Education of a Coach

My brother is a real Head Coach. He is the coach of the Brown U crew team. We enjoy discussing sports and coaching. The differences between coaching Crew and Ultimate are vast, but we discuss many aspects such as mental toughness and training. We frequently give each other sports books as gifts. This past holiday, he gave me "The Education of a Coach" by Halberstam (I enjoy reading sports books by "real" authors like this guy and John Feinstein). I am not a big Patriots fan as my contrarian nature recoils against provincialism, but I am a big fan of Bill Belichick. This book is well-written and very focused on the education that the elder Steve Belichick provided for his son. The book is as much about Steve as it is Bill, and Steve was a very interesting character. He stayed away from the limelight and glamour of a Head Coach position, and instead focused his life on what he was good at, which was scouting and breaking down film. His obsessive interest was passed on to Bill, and his success in preparing his teams has been well-documented.

As usual, I spend time trying to relate the book to my job as a coach. It is interesting how much the Belichick's strengths play pretty much solely to the defense, although this is not that surprising considering Bill's years as a D coordinator. While there are significant differences in the parameters of being a football coach vs an Ultimate coach, the book does make me ponder if there is a lack of defensive sophistication in Ultimate. Now, a defensive team in Football benefits from each plays re-set, thereby giving the D a chance to see the O's cards right before the play begins. I do think that an Ultimate team does have a similar opportunity when it is about to pull to not only see the O players (and their tendencies), but to also have a chance to make a call and change things up.

The book stresses how much time father and son spent watching film. Over and over again, looking for clues and tendencies. Steve said he begins by watching the center. That is where the direction of the play begins. Of course, I thought about the possible uses of video in terms of preparation for Ultimate. I think there might be untapped opportunities in terms of preparation for our sport.

Steve was unique in terms of his work ethic and methods. He is described as someone who saw scouting and film as and end in and of itself. Most other scouts had higher aspirations, and, apparently, you could see this as the scouts viewed their work as done on Saturday, while Steve (and young Bill) would sit and analyze each play to check on the quality of their work. Steve was also unique in that, while most scouts looked for the oppositions weaknesses, he looked for the way to take away their strengths. Bill certainly inherited and perhaps the best example is the 01 Super Bowl. Not only did the Pats drop 7-8 DB's back (thus inviting the Rams to run), they decided that Faulk, not Warner, provided the team's rhythm. The mission of the team was to knock Faulk down at every opportunity, and Bill spent the week of practicing yelling at his D "Where is he? Where is he?" as a continual reminder of their task. So, the first thing I started to think about is it just a matter of, say, for a team that likes to cut underneath to force them away. Certainly, the idea of making a team uncomfortable like this is pretty obvious, but are there deeper levels of awareness in terms of knocking a team out of its rhythm? I do feel that Ultimate players are creatures of habit and very willing to reveal their tendencies, so there are opportunities on the defensive side of things and that Ultimate is not necessarily all about the O.