February12, 2008
An Inauguration Event
Coaching 101: time, effort, passion are absolute musts
From left: Barry Goldberg, Steve Jennings, Jeff Jones, and Melissa McFerrin (Photo by Jeff Watts)
“Off-season” may be one of the more misleading terms in the world of college coaching. As if there is one.
Four successful AU coaches opened a window into their demanding and rewarding profession Thursday during a seminar entitled “Coaching 101,” an inauguration week event.
“It’s kind of nutty to have a job like this,” said volleyball coach Barry Goldberg, the dean of AU coaches. “It’s an incredible gift to be able to do this as a profession.”
By the time fans get a glimpse of their favorite team on game day, coaches have poured hours, days, weeks, and even years of preparation into their programs. The result is not always victory, but they constantly strive to ensure that lack of preparation is never to blame.
“Every practice that we have tries to lead us to winning before we even step out onto the field,” field hockey coach Steve Jennings said.
A three-time Patriot League Coach of the Year, Jennings demonstrated how he—and his fellow Eagles coaches—use computer software to both break down other teams and evaluate their own.
“If you understand how your opponent thinks you can use that against them because you know how they will act and more important, react, once you impose your will on them,” he said.
It’s a philosophy that has clearly worked. Jennings has led the Eagles to five straight Patriot League titles.
Navigating the program with the efficiency of a computer engineer, Jennings uses a database to track the pattern of every play and player on his team. He can manipulate footage of other teams as well as his own in myriad ways, even downloading clips to students’ video iPods.
In the week leading up to a game, players on Melissa McFerrin’s women’s basketball team consume information on their opponents in several different ways. Seven days before tip-off, assistant coaches begin to prepare the scouting report, which is passed out to the players in paper form. But McFerrin also reinforces it verbally and through video.
“We try to deal with all the different ways that kids learn,” she said. “Written word, video, walking through it on the floor.”
In practice, the team works on its zone and man-to-man sets, as well as specific situations that may arise in the game.
“We always as coaches tell ourselves, ‘If we haven’t done it in practice, we can’t expect that our players will be successful at it during a game,’” McFerrin said.
Regardless of how meticulously prepared a team is heading into a game, the result usually is dictated by the talent level of the players competing. That’s why men’s basketball coach Jeff Jones believes recruiting is the single biggest determining factor for success in his sport.
“We can do a lot of things as coaches, but the bottom line is we’re only as good as our student-athletes,” he said.
In big time men’s college basketball, recruiting is an arduous process that can seem as if it never ends. In June, the height of the recruiting season, AU has 150 to 250 athletes on its radar. As a tightly regulated chain of events that includes official and nonofficial visits, mailings, phone calls, and e-mails unfolds, Jones said he likes to have three or four players who are interested in AU for each scholarship he has available.
“It is about getting an advantage within the rules,” he said. “It’s about finding out how the decision’s going to be made. The coach, the mom, the dad. You’ve got to know the background information.”
Hours of film study, late into the night; days spent on the recruiting trail, far from home and family; running disciplined and thorough practices. It’s all done with an eye toward gaining an advantage, no matter how razor thin, that could turn defeat into victory. It’s done in the pursuit of excellence.
