Assistant coach - loyal or experience

If he is loyal and willing to learn you can always teach him (option 2), which is good. But in comparison there are no negatives to the veteran coach; he has good references, so I assume that he is loyal enough (won't go against you).

I think you need a good mix. You need to earn your experienced guys loyalty. And they in turn need to teach your young guys how to be coaches.

In a perfect world, your coordinators are experience guys who you know or can get someone to vouch for. Hire good, hardworking, loyal assistants and promote from within when the coordinators leave. Don't have to be the best X & O guy to start with. I'd rather have young guys who can grow and develop in our program and our systems. The continue to restock the staff with younger guys. Need piss and vinegar guys but also guys who you can trust and will teach the younger coaches how to become good coaches. Check the link below.

footballscoop.com/news/how-to-build-a-staff-bill-belichick-style-hire-young-coaches-develop-them-and-promote-them/

I personally think you need your best coaches on your lower levels who are all bought-in to what you are doing on the varsity level. Your 2 coordinators on the varsity level can teach a monkey how to do drill work you need to run their system if they are good coordinators, but you need guys who are going to stick to the offensive and defensive base systems and are GREAT COACHES to get those incoming kids the basic skills and love of football so that when they come up to varsity, you know they are all starting on the same level and it is coming with a basic understanding of what you want to do.

Those young kids under age 25 have lots of energy and are willing to setup drills and be high-energy with your varsity kids, those are the ones I like up. Just my preference, but I know that our best varsity years have always come 2 years after a GREAT staff on our younger level, where 2 years after we have issues on our younger level we struggle.

Both? I think you need plenty of asst. who are great at their craft, and you need plenty of guys who are loyal to a fault.

And I think work ethic is a given, because most people can't really make it coaching if they're lazy AF.

There are only two things that matter in hiring a coach, and experience isn't one of them. Two questions need to be answered: is he teachable and is he trustable? The game has room for all kinds of intellectual levels as far as coaches go. What I look for is the attitude of teachability. Trustable means can you see him as the guy you can depend on when he ethical chips are down to do the right thing? This is the guy who gets you fired. You can coach up a guy who doesn't know much. Character counts in the long run.

I want hungry dudes that are willing to work and learn and are accountable to what you want them to coach. We can coach them up on specifics and as far as loyalty goes, I want guys with ambition but are all pushing in the same direction, that is loyalty to me...not necessarily will stay 15 years (which would be nice) but are going in the same exact direction as you. The biggest issue with experience is sometimes they know everything or have done something one way for 20 years and aren't willing to change it, the biggest issue with youth is many don't know they don't know it. I'm not sure age matters, its attitude and approach that do.

A thought: Isn't this a rebuild job? If so, by "Former players" does that mean guys who played there, at the perennially bad school? Wouldn't that mean that your assistants only know bad football and, probably, bad coaching? 

Loyalty comes first. You can always coach them up and make them better coaches.

Regardless of experience, a good assistant is a student of the game, is willing to learn, and understands that the game is about fundamentals, not Xs and Os. They need to soak up what the coordinators are showing them and run the necessary drills. Being an assistant doesn't generally lend itself to creativity and that can be a hard lesson for some guys. But, this is also why I structure practice in a manner that limits the amount of "free time" the assistants get with the kids... For example, "Indy" time with the RBs is written down as "ball security" and "_____ series footwork/fakes" on most days.

I have worked with guys who had experience and I felt were loyal but they weren't the sharpest knives in the drawer. The kids picked up on the drills and fundamentals faster than these coaches..

The question is a bit too much of a general hypothetical. "You need to fill a generic position with either A or B."

I understand the OP is probably asking 'Which do you VALUE more, A or B", but the question leaves open too many variables.

If I'm hiring a coordinator, then I'm looking for an experienced coach that has a track record of success, or at least knows what his plan is and what he wants to accomplish. Is he going to be loyal? Well, if I hire the next big hot shot OC/DC then he is probably going to be moving along to be a HC somewhere. So in this case Experience is the trump.

If I'm hiring a sub varsity position coach that I need to do a TON of chitty work, and I need him to be single, celibate, and a tea toddler who lives and breathes the program; then I hire the guy that wears the school colors every day of the week and twice on Sunday. In this case Loyalty is the trump because that cat ain't getting much in return. (this might be a bit extreme, but the point being that I'm going to treat him worse than a GA)

Most of the time the situation is going to be within 1 standard deviation of the mean and the position to be filled will be quite fluid. Hire the best guy you can find and if he moves on, the do it again. If he is a slappy, fire his are.

Loyalty 1000 times over if I had to pick either / or.

Unless they've been multiple places with no real variance in position (9th to varsity, assistant to coordinator). That's when you need to check up and hope you are getting honest responses and a good feel for who that dude is. I think a good question to ask an experienced guy is "why be an assistant here."

the only thing with LOYALTY is how long do you want that loyalty to last? is it a couple seasons for you guys? five years plus?
I'm a young coach (23) 2nd season in @ my old high school, which will be my first paid year. My goal is coaching in college and I have the connections to realize that dream. If I got a job offer to a better school in the area, I'll think about taking it. I'm in the position of trying to further my career, isn't it best for me to experience new philosophies & systems before moving to the next level? If anyone has a suggestion, you can PM me. I don't want the thread going off track.

Anyway, I think hiring a coach who has the same philosophies as you is really important. On our staff, we have so many old timers who are excellent X&O guys but can't connect a lick to these kids. They're unwilling to adjust their coaching styles and philosophies of being screamers. So I think it depends on what's more important to you.