On today’s SHORT SHIFTS episode, Vechs wants to talk about the roles of a coaching staff, and the differences between head coaches, assistant coaches, and the expectations to grow and develop in each role to be successful.
TEN MINUTES ON THE CLOCK STARTING NOW!
We appreciate every listen, download, comment, rating and share on your social sites!
[Music] Welcome to Short Shifts, another episode from the hockey think tank. Jeffrey J. Helovecchio here, Tophra Scott. There's no idea what I'm going to ask him, Toph. Why don't I talk about coaching here? I've got a lot of coaches that listen to us, and I talked to a coach yesterday in the North American League whose team I'm going to work with. I worked with his team last year. He was an assistant coach, wants me to work with his new team. There's a big difference between assistant coaching and head coaching. Big difference, especially at the higher levels, like it's night and day. What are some things that each coach's role, usually like assistant coach's role, head coach's role traditionally that you see or you'd like to see, and if we have time, what are some things assistant coaches should be thinking about if they're going to make a move to be a head coach? That's a great question. That's only kind I have. That's probably honestly like not this. We only have 10 minutes for this. We can probably do this for a full podcast episode. First thing I will say is a head coach is only as good as a assistant coaches, or her assistant coaches. If you don't have good assistance, then you're done because as a coach, you can't coach 20 players all the time. You just can't because coaching, you got to get individual attention to a lot of different players, whether it's skill on the ice or mental stuff, team stuff off the ice either. You have to like, again, your head coach is only as good as the people that surround him that are on his coaching staff or her coaching staff. With that, I think it's really, really, really important that the head coach empowered the assistant coaches to have major responsibilities within their staff. You'll see it in high-high level hockey, where the head coach is really kind of like, I don't want to say if he's the CEO of a company. The head coach is the CEO of the company, and the assistant coaches are doing a lot of the groundwork, doing a lot of the dirty work. They're in charge of the defense or they're in charge of the forwards. They're in charge of the penalty kill. They're in charge of the power play. So the reason why you do that is you're giving them responsibility that will help them to develop the skills. So now you're making better coaches as a head coach, which in turn, they will make you look better as a head coach. So I would encourage all the head coaches to really help to develop your assistant coaches. Not only is it going to help them, but it's going to help you in the delegation of responsibilities because as the head coach, you have a lot of responsibilities. Again, I see the head coach as the CEO of a corporation that manages people. They're not necessarily into the nitty gritty, but they're managing people. And I see that especially at the higher levels of hockey, but even at the lower levels of hockey too in youth hockey. And so I think that's really, really important. Assistant coaches, what I will say is beg your head coaches for responsibility. And when I say that, it's for your development. And do the shit work. Love the gritty work. That is how you're going to get better. The year I was a volunteer at Miami, I was a graduate assistant coach. I was given the responsibilities that nobody else wanted. Let's just call it. Like if you're the lowest person on the totem pole, you're going to get the response a bit, thrive in that environment. Because you will be able to learn so much about the game in doing that stuff. Breaking down the film, doing the stats, all the stuff that you have to present to the coaching staff on Monday. You know, that stuff is going to make you better. And when you have that wider perspective, that is so, so incredibly important. Also, when it comes to like, and I don't know if this is your question, Vex, but I really think that it's important that assistant coaches and head coaches in their communication with each other, there should be a lot of challenging that goes on in private and a lot of togetherness on the front in public. So what do I mean by that? You have to challenge each other's ideas to get better. You have to. You don't want yes man as a head coach as your assistant coaches that are just going to agree with you with everything. Because you're not always going to be right. And if you create an environment in your coaches room, where your assistant coaches are afraid to give their opinion or speak up, you're not going to be a very good head coach. You're not going to be a very very good head coach. So assistant coaches, head coaches create the environment and assistant coaches, you have to challenge. You have to provide an opinion to make your staff better. Now, that has to be done in private. When you're public and you're in front of the team and you're talking to your players, whether it's the whole team or certain players, then you have to be united. Whether you disagree, whatever it may be, whatever you're coming out of that coach's room and end of the locker room with, you have to be on the same page. And so I think that's really important. I don't know if that was necessarily the question. But that's where like if you're an assistant coach and you're trying to develop the skills to be able to be a head coach, you have to start with the nitty gritty. The more you understand the game, the more you understand the little nuances of building a culture by doing the actual work, the better off you're going to have to have perspective to understand what's going on. Hockey wise, team culture wise, right? So do the nitty gritty work and you're just going to get better. So I don't know if I'm answering your question or not, but like, what do you think? Yeah, no 100% you are. Can you give more examples of the nitty gritty work? Staying on with players after practice, going on with players before practice, breaking down the analytics of the video, creating individual clips for players with the video. Even doing like some of the hockey operations stuff, if you don't have like a team manager or whatever the responsibilities is in youth hockey or director of hockey operations at the higher levels of hockey, just like really getting in and doing some of the grunt work, I guess what you can call it, to help to present because the head coach just doesn't have time to do that. The head coach has all these other responsibilities that they have to manage. And so by doing that grunt work and then providing that perspective to the people above you, it's going to make you better. And at the end of the day, like it's going to help you to get hired too because people don't hire people. They don't know, you know? So I shouldn't say that like for the most part. Yeah, yeah, I love that. And would you say that assistant coaches are usually more of the good cop, the buddy, they're not that coaches have to or need to be negative or anything like that. But usually in my experience, the assistant coach was there to pick you up. You know, after you got booped on in video or you've had a bad game, bad week, whatever bad day messed up a drill, assistant coach might come over, a good leader also would do the same thing. You know, pat you on the butt, like, hey, you know, come on, like you got this. You got, you know, we believe in you, you know, and whatever will do the extra work with you, whether that's video, like Jimmy McGraward, you've had on the podcast before, who was a massive help in my career, massive, massive help in my career when I was playing for Hastings. And Hastings was definitely the bad cop. And Jimmy was always a good cop and always there to do extra work with me on the ice off the ice in the video room, which no doubt changed my career. I always see like the assistant coach kind of in that role. And I've definitely had some conversations with coaches who are that type of assistant coach that are moving to the head coach and they're like, oh man, I got to go from, you know, the good time guy to the guy who's not in the room as much. You know, somebody else is going to be the good time guy in the room. Joke around the boys. I think there's some merit to that. I do because at the end of the day, as the head coach, the buck stops with you and you set the atone for responsibility and accountability at the end of the day. I think just coaching has changed in general. So there might not be as much of that authoritarian type. You know, and I think the biggest thing as a coach is you have to be yourself because I have seen a lot of great positive uplifting assistant coaches who have gone to become a head coach. And then all of a sudden, they think they need to play that role, even though they're not who they are and they've failed miserably at it. And so I see what you're saying, but also there's this other side to it where like, you still have to be yourself. You still have to hold people accountable in a way that's authentic to you. You don't have to be a hard ass to hold people accountable. It's more of like the accountability than how you're holding people. Right. Ooh, I like that. I like that. I hope coaches out there heard that. That's huge because I know so many coaches that listen, this is their goal. You start out as a scout and then you're an assistant coach and you want to move to head coaching and it's going to be a lot different, you know, the different roles, but it's obviously possible. Guys do it all the time. You have to. You remember the movie, Just Friends? Yes. Be yourself. How do you say it on this podcast? Like every other month. Of course I knew that was something. Yeah. You know what? Like, and I think I've dealt with that when I became a coach. It was like, hey, I thought I kind of had to play this role at times. This like tough guy accountability dude. And that's not in my DNA. And there's ways that you can hold people accountable outside of like the way that we're talking about it right now. I think that's really, really important. So I love that. Good question, dude. Yeah, you know, whatever. That's my life. How can I live in a model? Share the show. Share the show. [Music] [BLANK_AUDIO]
On today’s SHORT SHIFTS episode, Vechs wants to talk about the roles of a coaching staff, and the differences between head coaches, assistant coaches, and the expectations to grow and develop in each role to be successful.
TEN MINUTES ON THE CLOCK STARTING NOW!
We appreciate every listen, download, comment, rating and share on your social sites!
