It’s that time of year when I’m hearing from coaches about what should they do with their coaching staff responsibilities and organization. I’ve got several Word doc’s available if any of you would like to take a look at them. Note that my email has changed. Please email me now at: coac...@gmail.com.
Here are some random thoughts on how you should organize your staff:
1- Who is the smartest, most knowledgeable… most experienced coach on your staff? If it is YOU then you need to be doing the majority of the important duties… like play-calling and running the defense! Interestingly, the most successful coaches in our area of Tidewater Virginia call both the offense and defense on game nights! They “fit the bill” on the qualities I stated above… so they take the major responsibility during games to affect and control the outcome. Don’t just give offensive play-calling to a young coach and you sit back on game night and basically “watch.” This is not college and it’s definitely not the NFL. Don’t use them as your basis for how to manage your program! This is high school.
2- If you want your offense to “go” you better have a great O line coach! You can give young, inexperienced guys some drills to run for Running Backs or Wide Receivers Indie period but… if you don’t have a quality O line coach, you are in trouble. In most cases, I’d even say that, if necessary, YOU take the O line (Head Coach!) and make sure that things are running smoothly up front.
3- Should you “split” your staff? Unless you are a “big time” powerhouse with 10-12 “quality” assistants and… 75- 100 kids on your squad, your staff members should coach both sides of the ball. I might add that I am not in favor of full 2 platooning either! In high school, you need your best players on the field as much as possible. Give them a rest on Offense and special teams but get those athletes on the field as much as possible so they can make plays for you!!! But, with your staff, I think it’s best to have assistants work both sides of the ball. I like having our JV players and coaches do Indie and Group periods during practice with the Varsity too.
4- Have a Special Teams “over-seer” who makes sure the special teams/players are on the field on Friday night but… you should consider assigning individual kicking teams to individual coaches. Give your assistants something to invest in. Make it theirs. They’ll take a lot more pride in getting things done if it’s their responsibility to make that particular special team excel.
5- Finally, give those young, hungry assistants responsibility for a position. You will have to “coach the coach” to be sure he understands the fundamentals of the position. You’ll have to give him a set of drills you want him to run during Indie period but most coaches want some autonomy and responsibility. Once you go to Groups, your Coordinators take over.
If any of you reading this want to “kick some things around” or you have questions, don’t hesitate to contact me!
