15 Questions for Reflection

One of my colleges who I interact with quite frequently on social media, Jacob Rodriguez sent me 15 interview questions for his Principles of Coaching Class at Defiance College. Anytime you are interviewed, it is an absolute honor. More than that, it is a great opportunity to reflect on what you really believe when you must articulate those thoughts by answering meaningful questions. Jacob did a great job with the interview and although my answers were more direct (I am making an effort not to ramble) they hopefully will provide some insight. Follow Jacob on Twitter @Rodzilla52

Interview with Mark Watts

1. What does it mean to coach in your own words?

As Nick Saban has said, Coaching is Teaching and Teaching is just motivating people to learn. A coach must be transformational in nature as opposed to transactional when working with athletes. In my opinion, coaching is one of the most important jobs in this country. A coach has to have the ability to hold young people accountable to standards they could not set for themselves.

2. What is your philosophy for coaching, what is important and what should young coaches focus on as a first time coach?

My personal philosophy on coaching is probably irrelevant in the grand scheme of things, but overall, it comes down to a few major points. Selflessly give all of your passion and energy to your athletes. Selflessly give all of your knowledge, experiences, and mistakes to your colleagues. As far as first time coaches, I will say this: Make sure you really want to become a strength & conditioning coach. And the only way to know that for sure is to volunteer and grind it out. A lot of coaches get into the profession for the wrong reasons and by the time they figure it out, they’ve wasted years working for peanuts in a job they will never make a career. People get disappointed when reality doesn’t meet expectations.

3. What was your first coaching job and what was that experience like?

I was a student assistant football and assistant strength & conditioning coach at Clarion University of PA. I was able to coach in both areas I loved and didn’t have to choose a career path toward either. I was given a tremendous amount of responsibility as a young coach. I was promoted to a Graduate assistant, got my first master’s degree, and coaches three seasons at Clarion. When there was a full-time opening, I was passed up several times and didn’t understand why. I was even called to come back and clinic the new D-line coaches on 3 separate occasions. What I finally realized was that not being hired at my alma-mater was the best thing that could happen to me. All I ever new as a player, student coach and graduate assistant was how things were done at one school and one staff. I would have never of grown as a coach unless I got out of my comfort zone.

4. Who inspired you to coach and why do you coach? Is it for the money or the fame? Do you feel like it needs to be about yourself and self-praise or the institution you represent and the athletes you coach?

Anyone who gets into coaching for the money or the fame is naïve and misguided. The Strength & Conditioning profession is one of the hardest fields to get into and an even harder profession to make a career out of. Strength & Conditioning may be one of the only professions you need a Master’s degree to qualify for an unpaid internship. Young coaches go from volunteer job to volunteer job just to get more experience. Strength Coaches are severely underpaid and the ones that are paid well are either an anomaly or have almost no job security. Coaching is a truly selfless profession in which you should never be, or want to be, in the spotlight. References:

https://www.elitefts.com/coaching-logs/what-is-really-wrong-with-strength-and-conditioning/

5. From that first coaching job to your latest coaching job, how has your coaching philosophy/style changed?

When I first started coaching, I thought I knew everything. The longer I coached, the more I realized how much I still had to learn. The combination of gaining more evaluated experience from high quality mentors along with some much needed humility has been the biggest difference. It has been said that the only difference between someone 5 years from now is the people they’ve met and the books they’ve read. In my 15 years of coaching I was lucky to have learned so much about training, athletes, and myself.

6. How much of the old techniques of coaching should be used, like instilling principles from John Wooden or Bo Schembechler be used with the new age of coaching? (Hard, tough love compared to more easy going, open minded coaching)

I honestly feel that coaching is coaching regardless of generation. The best coaches understand how to connect with the athletes they coach. It would be hard for me to believe that the great coaches of the past wouldn’t adapt to the athletes of today. There is no doubt athletes are different today (mostly due to their environments) but the fundamentals of coaching and high quality character attributes will always matter in every generation. Reference:

https://www.elitefts.com/coaching-logs/3-reasons-athletes-are-different-today/

7. How much does experience play into coaching? Is there a balance with experience and knowledge of coaching that goes into it?

The biggest misconception in coaching is that all experience is the same. I do believe that practical and applied experience trumps background knowledge anyway. But, as John Maxwell has stated, it is evaluated experience that truly allows coaches to grow professionally. For the majority of my career, I had no assistants to bounce any idea off of. Only when I was an assistant myself, or when we solidified our internship program is when I really had an idea of when I was doing right and wrong.

8. What are the top 3 characteristics a coach should represent on the field?

Loyalty – Always remember who gave you the opportunity. Humility – Always strive to be better and let your athlete’s actions be your advocate. Integrity – Always do what you say and say what you do. References:

https://www.elitefts.com/coaching-logs/102127/

9. What are the top 3 characteristics a coach should represent off the field?

I am not 100% sure that those characteristics should be any different than on the field. For me, it is always faith, family, vocation. My relationships with God, my wife, my daughters, and then my colleagues, students, and athletes require me to be courageous enough to be myself. Without that, I can’t expect to make a meaningful impact with athletes. Reference:

https://www.elitefts.com/coaching-logs/3-lessons-i-learned-from-interns/ 10. What are bad qualities in coaches that should be minimized by young coaches? Most of these qualities stem from a few things that can all be fixed. The first cause of some of these bad qualities is lack of a competent and passionate mentor. I have been extremely lucky to have some of the best role models in this industry to help guide my experiences. Secondly, they don’t have their ego in check. What I have found in the fitness industry is there are very large egos with very small self-esteem. As you and I know, this has to be the opposite for coaches. Your ego is not your amigo. The third questionable quality would be lack commitment. You have to know for sure if you want to be a coach and if you decide that you do, you must jump in with both feet and commit to the day-to-day grind (without posting about it). 11. Do your own beliefs or professional philosophy play a role into your coaching philosophy? How so or why not? Absolutely. One thing that athletes will always see in you no matter how much you try to hide it is whether you are being yourself or not. As a coach, you cannot live by different values at home versus at work and seem genuine. Your values (better yet virtues) need to align with your passion and mission of mentoring young people. 12. What do you think is missed by coaches who are new to the field? Young coaches often get sucked into trying to make it big-time in the profession by cutting corners. They get Destination disease and often fail to improve by looking at the next job instead of doing the best job you can where you are. Be big-time where you’re at. Young coaches often feel they can arrive to coaching stardom (there is no such thing) by using their camera and their keyboards instead of working under the radar on the floor. As Mike Boyle has said when answering how to make it big time, “Work your ass off for 20 years, then start writing.” There are no short cuts. Reference:

https://www.elitefts.com/coaching-logs/5-mistakes-i-made-as-a-strength-coach/ 13. What is your reaction to a coach who explodes on an athlete in front of everyone? As a younger coach, I did this quite a bit and it wasn’t very effective. One thing I learned from Jack Hatem was knowing whether “you are coaching for them or coaching for you.” Now, it takes me about 30 seconds of observing a coach to tell whether he is coaching so people notice him/her or if they really are trying to make a difference in the athlete’s performance. Again, transactional versus transformational. I think overall, it will come down to whether the coach can make a meaningful impact on that young person. Sometimes, some kids need a well-timed, well-meaning blow-up. 14. In coaching, do you feel it changes how you approach the athletes based on age and skill level or do should the approach be the same regardless if the skill of an athlete is above the age group? One of the most important jobs as a strength coach is to adapt your preparation, instruction, and assessment by using a needs analysis. 1.) What are the requirements for the sport, position, etc. and 2.) What are the characteristics of the athlete (prior injury, training age, chronological age, etc.) Fundamentally speaking, your coaching philosophy is the same. The methodologies and communication will vary based on the population. As Alwyn Cosgrove has said, “Methods are many. Principles are few. Methods often change. Principles never do.” 15. Finally, do you think coaching should be a job driven or passion driven? Balance? The problem with coaching being job driven is there aren’t many coaching jobs out there. It emphatically has to be passion driven. As Dave Tate says, “Passion Trumps Everything.” What complicates things even further is that coaching is a processed-based job in an outcome-based profession. In strength and conditioning, there are way more strength coaches than there are strength coaching jobs. People that coach for the money either don’t coach for long or lose a lot more for that money. That’s the job. Follow Jacob on Twitter @Rodzilla52  

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