Making a Good Coach

Recently, I spoke to the mother of a Division I basketball player about training her son. As she asked several questions to see if I might be the right fit, she asked if I had played the post. I said no.

We have a belief that teaching and playing are the same thing. That is, we tend to believe that someone who plays something better than another automatically translates to a better coach.

Last week, USA Today featured an article about St. Louis Cardinals pitching coach Dave Duncan, arguably the best pitching coach of the past 30 years.

Dave Duncan is 63 and has never pitched in a baseball game. “I was a pretty good softball pitcher when I was a kid in the parks and recreation leagues,” Duncan says.

I went to the Pete Newell Big Man Camp several years ago. Most of the coaches are ex-NBA players. After all, who is better at teaching footwork to post players than an NBA post player, right? During one session, a former starting center in the NBA – now a “player development coach” in the NBA – could not demonstrate a basic pivot and move that Newell asked him to demonstrate in front of the entire group. He tried three times and traveled every time.

While the Pete Newell Camp is generally recognized as the best of its kind and features some great instructors like Mike Dunlap and Kiki Vandeweghe, there were other instructors who would be indistinguishable from an average high school coach. However, since they played in the NBA, we assume they are far better than an average high school coach.

If playing experience  is not the most essential quality in the making of a good coach, what is?

St. Louis Manager Tony La Russa says, “You can’t bring in a pitching coach any better than Dunc. He’s the Albert Pujols of pitching coaches.

“What makes him good? You can’t just identify one thing. Pitchers all have different problems — 10, 15, 20 things can go wrong. Most pitching coaches can fix a dozen things. Dave is a 10 in every category.”

According to this statement, Duncan’s knowledge and problem-solving ability set him apart from his peers. But, knowledge cannot be the sole factor.

“He’s the most-prepared guy I’ve ever been around,” says Chris Carpenter, who won the 2005 NL Cy Young Award. “He has charts and videos and a simple plan. Our pre-game meetings last maybe five minutes.”

According to one of his star pupils, it is simplicity and preparedness. One frustrating aspect of coaching is the detail, time and research that a coach undertakes to discover a solution, yet he shares only a glimpse of this with the players.

John Wooden wrote about the amount of time that he took every day to plan practice carefully so not a minute of practice time would be wasted. We sometimes see the results – a pitcher’s improvement or an efficient practice – but few people recognize the time spent by the coach to create the five minute pre-game meeting. In a sense, the coach’s preparation and simplicity make the player’s job easier, which is one role of  a coach.

Duncan is a soft-spoken man of few words. Cardinals pitchers like that he doesn’t have a one-style-fits-all philosophy and his ability to break down and explain a problem.

Often, the coaches who yell and scream capture the media and fan’s attention because you can see them “coaching” during games, while the quiet coach is accused of not doing anything (a frequent criticism of Rick Adelman at the end of his Sacramento reign). But, different coaches have different personalities. Some are fiery and intense; some are soft-spoken and quiet.

The best coaches treat each player as an individual. I have watched many basketball trainers who constantly try to re-create themselves in the players that they train. However, just because one player is successful doing things one way does not mean that another player will have similar success.

The ability to break down and explain a problem, to me, is one of the most overlooked aspects of coaching. A lot of coaching is very general – if a player misses a shot short, almost every coach and parent in the stands yell at the player to “bend your knees.” However, what happens if the player bends his knees and the shot still misses short?

I had a mom tell me that her son’s previous trainer told him to get his eyes checked because he could not figure out the problem. I watched the kid shoot one free throw and realized the problem was not his eyes or the lack of knee bend, it was the way he bent his knees. He bent his knees so far forward that he was off-balance, even when shooting a free throw. As the coach and parents yelled “bend your knees,” after every miss, his shot grew worse and worse because bending his knees exacerbated the problem, rather than fixing it. But, few coaches go beyond the general instructions and really break down a player’s skill and explain the way to improve.

What does a great coach think?

Duncan said a pitcher has to have talent before he can turn around his career.

“You look at a guy that has a lot of talent and not doing well, and so you have to look for the reasons why,” Duncan said. “It can be done. We need pitchers that have ability and have a desire to be better. The difficult times are when you have a guy with a lot of talent and you can’t make progress.”

A great coach knows his limitations. A coach cannot create something from nothing. It starts with the player and his talents and work ethic. When those are present, a good coach can assist the player with his development.

Eight attributes of a good coach: Knowledge. Problem-Solving. Simplicity. Preparedness. Communication. Ability to Explain. Analyzing the true problem. Knowing one’s limitations.

~ by Brian McCormick on May 13, 2009.