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A great deal of attention is paid to the firing game.
Will a head coach and his staff be fired? Rumors fly. The coaches keep their noses to
the grindstone. More rumors fly. Eventually a decision is made.
They’re fired. Pink slips are passed out. Exits are made.
Then a great deal of attention is paid to the hiring game.
Who will be hired to be the head coach. Rumors fly. Job interviews take place under a
veil of secrecy. More rumors fly. Eventually a decision is made.
Someone is hired. A contract is signed. A grand entrance is made.
Then attention, albeit not as much, is paid to the hiring game II.
Who will be hired to be the coordinators? Who will be hired to be the position coaches.
A few rumors fly. Job interviews take place. A staff is hired.
Although a lot of attention during the hiring process is given in the newspapers and on
television and Web sites to the job candidates, not much detail is provided about what
actually is involved in building a coaching staff from scratch. What are the qualities the
people making the hires are looking for in candidates? What must be considered about the
staff as a whole when putting it together?
You can’t take your second step before you take your first, so let’s start at
the beginning, which of course is the hiring of the head coach.
Put yourself in the shoes of the owner or general manager who must hire the new head
coach who will chart the course for the organization. What do you look for?
"Command," Giants vice president and general manager Ernie Accorsi said.
"Absolute, complete courage of your convictions and belief. There’s a fine line
between blind stubbornness and the right courage of your conviction. Blind stubbornness
can blow up in your face. Making a mistake and then proving that mistake right, which you
never can. But have the conviction and patience to stay with something when you know
it’s right and other people don’t think it’s right. It’s a very, very
fine line. And you somehow have to decipher that.
"First of all, I’m looking for other ingredients. I’m talking about the
last base of the decision. The first part of it is, I’ve got to believe this guy
knows the game. I’ve got to believe this guy is creative and has a belief in how he
plays the game. And I’ve got to feel he’s got a work ethic, and he’s
impeccably organized and understands player personnel."
Accorsi said a coach’s ability to evaluate talent is important as well, citing
former 49ers head coach Bill Walsh as a good hire based on that aspect.
"Almost every decision turned out right," Accorsi said. "And yet there
are coaches (who) don’t know talent. That may really surprise you, but some coaches
view talent evaluation more (on), are they easier to coach and not on pure talent."
The safer — although certainly not foolproof — route to go is to hire someone
who has already been a successful head coach.
"Certainly if you can hire a proven winner from the NFL, now you know,"
Accorsi said. "You hire (Marty) Schottenheimer or (Bill) Parcells or (Don) Shula or
somebody like that, now you know for sure. But … if you can’t, the next best
thing is someone with NFL experience (as an assistant or, even better, as a coordinator)
who has proven they can win in college (as a head coach)."
Often, the hire is someone who has never been a head coach at the college or pro level.
Many NFL coordinators have made the jump to head coach. In that case, the person making
the hire must look into a crystal ball and project how their decision will turn out, since
it involves many duties the coach has never had before.
Bill Cowher, who was the Chiefs’ defensive coordinator before becoming the
Steelers’ head coach, describes what he was asked about when he interviewed for
Pittsburgh’s top spot:
"I think it was more of a philosophy based on how you would deal with your
team," he said. "How would you practice? How would you manage this? How would
you deal with these situations or certain players. You’re going to get tested as a
head coach. People are going to challenge you. You have to deal with the media.
You’re going to have to balance your time. You’re going to have to be able to.
You have to wear a lot of different hats. Regardless of what limited responsibilities or
extended responsibilities you have, you’re wearing multiple hats.
"So I was asked certainly about defense, but it was more, what kind of staff are
you putting together? What’s your philosophy about football? What would you like to
do? Certainly you’re going to have an offensive philosophy. But if that doesn’t
cater to your team, you’re not going to just introduce a philosophy that isn’t
best suited (to) what type of players that you have."
Even if the person making the hire likes such an answer, it doesn’t tell him all
he needs to know since, while a coordinator can have a game plan for what he will do as
head coach, there are countless details to the job they can’t possibly anticipate.
"You know all about all of the things that you plan on," Herman Edwards, who
was a rookie head coach for the Jets last season, said. "(Colts head coach) Tony
(Dungy) was my mentor, and you talk and discuss … all those things. But you never
understand the five things that come up every day that you didn’t even consider were
going to come up. That’s part of the job."
The person making the hiring decision must determine whether this person can lead
everyone who will work under him to success.
Former Packers executive vice president and general manager Ron Wolf referred to this
in the book "The Packer Way: Nine Stepping Stones to Building a Winning
Organization."
"Use the hiring of leaders to make a statement to your employees," Wolf
wrote. "Hire winners — those people with success in their background. Their
tempo, work ethic and enthusiasm will be essential in reinforcing the direction that you
want the organization to pursue."
Wolf hired Mike Holmgren to be the Packers head coach in 1992. He was a brilliant hire
who paved the way for Green Bay to win Super Bowl XXXI. In describing the interview
process with Holmgren, Wolf makes it clear that, for all the things that can be looked at
in a candidate, ultimately the decision comes down to the hiring executive’s gut
feeling.
"Fifteen minutes into our conversation, I was so impressed that I already wanted
to hire him," Wolf wrote in "The Packer Way: Nine Steps to Building a Winning
Organization." "His lack of head-coaching experience didn’t concern me. He
was so confident he could succeed that I quickly forgot about that aspect of his career.
We discussed in detail how he ran his offense and who he wanted as his coordinators. It
was obvious he had prepared himself for this job possibility. This was an intelligent,
thoughtful guy with strong beliefs and a background that gave him credibility. My
instincts told me he had the traits to become an outstanding leader."
In another passage of the book, Wolf wrote, "(Holmgren) left me with the
impression he could lead men and turn them into winners. Don’t ask me what exactly
gave me that feeling, but it was there."
Recognizing those feelings and having them turn out to be correct is a tremendous test
of vision.
"The single most difficult judgment and decision to make in sports in my opinion
is to determine if somebody can be a head coach in football that’s never been a head
coach," Accorsi said. "I know (a) baseball manager is important. I know
basketball coaches are important. To me, the guy who has the biggest influence on his team
is the football coach, and to project an assistant coach who has never been a head coach
to be a head coach is the most difficult, because you don’t know. They’re two
totally different jobs."
Although the head coach is the most important coaching hire, it is just the tip of the
iceberg. There are a lot of coordinators and position coaches to hire for a new staff.
What is it that a head coach is looking for when putting together a coaching staff?
"No. 1, I like somebody to have smarts, because you can’t teach that,"
Broncos head coach Mike Shanahan said. "And No. 2, someone who likes to work hard.
And No. 3, people who can get along. People who understand that it’s a profession
— there’s going to be some high points and low points, and you’ve got to
work through everything. … If you’ve got a guy with character who’s smart,
good things usually happen."
Said Accorsi: "(A head coach should look for assistants who) understand the
strategy of the game and teach."
It’s more than just finding the 15 or so best assistants on the market. A head
coach must hire coaches who complement each other and will develop chemistry together.
"You get your coaches together, you need to have experience, but you need some
youth; you need some aggressive young guys, but you also need the guys who have been
around for a while who can maybe help show them through some tough times if there are some
tough times," Lions defensive assistant Don Clemons said. "There is definitely
the chemistry situation."
A staff in which everyone is the same might get along splendidly, but it also might not
get the job done.
"You don’t want all the same kind of people, because then the product stays
the same," Clemons said. "You’ve got to have that constant swirling of
ideas."
The key is for the swirling personalities to fit right together. Do they always fit? Do
they always have good chemistry?
"Some of the time," Bears defensive coordinator Greg Blache said.
"That’s why some people win consistently and some people struggle."
Because of the nature of the profession, a coaching staff with bad chemistry is asking
for trouble.
"It’s very important (to have good chemistry), because otherwise you’re
going to argue and fight and everybody has an opinion," said Rams administrator of
pro personnel Jack Faulkner, who was a longtime coach before moving to the front office.
"That’s why you have a defensive coordinator and an offensive coordinator.
They’re supposed to be in charge of that particular phase of the game. And
they’ve all got to be together. And they can argue it all out, but when they leave
the room … everybody has to have decided that’s what it’s going to be,
because otherwise you get a guy that’s disgruntled about, ‘I didn’t get my
idea,’ and it goes over into his coaching. When he starts coaching the players, some
of that resentment shows up."
Said Accorsi: "The coaching staff spends far too many hours in a compressed time
together to not have a mutual respect for each other."
Respect is the key word. The coaches on a staff do not have to be best friends to be
successful.
"I don’t think they have to like each other," said NFL Coaches
Association executive director Larry Kennan, who coached in the NFL for 15 years.
"They have to respect each other. There’s a huge difference. Because you can
fight and argue and yell at each other and not like somebody away from the building, but
in the building you’ve got to respect them and let them have their opinion.
We’re not always right."
As big as staffs are and as many hours as they work, it’s inevitable that tensions
will sometimes run high. The question is, did the head coach hire a staff that knows how
to work around each others’ hot buttons?
"You’re going to get some guys a little salty, you’re going to get some
guys who are really kind of laid back," Falcons RB coach Ollie Wilson said.
"There’s all different degrees of personality just like there are anywhere else
or (in) any other corporation. And basically everybody finds everybody’s niche as far
as how they fit into the system, because everybody has got something to present, and
everybody has got something to work at.
"For example, (there are) guys on staffs who after eight or nine o’clock when
they’re on their own, you just leave them alone because they’re a little cranky
… and yet in the morning they’re great, and everything is ready to go. But you
kind of learn that situation. Everybody has their own way of dealing with things. But I
don’t think staffs can be successful, I don’t think programs can be successful,
if you have guys who can’t work together. Eventually that’s going to bang heads.
It’s going to hurt the communication between the coach and the player, and eventually
it’s going to break itself up.
"I think that’s where the head coach comes in, to be able to get those guys
and put them together. I think there’s a little bit of fitting into that. I think
head coaches think that way when they’re hiring coaches. They say, ‘OK, can he
deal with this? I’ve got this guy.’ And they fit those guys in."
Chemistry and a coaching staff’s willingness to sacrifice for the common good can
be difficult to maintain during losing times.
"As you’re succeeding, that’s easier to do than in the years when you
might have a little bit less success than you had hoped, and maybe after two or three
years (of) less-than-common success, then those are harder things to get every week,"
Broncos director of football administration Neal Dahlen said. "And that’s why
they make changes in staffs, because the human element comes in."
Of course, chemistry is also hard to maintain when a team has had a lot of success.
"It’s hard to keep (a good staff) together, because the better your coaching
staff is the less chance you have of keeping them together because they’re going to
go to become head coaches," Accorsi said.
It’s not just after the season is over that job searches can lead to breakdowns in
a coaching staff’s chemistry.
"I think your greatest chance of success is when you have chemistry, when
everybody is working toward the same goal, where you don’t have egos trying to get
recognition, or you don’t have guys with separate agendas," Blache said.
"You know, guys who are trying to get that next job. I think in order to be
successful as a coaching staff, you need 10 or 12 guys who are all trying to get the job
done where you are as opposed to guys working on that next job. Because when guys start
working on that next job, they’re going to make decisions and do things that
aren’t conducive to everybody else on the football team, because their focus is not
the same focus as everyone else. Unfortunately, in this day and age in our business,
that’s becoming more and more prevalent. Because the salaries are so high for head
coaches, guys kind of have different agendas sometimes."
With so many pratfalls to avoid when it comes to staff chemistry, putting together a
staff that is a good fit may be one of the most underappreciated aspects of the head
coach’s job.
"That’s what head coaches get paid all the big bucks for is to hire a staff
that can get along and do well together," Kennan said.
Part 5: The glass is half full
Part 4: Difficulties of the profession
Part 3: Coping with defeat
Part 2: The player-coach relationship
Part
1: Setting the tone
Series index |
