By: Kevin Bryant, CMAA - Previously at Redmond, Currently at Centennial HS in Portland, OR We have many important responsibilities in our work as high school athletic administrators. Game management, student athlete eligibility, safety & security of our facility/participants, working with parents, and booster club connections are just a few of the vitally important duties of the athletic administrator job description. However, none of these duties are as important as the hiring and evaluation of your coaching staff. Our coaches are on the front line daily with our student athletes, creating culture, teaching moral development, building trust and passion with athletes and parents of our schools. Finding the right coaches for our particular situation needs to be our highest priority. These folks will make up your team. Finding the right coach for your opening is both an art and a science. When hiring a coach, we would do well to begin at the beginning in the sense, of what are we looking for when we have a coaching opening at our school? Job descriptions may be available but I have yet to read a job description that quickens the blood and grabs candidates by the information on a piece of paper. The National Federation of State High School Associations (NFHS) states in their coaches' education training that an impactful coach has expertise in four clear areas:
It is often difficult to find this "whole package". With the number of coaches who are not certified teachers taking over high school athletic programs across our country we are tending to hire coaches who are more focused on technique and tactics than organization and relationships. Coaches who lack training in educationally sound practice, history and learning is impacting our educational athletic goals in significant ways. While the above list is a fine overall organizational goal it does not address the impact of coaches on the moral development, and life skills that we all know will be the impact that lasts the longest in the life of a high school student athlete. So, what is the science and what is the art of finding your next great coach? The science relates to those fundamental things that we must do well to hire a coach, in other words our process. Job descriptions, advertising, timeline, interviews, questions, visits, phone interviews, deadlines and paperwork. Not the most exciting part of the process to me but without it hiring a quality coach will be next to impossible. The art then of finding a coach relates to the intangible and creative things in the process of hiring a coach. Examples of the art of finding a coach include: keeping a short list of potential coaches to fill head coaching openings, the interview process, background checks that go beyond calling listed references, creating ownership in the hire, looking hard for coaching candidates and not "settling" for whomever might be around. With all the thing, we have going on during a day it might be easy at points to look at this like you are trying to fill vacancies on your staff versus you are building your team which will impact your community. According to the American Association of School Administrators eighty-seven percent of school district resources are spent on personnel costs (2014). I know of no better way for a district to demonstrate that people are important, money talks. How does your school district go about hiring? Some districts have a pre-stamped process that you follow, for others of you, you are talking to your human resource people but you are on your own to decide what and how it will happen. Do you need a veteran coach due to program situation? Or do you need some youth because a veteran coach has just retired and you need some youthful enthusiasm? There are some things you need to figure out as your process begins. The first step is to determine if the person you are considering hiring has a history of demonstrating a deep concern for teenagers and has a proven ability to connect with them? You must figure out how to say this on your application materials because it certainly is an expectation. What else will your job description say and how will you get the word out that this job is now open? There are the usual ways, your school or district website or both, your league website, state association website, Craig's List, and area youth programs? My goal once I had an "approved" job description was to get it in as many hands as possible as quickly as possible. I would also send an email to several AD friends who I know might have a suggestion or idea for me. A key strategy as well is to connect with other local schools to you that recently had searches for similar openings and if they would share with you those that were not hired so you might contact them. Now that the net has been spread you can begin to review the paperwork as it comes in. You must decide if your job is open until a closing date or if it is open until you hire. I have always taken the paperwork seriously. Did you get everything you asked for in the application? How was the spelling and letter of application overall? Do you find errors? Attachments that were asked for missing? I would make it clear in your application materials that only full applications would be considered. Will you be sifting through the materials yourself or will you have help? If you have help will this paper committee be the same that will assist you in the interviews? I would encourage you to have one committee for both pieces of the selection so that you can a longer look at candidates and create some ownership over the job opening in your school and community. Now that you have read over the paperwork you have received what is your plan? How many will you interview or do you have to interview? For instance, some districts have a rule or expectation that any in district candidate will get interviewed, is that true for your district? If not, then you must decide who your viable candidates are. In most cases I had multiple applicants for each head coaching opening. In some cases, we did phone or Skype interviews for our top six candidates and from those decided on the two that we would bring to campus. Phone or Skype interviews can be a bit strange but it is another opportunity to connect with your candidate and get more information. Usually 30 minutes is adequate for a preliminary interview of this kind. As you think about organizing these interviews what the 8-10 questions you need to know before deciding on whether to bring this person to campus or not? Don't ask yes or no questions be thoughtful in what you ask and how you ask it. For instance, ask for proven examples that relate to the questions you are asking. You are not looking for philosophical agreement alone you want to know does this person have demonstrated successful experience leading a sport and coaching young people. Now that you are down to your finalists you should let your school shine a bit. Remember you are looking at this candidate and they are looking at your school and program too. Make sure that on campus finalists have a chance to walk the school grounds and see their facility. If possible you want other head coaches involved in the finalist's interviews. You need to lead a process that helps your committee understand what you are truly looking for as the process moves along you are all on the same page. When it comes to questions during the interview process make sure that you are clear with your committee what you are looking for in answers so that you are not confused about what information you are trying to receive. Meeting prior to the interview to make sure each committee member knows what question they are asking and answer any committee procedural questions is important. I had my committees sign a confidentiality statement prior to the process beginning that made it clear we did not want information getting out to the community prior to the conclusion of the search. You should bring all materials in and leave with all materials as well after the interview are over. You need to have feedback sheets available for each committee member to write on. What I usually requested was our best agreement on a candidate as a committee. However, you communicate together you need to come away with a committee recommendation. My experience, even as a Vice-Principal/Athletic Director was that my Principal still needed to meet the candidate and give their feedback. I always wanted the Principal to meet both of our final two candidates if possible so there was a chance to contrast the two. Two important items need to be covered somewhat immediately after interviewing. First, you need to get back to those that are no longer in the process. Anyone you did not interview personally needs to know that they are no longer in the process. This is a pet peeve for me. High school athletic directors need to do a better job here. As you all know when you have looked for positions, you want to know what is going on. You will save yourself headaches and phone calls by letting people know as soon as possible that they are no longer in the process. If you interviewed a candidate personally I would highly recommend that you contact each of these folks personally. The second important item would be to check references before you make a decision. Make sure you call all listed references and that you call "around" the references as well. This is another area that is very important and in my experience AD's could do a better job of. You might be saying that you are at a small school, out of the way school, not a winning school and cannot seem to drum up candidates for your coaching openings. I have thirty search strategies that I have developed and if you want them you can email me and I will send them to you. This creativity is the art of hiring your coaching staff. To whet your appetite, I will share five of these ideas with you below and if you want them all as I said above, contact me and I will send you all thirty:
By taking advantage of those supportive people that are around you every day that you may be able to get help you have never previously considered. My favorite search strategy in the art of hiring your best candidate is the short list. I would encourage each of you to begin developing a short list of candidates for your head coaching opportunities if they were to open. I always observed coaches from other teams (Varsity and JV etc.) and as you become aware of a coach you think is doing a great job to reach out to those short list people that you have observed. Your connection and observation of these folks' work is important in this hiring process. Trust your instincts and observations. Being an artful interviewer is another strategy in the art of hiring your best coach. What are some questions that might be considered offbeat that would give you additional information about your candidate? I always like to ask a coach to teach us something that they considered a strength for them in their sport. Take their sport, softball for example, how do you hit a riser? Have them stand up right there and teach us. I asked that of a cheer coach candidate once and within moments I was on the floor as a base for a pyramid! You get to view personality, teaching ability and knowledge and it added some fun to the interview. You will need to decide do you give the candidates a copy of the questions prior to the interview or during the interview? Don't ever settle for a coach. For instance, a good HS AD friend of mine once said that you just get a good person for tennis for example. If they love kids, they will be fine. Tennis coaches are hard to find etc. I appreciated his perspective but I would never just "settle" that way. I would not do that in any other sport why would I do that in tennis? You must decide are all sports equal to you in the hiring effort and process? Take a chance. Once, in somewhat desperation, I sent a personal letter to every four-year college head volleyball coach within driving distance of our high school in Portland's west side. I was looking for some good luck and leadership to revive our program. I told them clearly what I needed and was hoping for a former athlete who wanted to coach, a former coach who wanted to establish themselves a HS program. I received only one response, it was from the head coach at the University of Portland. He had two ideas for me. One of them worked out and it was amazing. She was exactly what we needed and eventually led our team to a 4th place finish at state. It gave me courage to try like that again too. What will be your commitment or involvement allowed to parents of athletes and the athletes themselves in the process? I once had a separate hiring committee of boys' soccer players because I had 10 seniors coming back. It was a unique life lesson for these guys. I was a part of the process with them. They learned about applications, interviews, questions and process. At the same time, they had the chance to give feedback about our finalist candidates. I have always tried to find a broad thinking parent from that sport to be involved in the hiring of that sports coach. I believe we should want parents involved in our processes. Once you have had the chance to hire the new coach I would set up a meeting to go over several important items that would start the coach off on the right foot. I have a checklist if you want to email me I would be glad to share that with you. This would include items like; the first student athlete meeting; first parent meeting; out of season workouts; season schedule; uniforms and equipment; assistant coaches; budget; fundraising; required coaches training; hazing, and League SOP's. We would schedule some of these things on the first meeting. Onboarding a coach well is very important in moving a coach toward ultimate success in your program. We have all suffered through a poor coaching hire. It is not an enjoyable experience for anyone in our community. Create ownership in your hiring of coaches by getting others on board and connected to the athletic program by helping you. Think through, for you, what is the art and science of your next head coaching hire. You are building YOUR TEAM at your high school. These hires are critically important in moving your school ahead. Share your vision by developing and carrying out a high-quality hiring process that is both an art and a science. Bibliography American Association of School Administrators. (2014, October 29). Retrieved from School Budgets 101: http://www.aasa.org/uploadedFiles/Policy_and_Advocacy/files/SchoolBudgetBriefFINAL.pdf Bryant, K. (2014). The athletic director survival guide. Portland, OR, USA: Thrive Athletic Consulting, LLC. |
The Art and Science of Hiring Your Coaching Staff
