Coaching Basketball: Assistant Coach Qualities -

These articles were written by Alan Stein on his Stronger Team Blog.

Assistant Coaches Code:

Your #1 job is to make your head coach’s job easier. Be a servant leader. Find what your head coach needs you to do and do it!
Act as if it is your team. You will have your own team one day. Act like it now.
Do what you can, with what you have, where you are. No excuses.
Add value to everything you do, every single day… on and off the court.
Enforce the team’s culture and standards at all times. Protect the locker room.
When you find a problem… find a solution. Your head coach has enough problems as it is.
Be professional. Period.
Encourage and motivate everyone in your program to buy in to what the head coach wants – from players, to managers to other assistants.
Bring energy, enthusiasm and effort every day.
When asked for your input, speak honestly. Don’t be a ‘yes’ man (or woman).

Don’t focus on winning (outcome); focus on preparation, effort and execution (process).
Winning is a result of:
The execution of the fundamentals
The ability of 5 players to work in unison… every possession… both ends of the floor.
A team can only reach it’s true potential if:
The most talented player is also the hardest worker
Everyone in the program buys in to the ‘We > Me’ concept
Each player is in peak physical condition
You either accept it or you correct it.
You play the way you practice.
Alan Stein

Here are the ABC’s of success:

A – Adapting, Asking

B – Believing

C – Caring, Challenging, Creating

D – Dreaming, Defusing

E – Engaging, Envisioning, Evaluating, Evolving, Educating

F – Failing, Focusing

G – Growing, Grinding

H – Helping

I – Innovating, Inspiring

J – Juking, Juggling

K – Knowing

L – Leading, Learning, Listening, Loving

M – Mentoring, Mending

N – Networking

O – Objecting, Outworking, Observing

P – Preparing, Pursuing, Pushing

Q – Questioning

R – Reaching, Reading, Resolving

S – Searching, Seeking, Serving, Sharing, Simplifying, Striving, Smiling

T – Thinking, Tweaking

U – Understanding

V – Viewing, Voicing, Valuing, Varying

W – Working

X – Xeroxing (‘copying’ – couldn’t leave X out!)

Y – Yearning

Z – Zigging and Zagging

Now you know your ABC’s… I hope you’ll do these things with me!