Mark Lebedew has a post on his blog talking about questions which get asked in the process of hiring a coach. Or at least management should ask them. Those questions are as follows.
1. Where is the game now, and where is it going?
2. How will your teams play?
3. What is the balance between being competitive now and being competitive in the future?
4. How will you lead?
Notice how all the questions on this list are philosophy ones? Also, they’re pretty forward-looking. They are well worth being ones you can answer without much hesitation if you’re coaching. Granted, there is necessarily some influence in how you respond which derives from the coaching role you are in, or the one you are pursuing. Priorities tend to come down from above for most of us. As a coaching job candidate, though, you should have enough familiarity with the team/club/school you are interviewing at that you can account for those priorities.
I’ll be honest. Coaching philosophy isn’t something that came up much when I was talking about prospective coaching jobs in the past. Mostly it was about knowing if I was qualified and was going to abide by the rules. Read the sorts of volleyball job postings you see at places like the NCAA website and you’ll see what I mean. I’ve also listed some specific questions here, and for an assistant coach job here.
It behooves you, however, to try to get some idea of philosophy expectations from your would-be boss(es) to make sure a given position is in fact a good fit for your style of coaching. This is part of what you do when asking questions of your own.
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