J'South! Deep insight!
I don't believe anyone has to be reassigned or moved out in order to build the best program . All one has to do is sit down and talk to the adult in charge to realize how they feel about success. His words will reveal his heart. Or he will BS and that too is easily recognized. Passion to improve radiates from any individual. If they are satisfied it will be obvious. If they are hopeful for improvement, that will be expressed.
But be aware of a simple truth. Just because someone is a coach does not mean he is moving in the best direction. The traditions and structure of every program is based on their ideas of what it takes to construct a program conducive to getting better. In other words, just because someone is a soccer mom does not guarantee her kids are getting the best instruction for learning a sport and becoming good at it. That is a misconception. Competing every Saturday morning throughout the year does not automatically build top athletes. She also has to leave her couch and throw the ball back and forth with her kids. She needs to consistently join her children out in the yard and street and simply throw and catch and encourage her kids to do more than they can do at that moment. At first it is slow and pathetic. The daughter cant catch because she is afraid of a ball aimed at her head. The son cant move and catch. Their arms are weak and cant throw accurately. But perseverance will sooner than later begin to build improvement and skill. And it snowballs.
Do you want to know what many of the best programs are doing to improve their programs. In 1998 we carried our CC team to Brock for a meet. While the kids were preparing to run I walked over to one of Brock's coaches who was smoking a cigarette across the course. I wanted to know why Brock was so successful compared to everyone else. We had some of the best girls in double-A, but we still couldn't compete good enough to beat Brock. The previous season we were beaten twice by them in girls varsity basketball. Every year we dominated them in junior high and usually split with the JV games. I wanted to find out why. I had decided it must be their coaching and their program because our girls, some of them, were better individual players than their girls. When you have a Jimanne Baker and Kayla Petrie, you should be winning against anyone, including Brock and Godley and Krum.
I asked the coach what they were doing that made them so much more successful than we were. He said the little things were the difference. Things like an athletic period during the day to lift weights before the regular athletic period. Like having personal goals set up for every player to shoot for every day, including Saturdays. Like wasting zero time and focusing on every element of a typical tough game. And watching film. He said all the best teams play summer ball. That wasn't enough. You had to find time to do more than your opponents.
I was clueless. I am a visual learner, therefore it didn't connect with anything in my head. I didn't figure it out totally until 2003. Its simple but difficult to arrange. Most resistance to positive change is met by "that's not how we did it when we played". I even heard that at Follett at first. Or, "you can't do that! Its against the rules."
Go watch successful schools on the cutting-edge of the art. At RS we went to Stephenville (90 min drive) and learned how they did things. We loaded up the bus during school and spent most of the day there. Our kids were mesmerized. I will never forget Tyler, Shelby and Patrick's looks and comments while observing the Stephenville players do lifts, agilities and conditioning in one 55 minute period just before lunch. It opened our eyes and our minds. Our players were never the same afterwards. And neither were the coaches.
