Of Politics & Idiocy, Part 2
Strength & Conditioning at the Collegiate Level
By
The Anonymous Strength Coach
This is part two of a two-part series.
If you don’t know how to play the political game in collegiate strength and
conditioning, you will have a very stressful, frustrating, and potentially short
career as a strength coach. There are five groups of people in athletics that a
strength coach has to work with—other strength coaches, athletes, sport coaches,
administrators, and athletic trainers. If you’re looking to further your career,
you had better know how to approach each one of these groups.
Strength coaches
Let’s start with the strength coaches. This is arguably, along with the
athletes, the easiest group to work with. For the most part, any problems that
develop among a staff of strength coaches are from a lack of communication.
These problems are easily fixed. For the most part, politics are not a real
issue here, except for an assistant/graduate assistant who may be making some
concessions in program design to please the head strength coach. This can be a
learning opportunity for the assistant if he keeps his mind open.
Athletes
Next are the athletes, and like the strength coaches, this could be one of
the easiest groups to work with. This is where you get to coach and help
athletes. Yes, there are athletes who will push the limits of what they can get
away with, but for the most part, athletes want to get better. You may just have
to push them a little.
Where this group will get difficult is when you have to treat the athletes in
a manner that the sport coaches want. Some coaches want their athletes
disciplined to the extreme, some want them babied, and some want them pushed to
their physical limits. And there is always someone watching whether you think
they are or not. So don’t try to treat the athletes in a manner that is not
approved by their head sport coach.
Sport coaches
Sport coaches tend to be very sensitive and don’t like people who disagree
with them. They also don’t like to change. So if they did something thirty years
ago when they were playing, then that is how it has to be now. It doesn’t matter
that we now know that what they were doing back then is actually
counterproductive. It only matters what they like.
The strength coach’s job is to find a way to get done what needs to get done
while also keeping the sport coach happy. If you don’t do what they want, they
will throw a fit. So you will have to compromise your own philosophies. Over
time, if you get results, you should get to do more of what should be done and
less of what the sport coach wants. However, each coach will be different, and
some may not ever acknowledge that you know what you’re doing. Others will be
more open. Some will give you a clean slate after they’ve worked with you for a
while. A few will give you a clean slate from the beginning, but this is rare.
The key here is finding out what the sport coach wants. This seems like an
obvious answer, but it isn’t. Having the athletes in good shape and able to
perform isn’t always what’s important to a sport coach.
Here are three real life examples of coaches who I’ve dealt with in the past.
Coach #1: She wants her athletes to be disciplined. It doesn’t matter how
fast or strong they are but rather that they never get out of line.
Coach #2: He wants his athletes to run. And when they are done running, run
them some more. Speed work and strength training aren’t important. These aspects
can be replaced with a distance run.
Coach #3: He wants the program to be well designed to ensure optimal results.
He likes the scientific aspect of strength and conditioning.
If you’re working with football or basketball, you have got to learn how to
play the social game as well. Many of these coaches judge your performance not
only by results but also by how much they like you. Guess what—if they don’t
like you, you aren’t getting results. If they do like you, you’re getting
results. This sounds completely absurd, but it’s the truth. Just like other
sport coaches, these coaches are very finicky. The difference is they hold your
job in the palm of their hands.
Like it or not, you’d better learn to suck up to the sport coaches if you
want to be successful. I know this isn’t right, but it’s the truth. So if the
head football coach wants you to do the 225-lb rep test at the end of every
upper body workout, you might want to think about doing it even if it’s not a
very smart thing to do.
Administrators
Administrators are a good group to make friends with. Like football and
basketball coaches, this group can determine the future of your career. Even
though most of the time you don’t work directly with them, they do talk to the
sport coaches on a regular basis. If the sport coaches like you, chances are the
administrators will at least know who you are. Of course, an occasional chat at
a game or around the athletic department will be in your favor when it comes to
getting recommendations.
Athletic trainers
In my experience, athletic trainers aren’t too hard to work with if you’re
willing to go with the flow. I’ve worked with trainers who like to do all the
rehabilitation themselves and then send the athlete to the strength coach when
he is completely healthy. Other trainers progress the athlete to a certain point
and then let the strength coach continue rehabilitation more aggressively. For
the most part, I don’t see that this is a big deal. And from my point of view, I
would rather keep the athletes away from the training room and in the weight
room. So I don’t mind finishing up someone’s rehabilitation. A strength coach
should be knowledgeable enough to do this without any problems.
Athletic trainers suffer a lot of the same stresses coming from the sport
coaches as strength coaches suffer. So these two groups tend to relate very well
and can be a good source to vent about subjects that can’t be discussed with
others or that others may not understand.
Well, there you have it. Being a strength coach entails much more than just
your job. It consists of dealing with the idiots in your own profession and
playing the political/social card with the other groups that you’re working
with. You’re all on the same team, but it doesn’t always seem that way.
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