Photo Credit: Ron Almog, Creative Commons 2.0 Generic

Being a new coach has a tremendous amount of upsides, however it is not a walk in the park.

A few experienced Granite Bay High School coaches recapped many aspects of being a rookie coach and spoke about how to help future rookie coaches.

“It was exciting to work with young people and try to build a program with them,” long-time head varsity basketball coach Jason Sitterud said in an email. “You don’t know what you don’t know, so every day you were learning something new.”

Being a coach can be very exciting because of the challenge of replacing seniors with new players every year.

One of the difficulties of the job is that coaching nowadays is more than simply knowing the sport.

“I was very young to be a high school coach and I had no idea what I was doing aside from the X’s and O’s,” varsity water polo coach John MacLeane said in an email.

As a high school coach, the job goes a lot further than practices and games.

“I wish someone would have gone through how much time you need to invest in all the extra stuff off the court, All of the administrative stuff,” Sitterud said.

With many challenges piling up, perhaps the most difficult challenge of being a new coach is time management.

Coach Sitterud believes one of the bigger challenges is being able to balance everything that needs to be done, ranging from the house, to the team and classroom.
Despite the many challenges, there are also many simple ways to conquer them and move on to being a more efficient coach.

When an unexpected problem occurs, the best way to go about it is to take a step back and process the situation.

“You need to understand the situation first before you can be understood,” Sitterud advised.
People will be more likely to listen and agree with someone that knows what they are talking about.

“Be willing to listen to those that came before you and learn from them,” Sitterud said.

Experienced coaches in a program can offer help to new coaches.

“Help them in dealing with parents and remind them that these athletes have a life outside of our sport,” MacLeane said.

Many new coaches can also make the transition easier by bringing values to a team or program, giving them a motto and foundation to fall back on.

“There are no magic formulas,” MacLeane said. “Hard work pays off.”

Meanwhile, players look for other attributes in coaches that are important for the player’s success and happiness.

Sophomore Dylan Cole looks for the coach’s abilities to lead the team and quickly connect with their new players.

“(Coaches) gain leniency by showing respect to the players and clearly improving the team,” Cole said.

Many players are understanding of new coaches as long as they try to be a good leader by developing relationships within the team and show effort towards improvement.
No matter how hard the job, people should be reminded that they are new and it takes a while to become a high-level coach.

MacLeane reminds players and parents to appreciate their coaches as “coaches could always quit and do something that pays minimum wage.”

Many coaches would agree, however, that the positives greatly outweigh the negatives in the job.
“Coaching is like a drug,” MacLeane said, “you will become an addict.”