Excellence: Unseen Skills Of Great Coaches 0

by • Featured

By DR. BARRY DAVIS
Head Baseball Coach
Rider University

LAWRENCEVILLE, N.J. — In July 2024, 10,500 athletes will join one another in Paris, France to represent their country in the 33rd Summer Olympic Games.

The opening ceremony is a spectacle on its own. On display will be the greatest athletes in the world.

They all have one thing in common. 

They all have a coach.

Even great athletes like Michael Jordan, Tiger Woods and Serena Williams hired coaches to improve their games. And coaching is not limited to athletes.

There are speech coaches, drama coaches and life coaches. Coaching is critical to all walks of life. It is indisputable that no organization, team, or individual will succeed at the highest level without a great coach.

A majority of those reading this article are coaches or someone who aspires to become a coach. For the record, the world needs more great coaches.

Coaching can be a rewarding profession affecting the lives of many. Evangelist Billy Graham once said, “A coach will impact more people in one year than the average person will in an entire lifetime.” That is a strong statement.            

Today’s collegiate and professional climate is competitive.

It is a win now climate.

Thus, head coach selection has become one of the most important decisions a club owner, general manager (GM), University President, or athletic director (AD) will make.

Search firms are often called upon to assist in finding the best candidates. And even this method arrives with holes in the process. Locating and selecting greatness at the head coach level is a rather tricky task. Search firms included.

Picking the right person for the job is elusive.

The entire selection process is often repeated. ESPN.com reported that from January 1, 2010, until January 31, 2021, former head coaches received $533.6 million from their previous employers not to coach.

In 2022-2023, 127 head coaching positions changed in college football, men’s college basketball and baseball. Let’s face it, there is no real solution to selecting the next John Wooden or Nick Saban.

Or, for us baseballers, selecting the next Skip Bertman, for that matter.

This process is not an exact science. History offers plenty of proof.  

This article aims to reduce the failure rate in head coach selection by illustrating and examining three often unseen, indisputable traits and tendencies consistent with great coaches.

To read more of this story, purchase the Oct. 1, 2023 edition of Collegiate Baseball by CLICKING HERE.