Every coach in America can learn from St. Xavier’s (OH) Steve Specht

On his calling to coaching: “I think I’m one of the fortunate ones. I knew when I was younger what I wanted to do: I wanted to teach and I wanted to coach. For the most part it was the experience that I had with the coaches that coached me. That was a difference maker for me…. I studied the coaches that seemed to have a positive impact on kids, and I studied the ones that didn’t have a positive impact on kids. What I do today, it’s a combination of what I saw (that) I liked, I took a lot of great things from coaches that were positive with me, and I took away some things that I never wanted to do.”

On his philosophy in leading a high school program: “When I speak at clinics I’ll have a slide that talks about the perception of team. Everybody looks at it as a pyramid, and at the top of the pyramid you have the individual player, and the parents are watching their son. Little bit below the pyramid you have the position coaches. They love their guys, and it’s so hard when you want to take a defensive back and make him a receiver because he might play as a receiver, the defensive back coach says, ‘You can’t take him, he’s my guy.’ Little bit lower you have your coordinators, the offensive coach wants to score a lot of points, defensive coach wants the offensive coach to run the ball to shorten the game, and at the bottom you have your strength coach, your alumni and the head coach, who look at the whole team. My goal is to flip that and have everybody buying into the team concept, to have the parents not only watching their kid but the whole team. Celebrating the play and not the player.”

There is a video too at the below link.

Every coach in America can learn from St. Xavier's Steve Specht