What Makes a Good Coach

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What Makes a Good Coach

Douglas Partridge • May 04, 2020

How do we know a good coach when we are looking at one?

The quality of a coach has long been a point of contention. What exactly marks someone as a good/great coach? In most circles, the win loss record is the main measure. This is an interesting argument. The teams of a coach that have won on a high level, are champions, they have drank from the cup, therefore the coach knows what they are doing, they are good at their job. We have this fed to us again and again, by the media, the people we know, the public, everyone clamors for winning, that is the ultimate measure. After all, "the proof is in the pudding", and in this case it is a very public bake-off, so we can see immediately whether the coach knows what they are doing. Measuring the quality of a coach is easy then: it is as simple as whether or not they are able to win. The problem with this analysis is that it is too simplistic. With the advent of advanced analytics, perhaps no statistic has taken a bigger beating then the win. In baseball, winning is seen as everything from contingent on too many factors, to just the result of luck; being in the right place at the right time. This debate has raged for over a decade, whether the win has any value in measuring the quality of a pitcher. We are at the tail end of that debate and to argue it any further seems futile. The win has lost as a measure of success. Too many outside influences and factors have to be considered. If we are so ready to accept this as fact when measuring a player, then given their connectedness, which we have already argued, we have to also accept that it has no value in measuring a coach. The coach relies on the talent of their players, the quality of their support staff, the resources available to them and sometimes, just plain old luck in order to help guide their team to victory. There are just a lot of factors outside the control of most coaches to reliably use winning as the sole measure of success. In fact, you can probably be even more definitive in stating that no coach, anywhere, at any time has ever "won" a game. Plays are made by players, execution is on the people who are in the fight, no coach has ever sunk the winning free throw, kicked the game winning field goal, or fired home the penalty shot that wins the shoot-out. It bears repeating at this juncture, "the better the talent, the better the coach." If winning is not the measure of a coaches value, then we are left to look at other factors.

Most people, if they admit that coaches are not to be judged by random victories, will often turn to style of play questions. How well does a team defend? How complex is its offensive execution or system? Is it a pleasing team to watch play? Quality coaching then is simply a measure of the quality of a team's play, after all, that is what the coach has installed. Their job is, take the talent on hand and build a system of play that will give the team a chance to be successful. In this sense, every time the team takes the field of play, we have a referendum on whether a coach knows what they are doing. Once we have watched enough games, we can, with confidence, pronounce the quality of the coach based on the team's execution, system and performance. This seems logical and the best measure of a coach. The quality of a team's system can be measured whether the team has talent or not; winning or losing are not part of whether a team plays solid systemically. While this seems like the perfect measure, it fails on at least two important considerations. First, and most importantly, there is a reason that teams that win championships in most leagues are stocked with veteran players. Veteran's have had time to figure out what matters to them. They have explored their own games, gone outside the system and made their names. They have had a taste of recognition or fame and have begun to glimpse their own mortality. Unlike young players, they know this is not forever; that father time is undefeated. They are prepared to be coached, listen and execute. In short, they understand the importance of being productive and knowing the script. With this in mind, we can see that often, execution has less to do with the quality of the coach and more to do with the type of players available. A slightly inferior coach working with veteran talent, that have a high desire to succeed and good sport IQ's, are likely to play a very good game, regardless of the inferior instruction. Similarly, a very good coach working with inexperienced talent that is still trying to establish its place in the league is likely to struggle at times with execution and quality of play. What is needed is not a better coach or firmer hand, but more experience for the players.

The best example of this is probably the career of Doc Rivers. Rivers was hired by the Boston Celtics as they embarked on a rebuild. Over several seasons, his team struggled to improve and were borderline unwatchable. Things were so bad, and the execution on such a low level, that several prominent sports journalists campaigned for him to be fired. Instead the Celtics stuck with him and then, in one off-season, landed Ray Allen and Kevin Garnett and made some smaller moves to move out younger players for veterans and marched to a championship season. Rivers is now hailed as one of the best NBA coaches of all-time. His coaching ability did not change, but the talent and preparedness of the people around him did.

The second consideration in this analysis is that often beauty is in the eye of the beholder. What one analyst considers to be cornerstones of solid play are not necessarily what every analyst believes are the key ingredients. This is a subjective measure, perhaps too subjective to be of any real value. Do you prefer a fast tempo or a slow one? A pressure defense or a conservative one? One person's trash is another's treasure, so to speak. A coach may be condemned for playing a particular style of game, or a style that ill fits their talent, but there may be a grander scheme in place. The idea may be to establish certain habits, or a certain style of play, with an eye to overhauling the available talent to better fit the system. While this may produce some ugly short term results that seem to indicate the coach is not prepared, as the roster takes full shape and the right moves are made the approach may start to make sense. People often act like the coach has had some major breakthrough, or epiphany, that has led to better results when, again, it was simply patience that built the approach. Thus, style of play can be as unreliable a measure as winning when it comes to glimpsing whether someone is a quality coach. It is certainly true that one should glimpse the elements of solid play in the team of a good coach. There should be a plan and one should be able to discern what that plan is, at least from time to time. The fact is, that like winning, there are too many variables in execution for it alone to be the judge of whether a coach is good at their job.

If we leave winning and style of play considerations behind as unreliable measures of whether a coach knows what they are doing, then how do we proceed? What elements do we look at to help us make sound judgments on the quality of the coach we are examining? Having given this much thought over the years of my involvement in sport, I have come to the conclusion that there are three common components to which you can boil down good coaching. As I have stated, my predisposition is as a minimalist, and therefore I am looking for things which are common across the board. You can create a more exhaustive list of elements, but then you will find some of these factors in various good coaches but not in others, We want those aspects that you will find in any solid coach. In that regard, coaches are responsible for establishing the culture and habits of a team. Through their teaching and modeling, they demonstrate what they expect and what they will accept. If we take a broader interpretation of success, looking not just at success on the floor, but success of their players off the floor, achievement on many levels, personal and team accountability and all the positive habits that we have come to value over time, then we can more accurately judge someone's worthiness. If a coach is successful it is likely because there are certain habits, or commitments, that they make, which will allow them to create an atmosphere where their teams can be "successful" on many levels. It is in looking for common traits among successful coaches that we can begin to see the common factors which make for a great coach. In the next three blogs we will explore these three factors one at a time.

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