In the professional ranks I think it is more times than not an ex-utility or back up who makes the best HC. How about HS football? (Lombardi, Cowart, Harbaugh etc)

 

I am familiar with NKY. So what kind of player was Coach Mueller from Highlands? How about Coach Rash from Beechwood?

It's my experience that Linemen are not only the best coaches, many times they are the only coaches. This goes for Kentucky High school, college, and the NFL.

It's my experience that Linemen are not only the best coaches, many times they are the only coaches. This goes for Kentucky High school, college, and the NFL.

Yegal wasn 't a lineman and one of the best if not the best NKY has ever had.

Yegal wasn 't a lineman and one of the best if not the best NKY has ever had.

Does that make my statement wrong?

Does that make my statement wrong?

Well...kinda.

To me there is no blueprint for a successful coach. A good coach is demanding, yet fair. A good role model for their players. A hard worker. If you're looking for a HC, people skills are a plus. I would guess that guys who weren't always the most talented yet still became good players would probably make the best coaches, but at the end of the day I don't think there is a way to predict.

Each walk of life a coach has gone through has different pluses and minuses too.

The problem with some ex-stars is things came natural to them so they sometimes have a hard time teaching it. The other issue is sometimes they were stars because they were just that physically better.

 

Utility players often had to get by with technique or understanding the game more. Sometimes they end up as better teachers.

 

Now I think Ram over simplified things a little bit about the OL and OL coaches but I understand where he is coming from. The further you get away from the ball the coaching on the HS level typically goes down. If you've never coached the OL then it's hard to understand how tough that area is to coach. The first thing any HC should do when he gets a job is find the best OL coach he can. WR and RB might be the two worse coached spots on a nightly basis. You know you have a good WR coach when those guys are blocking their butts off.

Can't believe I'm say this but, last year, I thought Highlands WR's were the best coached group I seen last year.

Highlands WR I think are very well coached. Great programs have great position coaches.

Someone asked what kind of football player was Coach Rash from Beechwood. He was a good high school player. However, when he played at Thomas More he was a great defensive machine and I can vouch for that. There were several of us who went and watched Coach Rash play when he was at Thomas More and they played home games at Dixie Heights. He had the heart of a lion and would flat out put a hurt on you. JD

Edited June 7, 201313 yr by Ram

Good players make coaches into good coaches. At least from public perspective. Plenty of good coaches at all levels with losing records and I'm sure there are below average coaches with winning records.

Good players make coaches into good coaches. At least from public perspective. Plenty of good coaches at all levels with losing records and I'm sure there are below average coaches with winning records.

 

Linemen are usually more disciplined (in my experience)... Which would translate into a good coach.

I think one of the reasons you see very few "stars" coaching, is as a "star" player you get used to a certain status. Almost all coaches start at the bottom of the ladder..and I think that's really difficult for the guys that are used to being at the top. What star QB wants to be a low level, college or high school position coach for little to no money?? I think lineman are the exception, because they are fairly anonymous anyway. The stars tend to get more opportunities outside of the game that are fairly lucrative as well. Now I think this primarily is one of the reasons you don't see the greats of the game being head coaches at the college/professional level.

 

Coaching is a pretty thankless job......part motivator/teacher/psychologist. And it's one of the few jobs where everyone thinks they can do your job better than you.