I heard something really disappointing.
Actually, “disappointing” is probably too mild.
I was chatting with the parent of a player I did some work with in the past. We were talking about a match she was playing in that I was able to see a bit of streaming online. I made a comment about the warm-up routine they were going through. In response, said parent told me his daughter had mentioned that there was some dissent in the coaching staff. Basically, the assistant coaches weren’t in agreement with the head coach on things.
There’s one firm bit of advice I give to any new assistant coach (for example, here). This goes for whether they work with me or with any other coach. That is that the coaching staff must always present a united front. It’s fine to disagree. In fact, that can be a very good thing. You don’t do it in front of the team, though, or in a way that can get back to the players. Similar comments came up repeatedly in the Volleyball Coaching Wizards interviews.
In this particular case, apparently the assistants made their dissatisfaction known to the parents, which naturally trickled down to the team. Totally unprofessional behavior in my opinion. I didn’t have a horse in that particular race, but it still pissed me off to hear about this kind of thing happening.
And by the way, the unified front thing applies to head coaches as well. They shouldn’t throw their assistants under the bus either.
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