We are all about “Team” with our players, and as well, in developing our staff. If we want and expect Team Success, we must have Staff success. We don’t want individuals and egos, we want a “Staff”. Success comes in the satisfaction that we derive from knowing that we have all done our very, very best to be the greatest we can possibly be!
We touched upon the following keys to staff and coach success in an earlier BLOG, but I believe they are important enough to mention once again.
What do we need from our Staff:
1. Loyalty – we don’t want or do we need phonies, we need staff members that have the confidence in their abilities to speak out at the appropriate time, but thoroughly understand the importance and absolute demand of loyalty from our entire staff.
2. Work Ethic – again, if you want your dreams to come true, don’t sleep.
3. Knowledge – our coaches must have a passion to teach, but also a passion to learn.
4. Appearance – we are evaluated every minute of every day by our actions and our appearance, we are representing West Virginia Wesleyan, our program, and each other.
In selecting a staff, I don’t want clones of myself, I don’t want yes men, I don’t want phonies. I do want coaches that embody the above attributes, that have a passion to learn and improve, that complement each other, and who believe in our “Mission”.
I loved the quote that Doc Rivers, Boston Celtics Coach, used to the coaches at this summer’s Coaching U Live, regarding Team Success. Your team must have total “Buy-in” – to the Coach, the System, and the Mission. This is also true with your assistant coach staff.
I am extremely excited about our coaching staff – it’s the youngest most energetic staff I have ever worked with, and I absolutely love it. Both Jimmy and Ryan have already begun to develop significant relationships with our players, and I attribute much of this to their youthful energy and ability to instantly relate to our guys. This has been awesome for me, they have helped me in so many ways as we work daily to build positive relationships with each of our players.
Jimmy has a great understanding of how we are going to play and does a tremendous job of relaying this to our team – his four years as a player in our system coupled with his experience coaching last season will be invaluable to our program. Ryan will contribute in this way, but he has also brought with him an administrative skill set and maturity that he developed over the last two years serving as a graduate assistant at California University of Pennsylvania. Ryan will handle a great deal of the leg work dealing with our recruiting efforts, while Jimmy will be responsible for our strength and conditioning program – together they form a great team on the floor in teaching our players “The Bobcat Way”.
As well, we are very fortunate to have BeJay Corley, a former Division I player, who completed his career on the court with Wesleyan last season. BeJay is not interested, at least at this time, in becoming a coach, as he completes his MBA at WVWC. But he has volunteered to assist our program and has simply been tremendous. BeJay has really helped me to gain a much better understanding of Wesleyan, our Athletic Department and our team – his contributions will be outstanding.
As the head coach, I present to our staff a list of core responsibilities from which to review. I ask them to select two or three things they would really like to do, and a couple they would rather not. There are no promises, but I like to know what their thoughts are as I develop their assignments and responsibilities for the year. Ultimately it is my responsibility to put them into the positions that will best serve our team and program. We will then meet once again, to review the rough draft of this document, I want them to have input – after all, it’s their job!
We will then have one last final meeting to outline specifically the details of each core responsibility and an estimate of how much time they should be devoting to this task relative to their entire job description. Everyone is present, I want our entire staff to understand the effort that each is putting in to our program’s success.
This is something that I picked up years ago from Bill Walsh’s book, Finding the Winning Edge. One of the best “Program Building” books I have ever read, it has helped me immeasurably in my efforts to build successful programs and create our staff responsibilities and “Key Result” areas.
This is going to be a great coaching staff, because, we are going to be a great team that compliments and respects each other, as we embark upon this “Mission” together!
