College Coach
To be a college coach you have to be very dedicated and love the sport you are coaching. Being a college coach is very time consuming and a very hard job to land in the sports world. The competition that one faces when trying to get into the job field is fierce. This means that the job as a coach in the collegiate athletic career field is limited to a small percentage of the people that end up applying. These people need to be able to fulfill a variety of duties for their universities, and because of this it is important that anyone who is thinking of applying knows the difficulty that comes with the job (Greenwald, 2010). A person must have specific knowledge of the sport they desire to coach, because they have many duties that come with their job. “One of the main duties of the Coach is to put together a team of the best athletes available in the specific sport” (Field, 2012, p.115). Coaches and athletes both want to be successful. This is why one of the main duties of a coach is to pick the top players out of high school. It is hard to be successful if a team does not have the proper athletes. A coach’s duties will vary depending on the size of the school. At a small school a college coach could be responsible for not only coaching but also recruiting, scouting, finance of the team, and much more, while at a larger school a coach may have their own departments for each of those duties. The main focus of a college coach is to prepare his or her players
Coaches need to have certain skills and knowledge to undertake the role. In my opinion a coach needs to be patient, supportive, interested, aware of others as well as self, attentive and perceptive. Such elements underpin effective coaching and a genuine interest in the person being coached.
Bowen and Hitt identify that coaches can be role models and teachers at the same time, and that not having sports can take away the opportunity to interact with role models outside of school. The cost of being a coach can provide additional opportunities to be a mentor and help students succeed not just in the classroom but also on and off the field. The University of Arkansas’s Anna Egalite, Daniel Bowen, and Julie Trivitt find that athletic coaches in Florida mostly tend to perform just as well as their non-coaching counterparts, with respect to raising student test scores (Bowen and Hitt). There is more evidence that sports benefit academics and that they are worth the cost.
It all started with an email seeking freshman male in his coaching and administration program. The 2012 graduate of UConn’s Sport Administration and coaching program, William Aloia, says this future success as the Associate Athletic Director for The College of St. Rose started out by almost” falling into his lap”. The New Jersey native began his undergraduate experience with two Division-I parents, and like an abundance of people he knew that working in sport was something he wanted to do. Previously a part of the Kinesiology department under the late Joe Marrone, Will jumped on the opportunity posted through an email and started his freshman year as a basketball manager for the very successful UConn’s basketball program. He explains how this experience “opened his door up”. Will states; “once I started at UConn working with the women’s basketball program and being around collegiate athletics at such a high level it’s really something in itself, and unbelievable experience. I knew it was for me, I didn’t know which part for sure, but I knew this was something I wanted to do.” What Will realized very quickly realized about working in sport is that often times it is a thankless job. However, that did not stop him from finishing his undergraduate career as a four-year manager for the basketball team. The motivation for Will early in his career has been a two-dimensional illustration of success.
The NCAA gives out two billion seven hundred thousand dollars in scholarships that can be gifted to more than one hundred fifty thousand student-athletes (Scholarships). Although this is the case, most student-athletes do not choose to compete professionally, but instead benefit from the education they are receiving. Additionally, it may seem controversial that the “coaches decide who receives a scholarship, the scholarship amount and whether it will be renewed” rather than the NCAA who is providing the money for the scholarships (Scholarships). Furthermore, many students can fit one coach’s ideals for the team and will be completely wrong for another coach’s. This being said coaches are constantly being added and removed. For example, over the past fifteen years Missouri University has had seventeen changes to the coaching staff while Florida has had sixty-five changes to the coaching staff (SEC Coaching Turnover Rates From Past 15 Years are Staggering). Since coaches have the most authority, many players are having their scholarships rescinded due to a change in the coaching staff. For example, Doug Segrest, a writer for the Birmingham News, interviewed Grayson Mullins, football player for Notre Dame, who was moved from his original position as a quarterback to a wide receiver when Lou Holtz, Coach for Notre Dame, was replaced by Steve Spurrier, who eventually rescinded Mullins scholarship because he did not fit the ideal model (Segrest). This demonstrates, that scholarships are constantly held over a players’ head as to perform not only at the best of their ability but to the coaches’ idealistic reality as well. Overall, scholarships pose a large issue in college athletics and while they do provide education to students that are harming in the long run as students are constantly at risk to lose them for performing
Coaching basketball is about strategizing and directing the movements and actions of a basketball team or individual player. Coaches strategize and scout opposing teams and find ways to defeat them as easily as possible. A successful basketball coach needs to now the understanding of how to play the game. A basketball coach must be able to manage the duties of the job by recruiting the top players, get them in shape, make a team, motivate players and teach them how to play the game of basketball. Coaching is usually done by a single person, with the help of one or more assistants. A coach is the face of the team, helping it achieve the public relations goals of the organization and build a positive image that will improve recruiting. (Edmunds). A coach is responsibiable for setting up and an environment so that the team can use its skills and abilities to their full potential. Therefor a coach has to make a game plan for each game, so that his team will be ready for the next opponent. A coach has to know his team and the opponent abilities to be able to match his team up with the opponent. A coach must know to mix the players who can start right away and players he can develop into starters. A coach may want to put 12-15 players on the roster just in case of injuries. To get ready for the season the coach starts putting in offensive and defensive plays the will run and teach the players situational plays to fit the team style and running practices. During a game a coach has
Having a coach in life will positively influence your character and your skills. Also, having a coach doesn’t necessarily mean that your playing on a field. A coach can be anyone from a role model to a parent or guardian, a teacher, a pastor, a mentor, or sometimes even a best friend. One of the most important things for a coach to have is influence, and more important than that is that the influence he has on his players must be positive. As a leader, a coaches job is to better his players on and off of the field. This is done by developing the character of his players through encouragement and helping them understand that the game is more than just about winning. A good coach will always put the needs of his players first before he considers himself as a factor. If a coach is successful his players will develop a strong sense of self-motivation. This helps by allowing the player to
Most college coaches start their careers as graduate assistants. All teams have a OC and DC. New coaches most commonly fill in as position coaches. At the higher levels, a position coach has a specific group they work with. For example, quarterbacks and wide receivers have their own position coach. To get into a larger university or professional football position, extensive coaching experience, a winning record, and honors are ordinarily commonly required.
college level, the hiring of coaches is a key responsibility for athletic directors that can be subject
Coaches should have sport specific skills as they need to understand certain technical aspects of the sport they are trying to teach. A coach needs to ensure that they have a good knowledge and understanding of their own sport and how the latest information in sport science can aid to develop performers, this is important so coaches can deliver demonstrations correctly and carry out good practice as if they were to demonstrate something wrongly then students could pick up bad habits by simply imitating and doing as their instructed. However if a coach is less knowledgeable in a particular area of sport they could use their transferable skills .
My trip was to go to CMMC Wellness Center; unfortunately the plans didn't go as well. So we had to stay at LHS and had a guy came and talk to us about what he does and our job shadow. Ryan Westleigh attended Bates College and eventually became coach. He has played basketball, football, soccer and ran track. Westleigh talked about his career and what he does as an athlete coach and their latest scores. He didn’t really talk about the career but I believe the three significant academics skills would be the ability to communicate by way of written expression, the ability to recognize a problem and think critically to solve it and the ability to use technology effectively. All these academic skills can be used in coaching at all times.
Certain traits or qualities that an administrator can look for in an athletic coach would be someone
Taking the time to reflect on why it is someone coaches is beneficial for personal growth, and for creating an awareness of one’s changes in motivation, which affects behavior. Therefore, changes in motivation can be reflected in someone’s behavior and his or her well-being. Those who feel that they are coaching because they want to, will be successful, and feel that coaching allows them to acquire relationships with their players, and display more motivation for coaching. Being aware of why someone coaches their sport is an important part of reflective practice. One person’s
With the right influence, communication and skill development is the key to a valuable coach. Without my two outstanding high school coaches, I wouldn’t have the love for basketball and track the way I do today. They have taught me everything I needed to know for the present, along with tips for the future. Coach Lewis and Coach Kohler have done more for me than what I’ve ever deserved and I will never be able to pay them back for all their help and encouragement. But I hope they have understanding of how much of a change they can make on someone's life, someone's life like my
When I think of coaching I think of practice planning, game planning, scouting strategizing of offense and defense, choosing my starters, little things like that. All of those ideas are valid, but that’s not the whole picture. There is a lot more to coaching than planning for a practice or a game. Many times a person who would like to coach an interschool athletic team has little or no preparation to teach sports skills and techniques. The only qualifications is often the person’s participation on his or her high school, college, or university’s team, coach of a community youth team or even perhaps as a professional player. While all that experience is valuable in one way or another, it does not constitute an adequate preparation for
After receiving my degree and certification I will need to find an open position. It is predicted by USNews.com that there will be 29.4% growth in employment outlook for coaches in the years 2010-2020. As stated earlier there is no experience requirement, the only thing suggested is to have background knowledge of the game. I plan on becoming a physical education teacher at the high school level. By doing this I will be able to find employment easier than just being a football coach. Since many of the schools hire teachers to be coaches, being a teacher will make this process easier for me to get involved with the football program from the beginning and work my way up to eventually becoming head coach. In an article by Lisa Miller, she talked about how coaches need to identify their purpose in coaching before they become one. Many are in it for the money and fame. After thinking hard about the question, I finally discovered why I wanted to become a coach. I don’t want to make millions, or become famous. The reason why I wish to coach is to be able to impact my player’s lives and help them become better men like my coaches did with me.