By Jeff Haefner
SHARES
This is one of those tricky situations that nobody wants to deal with. However, it can be easier than you think. And for the best interests of your players, it's critical to get the situation under control.
When you have an assistant that oversteps their bounds, it almost always comes down to a management issue that can be easily solved. As a head coach, you need to set clear expectations and roles for your assistant. Then communicate those roles.
I suggest the following actions to remedy the problem...
- Sit down with him/her. Review expectations. Talk about your stance on things so you both get aligned.
- Give your assistant specific responsibilities. If they over-step their boundaries, perhaps it's because they don't know their responsibilities. If your assistant is really good at defense, put them in charge of defense or maybe they can do stats, film, and so on.
It's important to consider your assistant's strengths. Then it's your job to put the assistant coach in the position to use those strengths to benefit the program.
- Just like coaching players, you need to give your assistants clear and defined roles and responsibilities. Document those roles and review them with your assistants. It's very important for this information to be documented in writing. Then routinely review expectations. Regularly scheduled weekly and monthly meetings will definitely help keep everyone in check!
- You can also try daily huddles with assistants. This just takes 5-10 minutes. Each day you huddle and you ask each person - what's your priority for the day? Are you stuck on anything? What are your key metrics for the day? Some coaches will have key metrics to review daily (rebounds, shooting percentage, attendance, etc). This huddle should be done very quickly and efficiently. Everyone should stand up the whole time to keep things moving quickly.
Managing assistant coaches is just like managing employees in a business. The same management tactics work. In a business, you document procedures for an employee. You document and define expectations and roles for that employee. You implement key metrics to measure the performance of that employee. You have regularly scheduled meetings with that employee to review goals, expectations, metrics, performance, and progress. You hold that employee accountable and communicate with them.
Bottom line, set expectations and roles with your assistants. Meet with them on a fairly regular basis. Give it a shot and you'll end up with a much smoother and productive basketball program. And happier coaches too!
SHARES
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