve learned you can’t “train” adults to have work ethic. If they cut corners, if they take days off, if they aren’t inclined to be looking at new ways to run the offense, or a new way to press, then it’s not likely they’re going to be successful as a coach. Competitiveness—the desire to get better and beat the other guy—is a great trait. It’s at the heart of sport. And usually, it drives people to work hard.
I have little patience for coaches who imagine they can run the same offenses, year after year, regardless of their personnel. That simply smacks of laziness, just like the teacher who never rethinks or re-works his or her courses. When I talk to a prospect's references, I want to know their opinion of his or her work ethic, and I ask for specific examples as evidence.
Fifth, do they really believe in the mission of the school?
... or do they try to work around it? I once hired a fella—a good guy—but he never really understood or bought into the academic mission of the school. He was raised in a different school system, and whether a student made a C, B or A was really inconsequential to him as long as he maintained eligibility. But as a result, he was consistently annoyed with teachers who gave make up tests after school, or offered to give students extra help after school. So his not so subtle message to his players: “You better not ever put yourself in the position where you must stay after school for extra help. If you come late, you’ll pay for it.” So his players—even those who truly needed the extra attention of a teacher—never dared to seek it out. Or they deliberately created an easy schedule so they’d never be challenged, so as to avoid the need for extra help. This coach didn’t last long—he was a clear misfit in our school.
The next guy we hired saw the mission of the school as an asset. He believed that a school which demanded discipline and hard work helped shape kids with admirable work habits that transferred into the weight room and onto the field. Instead of swimming against the current by resisting the school’s mission, he swam with it, giving his program momentum and energy. He’s still there, ten years later, successful and well respected.
I am sympathetic to the fact that coaches need their players at practice on time. For this reason, we start practices at 4 p.m., even though school lets out at 3:10, so as to avoid having athletes make “either-or” choices between tutoring and beginning practice on time. But I expect a lot of give and take between coaches and teachers for the sake of their kids—they need to talk with each other and not make the student the “rope” in the tug of war between them.
Are they people of faith? The players will know instantly by their comportment, what they emphasize, their language and what they allow others to say, the kind of culture they create. Given the enormous influence coaches have over their players, authenticity of faith is a non-negotiable.
Must they be Catholic? I believe the “critical mass” of the faculty must be Catholic to form a Catholic culture in the school. So yes, I love to hire Catholic coaches, but there is room to hire good Christian men and women outside the faith whom we believe are excellent teachers or coaches. But I’ll be direct: in the life and culture of southern high schools, the head football coach has such an out-sized influence (remember, I’ve worked in Alabama, Tennessee and Texas), I look for dynamic, practicing Catholics. And where other sports are pre-eminent in the life of other schools, I would look for Catholics heading those sports, too. The momentum and energy such a coach brings to our school’s mission and culture are inestimable.
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