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Post by hsrose on Jul 23, 2016 16:03:23 GMT -6
What makes a good AD? How does your AD make the athletic program better? What do they do? I've not worked under a really good AD, they've been ok at best, seems that I've been working for managers, not leaders. I don't mean what do they do to make the football program better, what do they do to make all the sports better?
And now, here is why I am asking this. Right at the end of the last school year pretty much the entire front office/admin staff changed over, including a new AD. Small school so there aren't a lot of movement, but a lot for a small school. The principal leaves and it was a whole game of musical chairs, everything was filled from within and filled very quickly. The former AD is now an assistant principal and sits in the same area.
The AD is new in name only, he's been at the school for 25+ years and was going to retire 2 years ago. But, he decided to stay at the school after a retirement seminar, word is he's been very retired on the job since then. The new AD had to be 'persuaded' to take the position, nobody else on campus wanted the position, he didn't want it, and they needed to fill it from within. He is a former FB coach, now coaches girls basketball, and has a reputation for being sour on just about everything, every issue on the field/court is because the players are too stupid to understand what to do.
The previous AD was good, only had one issue with him, but in my time there never did anything, that I was aware of, to improve/enhance the overall athletic program. Kept things on an even keel, dealt with parents, but really didn't do anything to make things better. I think his primary interest was keeping things smooth enough so he could coach baseball. I don't see the new AD doing anything different, I think he will keep things going the way they are, not really try to make anything different.
I'm looking at the next couple years of keeping things the same, not trying to make improvements. If I were king I would want to make the overall athletic program better.
What makes a great AD?
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Post by fantom on Jul 23, 2016 16:53:15 GMT -6
Leaving us alone is a good start.
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Post by coachphillip on Jul 23, 2016 18:44:48 GMT -6
Letting me do my stuff and having my back at the end of the day.
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Post by CoachHess on Jul 23, 2016 19:30:39 GMT -6
Not telling you that wins don't matter, that you won't win games stop working so hard, not trying to get your hs coaches to go to jh because it's less work and same money, not telling you that Fridays don't matter. My last one was a doozy
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Post by silkyice on Jul 23, 2016 20:18:01 GMT -6
I am AD and we have just won our association's award for best athletic program two years in a row. First times our school has ever won these awards.
Here is what I try to do as AD.
First, got the school to hire my wife as a PE teacher and assistant AD. She is awesome and does all the tough stuff!!!
We have a unified year-round strength/speed program for all our athletes boys and girls!!!
I demand our coaches keep players and parents informed on what is going on in their program. We are happy to assist here. I demand that all coaches buy into the strength/speed program. This is not difficult. They all buy in. I tell them the one thing that will get them fired is telling a kid not to play a other sport. Kids should play everything want to play!
In return, we do all eligibilty, physicals, paperwork, buses, hotels, billing, spirit packs, umps, refs, online calender, etc. I try and take away all the crap stuff coaches hate to do.
We also have our spirit packs online and we all have the same t-shirts, long sleeve t-shirts, shorts, sweats, and socks. It has been the same high quality Nike apparel with just our school name and athletics written on it. The kids love it and parents love it. They don't have to buy a sweat suit for football, bbal, and baseball. It is the same one for every team. It has been the same on for 5 straight years. Only buy if you outgrow, wearout, or lose. It also promotes school unity.
We also try and support each sport and if they need something we do our absolute best to get it for them or least make plans to get for them in the future. We have upgraded all the facilities in some way and all programs.
I also back my coaches. They all do a great job of letting me know about problems beforehand which is HUGE! I have no problem just listening to them which I think goes a long way.
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Post by somecoach on Jul 23, 2016 23:32:25 GMT -6
A "hands off" AD.
One that will balance the books, will give you what you need money wise, maintain general order of the campus, and will support you when things are going bad as well as when they are going good.
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Post by CS on Jul 24, 2016 7:11:03 GMT -6
I am AD and we have just won our associations award for best athletic program two year in a row. First times our school has ever won these awards. Here is what I try to do as AD. First, got the school to hire my wife as a PE teacher and assistant AD. She is awesome and does all the tough stuff!!! We have a unified year-round strength/speed program for all our athletes boys and girls!!! I demand our coaches keep players and parents informed on what is going on in their program. We are happy to assist here. I demand that all coaches buy into the strength/speed program. This is not difficult. They all buy in. I tell them the one thing that will get them fired is telling a kid not to play a other sport. Kids should play everything want to play! In return, we do all eligibilty, physicals, paperwork, buses, hotels, billing, spirit packs, umps, refs, online calender, etc. I try and take away all the crap stuff coaches hate to do. We also have our spirit packs online and we all have the same t-shirts, long sleeve t-shirts, shorts, sweats, and socks. It has been the same high quality Nike apparel with just our school name and athletics written on it. The kids love it and parents love it. They don't have to buy a sweat suit for football, bbal, and baseball. It is the same one for every team. It has been the same on for 5 straight years. Only buy if you outgrow, wearout, or lose. It also promotes school unity. We also try and support each sport and if they need something we do our absolute best to get it for them or least make plans to get for them in the future. We have upgraded all the facilities in some way and all programs. I also back my coaches. They all do a great job of letting me know about problems beforehand which is HUGE! I have no problem just listening to them which I think goes a long way. This right here is what makes a good AD. I don't think the spirit packs are a pre-requisite for being a good ad but it's a good idea. Best thing about this is the lifting for all athletes. I have seen it work wonders at the 2 schools I've been that required lifting for all sports and seen what it does to a school that doesn't. If I was ad this would be the first thing I would do and I would check on it. Then after the mass exodus of basketball and spring sport coaches who think I'm a dumba$$ for making THEIR kids lift I would hire coaches that "got it." |
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Post by tabs52 on Jul 24, 2016 7:14:08 GMT -6
Both myself and my wife are high school coaches and have worked under a variety of AD's. The best AD is one that will communicate with you, leave you alone, and have your back unless you do something stupid. I'll give you an example of a similar situation my wife and myself went through.
A few years ago we had a senior whose dad was the midget team coach, after his junior year he rallied the guys and a select group of followers to get us fired. After a couple days of this going on, the AD and school admins called the seniors in and told them that the staff wasn't going anywhere.
My wife coaches cheer leading at another school, this year three girls started to say she got fired and that they were in charge of the squad. My wife approached him about it and he said he would bring the girls in and end the issue, about a week ago she got a text from him whats going on with cheer leading. In the end he never took care of anything and let girls ruin the squad.
Two different reactions to a similar situation.
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Post by blb on Jul 24, 2016 7:14:10 GMT -6
Thread reminds me of what Bo Schembechler purportedly told AD Don Canham when he hired Bo at Michigan.
"If we have any problems, Canham, it'll be your fault, because I'm a nice guy.
"And I'm easy to get along with - just give me everything I want!"
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Post by hunhdisciple on Jul 24, 2016 7:58:27 GMT -6
Our AD gave us a lengthy lecture about the amount of our frivolous purchases. Mainly, new balls and medical supplies.
As long as a team isn't in the red, you can't worry about money.
You can't treat it like YOUR money, because it's not.
Come to games and actually care what happens.
Don't get involved with how a coach chooses to handle a situation or punish a player.
Be available if a coach needs something.
Don't be concerned with actions that don't impact anybody.
Understand that most high school AD's aren't fired over wins and loses, but almost all coaches are.
Basically, come visit our AD for a few days, and just do everything opposite of him.
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Post by fantom on Jul 24, 2016 8:18:16 GMT -6
Here's what not to do: Don't forget to schedule a game.
We have four HS's in our city and we share a city stadium. Our school's AD, who is fine, handles most things but the city AD handles the stadium schedule. This year she forgot to schedule our out of district game at the stadium. When she sent out the stadium schedule there was a Thursday night, Friday night, and Saturday afternoon game scheduled. Our game was left blank. When our HC called her about it she refused to schedule the game for Saturday night (Don't ask why. She didn't tell us) but suggested that we play on Wednesday. That would have been fine if it was Game 1 but it wasn't. It's Game 2. Our options, then, were to play on Friday then turn around and play Wednesday at home, or change to an away game. Away game it is. We only have four home games this year.
So, for an AD, not forgetting games would be a good start.
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Post by hsrose on Jul 24, 2016 9:13:51 GMT -6
I think it must just be my growing up in a large company with lots of examples of good and bad managers/leaders. Nothing worse than taking a great engineer and anointing him as a manager only to have him fail miserably because he's not a manager/leader. The best situations I've been in are where the expectations of the leaders are the same, kind of a fractal approach where the expectations for me are the same as those for my boss and his boss, and for the guys under me. I don't mean that we are in lock step turning the crank and nothing ever changes, but an overriding desire for everyone to do better, for everything to be constantly reviewed and tested, doing something because we always have is not a good reason to keep doing it that way.
I see the AD position as being a management position, responsible for everyone, every team, doing better. If I were the AD I would be asking things like how many students participated in sports the last 3 years and how do I increase that number? What is the overall GPA of the student athletes and how can I help them increase their GPA? What do my teams need to be more successful - equipment? Facilities? Unified lifting program? 7th period PE classes? Yeah, my daily tasking is eligibility and parents and schedules and money. But my management tasking is improving the sports program at my school, which is a longer term assignment.
I don't want the AD talking with me everyday about everything thats going on in the football program, I don't want him to micromanage me or my staff. But I would like a review where I sit and talk with him about the season and how things are going rather than just turning in a 1-page review that hasn't changed format since it was first published in October of 2003. This past season I turned in a multi-page season review that was rejected, it wasn't on the proper form, telling me he was just ticking a box, not really trying to get a real idea of what happened. And, the only coaches meeting is in the fall where the paperwork is discussed, schedules are presented, and that's it, we're out the door. There have been no regular communications about issues - one coach got suspended for a year for making an inappropriate comment and a mom, who didn't like him, heard it. We were never told anything about that although I would have used that as a way to reinforce proper interactions with the players and families or something.
Maybe I'm just overlaying my corporate expectations onto a position that I know very little about. But it just seems to me that the AD position is a leadership position, like being a head coach, and that more than turning the crank should be expected.
I guess that I want my leadership to be working as hard as I am and have the same expectations on me as I have on the coaches on my staff.
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Post by coachcb on Jul 24, 2016 11:37:18 GMT -6
1. Take as many things off of the coaches' plates as possible, There's nothing worse than being an HC and trying to prepare week to week for games and having a mountain of paperwork involving transportation, food, (etc.) to deal with. I've been there and it drove me nuts. I was an AD and the schedule for each season was taken care of well ahead of time as were all the logistics. I would hand the coaches a packet with all of the pertinent logistical stuff the day before they traveled.
2. Leave the coaches to do their jobs, WITHIN REASON. As long as you're not berating the kids or treating them poorly, I'll back you up 100%. But, I will not be a pleasant individual to deal with if I see/hear you screaming (particularly with profanity..) at a kid because of poor play or running them until they puke for any reason. I look at a wide spectrum of coaching philosophies but there is a point where the coaching is just flat out BAD and I'll call you on it. I had a junior high volleyball coach that would make the girls do a sprint for every missed serve they had during the game. I got tired of hearing the whistle and her yelling so I pulled her aside after practice. I asked her what was going to fix the serving issue: running them until they yacked and hated her or ACTUALLY WORKING ON THEIR DAMN SERVES.
3. Think a few steps ahead. If I hadn't gotten on said-volleyball coach about her "motivational techniques" I would have been looking at the best case scenario: a meeting with parents where I'm going to stick my neck WAYY out there to back the coach. Or, I'd be looking at the worst case: a kid getting hurt. I will always back my coaches up when there's b.s. complaints from the community. I'll protect my staff from these kinds of situations by being blunt with the parents and making them understand that there is a unified front when it comes to little Johnny wanting to be the star quarterback.
4. Make sure that the community knows that sportsmanship is absolutely expected at games. I have no issue removing a rude spectator from any game. I WILL not have officials of coaches berated from the stands; keep your mouth shut, support your kids and be an adult. If you can't do so, you don't need to be there.
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Post by dubber on Jul 25, 2016 20:05:25 GMT -6
When he is already the HC
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Post by the1mitch on Jul 26, 2016 21:26:49 GMT -6
My first year as an HC I had a new AD. He sat all the coaches down over coffee and rolls and introduced himself. He said he couldn't do everything for every program but he wanted to be accessible and effective. With that in mind, he asked us to list the three things we wanted to have happen in the coming year. Then he went out and got all the programs as many of the things on each coaches list. Everybody got something on their list taken care of. He was, in my mind, a rock star. He was visible at minor sports contests and sadly he moved on quickly to a bigger school and we continued to plug along. I felt for the only time in 38 years of coaching that somebody really wanted to improve my situation. Go to games, know your assistant coaches, back up your coaches when helicopter parents whine about playing time and hold parent meetings where you lay down the law about what parents should do and not do.
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