IF YOU DON’T have a competent coaching staff to help you, your team’s going nowhere. There simply isn’t enough time in the day for the head coach to handle everything that needs to be done. A head coach needs a capable staff of assistants that he can trust.
Dan Mortier, the head coach at New Trier High School in Winnetka, Ill., knows a thing or two about building a coaching staff. The 2004 Illinois High School Football Hall of Fame inductee credits much
of the success of his 30-year coaching career on surrounding himself with top-notch assistants.
The Gridiron Strategies Editorial Advisory Board member, offers these tips to help you build a solid core of hard-working assistant coaches.
Formulate “how” to put a staff together. Develop an interview process and get people who are hungry to coach. Bring in people you trust and know.
Hire people who are good teachers — the X’s and O’s will come later. When hiring a coach, select quality people first. These should be people that you’d want coaching your son or daughter.
When a coach first joins your staff, it’s not as important what he knows, but how he can get information across to the players. A good teacher can go a long way toward helping a player blossom and learn your system. Clinics, books, DVDs and coaching publications can help them build on their knowledge as time goes on
Spend time with young coaches and get them doing things the way you need them done.
Place your best coaches in strategic positions on the staff. Your best coaches should be placed in the following positions and assigned within this level of priority within your program. 1. Defensive and offensive coordinators. 2. Offensive line coach. 3. Head freshman coach (A great teacher who can teach young players the ins and outs of your program and system is invaluable.) 4. Head sophomore coach. 5. Varsity assistants. 6. Rest of the assistant positions.