Footballscoop article: 8 Qualities of a Quality Coaching Sta

With all do respect it’s 8 qualities of an ELITE staff and I agree that to be elite you need as many guys as you can get in off season and in the summer.

I’m not saying that you can’t be good or even great without it, but the article says elite and that is a small group to be in

I didn’t say all, but I would say the majority need to be in there IMO

And I don’t know you from Adam so don’t take this as a shot at you or the staff you were on but you telling me that you won state titles means nothing in terms of how good you are as coaches. You could have had dudes coming out of your a$$es for all I know

I would agree that on an elite staff, every paid coach who works in the building should put in fairly equal work. I try to follow that standard with my staff. Coordinators theoretically have less of the "wash the clothes, line the field" sort of stuff because they spend more time on preparation for practice and games. Those who are paid, but don't work at school are not going to be able to devote as much time because they have outside jobs. I do expect more of a time and work commitment from them than I do from unpaid volunteers. Most of us in high school are not going to be able to hire a complete staff that are all paid and in the building.

Number 4 is the only area I'd question, simply because it's not possible that everybody is going to be spending the same amount of time. Efforts to do so are going to be contrived and devolve into bickering over accounting. Instead, I'd phrase it as "Every member of the staff is putting in the hours required to do an elite job." Simply put, do the work until the job is done right and to a high standard.

I've been on 2 different kind of staffs. Having a different workload for the HC and Coordinators and football junkies is a given. The ones where the guys who don't work as much but don't expect as much end up being fine. The ones where guys don't work as much but want a lot of input/responsibility/respect end up not being fine.

its been my experience that to find a staff where more than 3 coaches seriously study the game and are excellent at fundamentals during their indy sessions is hard to find....


if you dont have coaches who know the game then all the "opinions," "time," "sweat," etc wont mean much.....I hate to say this but most hs coaches I have been around are terrible....good people but bad coaches

It's funny, we have a coach who is very good at sharing his opinion and quoting clinic speakers, but the results on the field are always lacking. He's never been a teacher, so I think that maybe he is very focused on what he knows and not what he can teach. That's kind of a big bridge for coaches to cross: What you know doesn't matter, what you can teach matters.

in my experience it has been both....they dont know and cant teach either

On the staffs I have been a part of you have your core coaches, the brain trust, the football junkies that put the time in and teach/instruct well. This core doesn’t change much from year to year. What changes are the fill ins, the young guy starting out, the social studies teacher that coached 5 years ago at some school and wants to be around the kids. The latter assist the core, spend more time with the young kids and run the JV. You may even send the kids up to the weight room with them while the core breaks down film or plans the practice week. The fill ins may have to miss a Sunday or two for a family event / hunting trip and its forgiven and accepted. The core’s family learned long ago that football duties will not be neglected, lol

With that said, although all roles are not equal as far as work load, preparation time and input, all roles are respected and appreciated amongst eachother. The fact of the matter is, there is a hierarchy in every coaches room across America and as members of that group, the sooner it’s recognized, understood and respected, the better for all involved.

If this in anyway comes across as derogatory towards the coaches i’ve Labeled as fill-ins, I sincerely do not mean it to be. We need them and appreciate the roles they gladly take on. In return, because we are not relying on them as much for preparation and instruction, they have leeway to miss certain functions and it’s not a problem. This sort of arrangement “works” for all involved. Whereas, that young coach or that causal social studies teacher may not want to be involved if they have to live up to the same time contstraints as core staff members do.

that isnt even the half of it