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My Coaching Philosophy

Bobby Maffei
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Coaching Philosophy Paper

It is extremely important for every coach to have their own philosophy of how they want

to run their team. In order to be an effective head coach, it is important for a coaching

philosophy to cover several different areas. Some of the areas that a coaching philosophy needs

to cover are authentic leadership, use of personal strengths, developing a positive team culture

and climate, being an effective manager, and how to successfully teach tactical skills.

As a head football coach, it is necessary to be an authentic leader. In order to be an

authentic leader, a coach must be himself and own himself. This is known as having self-

awareness and self-regulation. By having self-awareness, a coach knows his core values,

identity, and motives. Currently, I would say that I have good self-awareness. I truly believe

that I am a dedicated and efficient worker when it comes to football. As a coach, I would place a

high value hard work and relentless effort from my players. These two values are necessary to

be successful in any sport, but they are especially important in football. There are not a lot of

games in a high school football season, so there is no room for a lackadaisical attitude. Coming

from personal experiences, I can honestly say that the teams I have been part of are most

successful when hard work and effort are held at a premium. In addition to these personal

values, my motives are a driving force behind all of my actions. While playing football for ten

years, my biggest motive was to obviously win all the games I played in. This motive led to the

development of my values of hard work and relentless effort. In order to get my players to share

my personal values and motives, they would need to see that I am also hardworking and coach

with relentless effort while striving to win. This is an example of positive modeling. It is

impossible for a coach to hold their players accountable for being hardworking and having great
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effort if the coach himself does not have these values. In addition to practicing what he

preaches, a coach can positively model for his players through his words, actions, emotions,

motives, and being concerned for his player’s growth and development. These are all things that

show players that they are important to their coach.

While it is important for a head coach to have self-awareness, it is also important for him

to have self-regulation. One of the most important aspects of having good self-regulation is

being transparent. This means that it should be easy for the team to see the coach’s values,

emotions, and motives. Personally, I feel that I do a good job of being transparent because

people usually know exactly what I am thinking or how I am feeling. This is a good quality for

me to possess because then my future teams will know my motives and know exactly how I feel.

By being an authentic leader, I will then have authentic followership in the players on my team.

By having authentic followership, the team will have a good sense of trust, well-being, and good

performance will be sustainable and veritable.

Another aspect that is important for a coach to master are his personal strengths. By

knowing his personal strengths, a high school football coach will be able to use them in order to

build positive relationships with his players and develop desired outcomes. After taking the VIA

test, I found out that my top five character strengths are perseverance, energy, self-control, hope,

and perspective. These five strengths are all necessary to be an effective coach. Perseverance is

a strength that I can use in order to show my team how to respond to adversity. In football, it is

rare that a team will go through an entire season without facing some sort of problem. Using my

strength of perseverance, I will be able to show my players how to respond to this adversity that

they will face through out the season. Going along with perseverance, I would use my strength

of energy in various ways. Playing with a high energy level is a key part to being a successful
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football team. Normally, a team that starts out a game paying flat is bound to lose. By

displaying a high level of energy in everything that I do, I feel that I would be able to inspire my

players to come out and play with that same energy. Another strength of mine that I would be

sure to use in order to achieve my desired results is self-control. As a coach, it is important to be

able to keep his emotions in check. An impulsive coach that lets his emotions get the best of him

will not be as successful as a coach who is able to remain composed while facing adversity. Like

having energy and diligence, having self-control would hopefully be absorbed by the players on

my team.

As a coach, it will also be important for me to establish a positive and inclusive team

culture and climate. Team culture can easily be summed up as “the way we do things here.”

Culture is seen in team artifacts, values and assumptions while the team climate is the condition

of the environment surrounding the team. When I become a coach, it would be best to try and

understand the existing culture and climate of the team that I inherited, and then make any

necessary changes. One aspect of team culture and climate that I am adamant about is having

great team chemistry. In high school, I was part of a team that had great chemistry and another

team that did not have good team chemistry. While playing on the team that did not have team

chemistry, I had a lot of players that were extremely selfish. This selfishness tore apart our team

because these individuals were only interested in their own personal goals and did not care about

the success of the team. In order to create good team chemistry, I would make sure to eliminate

selfishness amongst my players. To do this, I would express to my players the importance of

teamwork and working towards accomplishing team goals, such as winning. However, if there

was an instance where selfishness was starting to overtake my team, I would make sure to

eliminate the source. Similar to the Terrell Owens situations with the Philadelphia Eagles and
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Dallas Cowboys, I would even go to extreme measures and remove the problem players. In

order to do this, however, I would make sure the players on my team realize that this is the same

for every player on the team, regardless of talent level. Clearly, I feel that creating good team

chemistry is extremely important to creating a positive team climate and culture.

I will need to fulfill many different types of managers as a head coach in high school

football. I personally feel that the most important managerial roles that I will need to fulfill are

that of policy, and personnel. As the policy manager, I would be responsible for creating and

enforcing the team rules. Some of the rules that I would need to enforce can include rules

created by the school system or specific football team rules. For the football specific rules, the

coaching staff and myself would be the only creators of the rules. I feel that as the face of a

football program, I need to come up with the rules that govern it and the consequences for

breaking the rules. In addition to this, I would enforce the rules equally regardless of the

player’s talent level. I feel that it is very important in high school sports that a coach is

consistent in the way he treats his players. Unlike some coaches, I feel that playing favorites

actually hurts the way a team performs and cause a rift amongst the players. In addition to being

a policy manager, I feel that it is also important to be an efficient personnel manager. In the

preseason, I would need to make sure that I have a sufficient number of coaches for the amount

of players on my team. Other preseason responsibilities that a coach would have as a personnel

manager are holding tryouts, selecting captains, and determining a preseason depth chart.

During the season, the head coach would need to hold meetings with his players and other

coaches. This is important so that everyone on the team is on the same page. Also, the head

coach would be responsible for scouting opponents and evaluating his team’s performance in

practice and in games. After the season as a personnel manager, I would need to give out season
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awards, have a final team evaluation, start filling any needs for my staff and requesting 360-

degree feedback from everyone involved in the program. Clearly, being a personnel manager

and policy manager would be two important jobs that I will have once I become a head football

coach at a high school.

One final area that will be important for me as a head coach in high school football would

be effectively teaching tactical skills. After taking this class, I feel that the games approach to

coaching would be the most efficient way to get my players ready to play in games. There are

three different ways to use the games approach of teaching the tactical skills of a sport. The

method that I will most often use with my players is the shaping method. In the shaping method

of coaching, I can modify the rule of football in order to enhance the environment, alter the

number of players to achieve learning, or altering the size of the football field. One way that I

will effectively coach my future players is by using read drills like I demonstrated in class. In

class, my group limited the number of players involved to effectively teach the zone read play.

In this drill, only four players are involved at a time. The players involved are a center,

quarterback, running back, and backside the defensive end. In the zone read concept, the

quarterback reads the defensive end in order to determine whether to hand the ball off or to keep

it. If the defensive end runs up field, then the quarterback would hand the ball off to the running

back, and if the defensive end goes down the offensive line, then the quarterback would keep the

ball. Since there are a limited number of players on the field during this drill, the quarterback

has an easier time getting used to reading the technique of the defensive end. This is an effective

way to coach this play because it will help the quarterback come accustomed to the play by the

time he needs to run it with all 22 players on the field. This type of read drill can also be used

with passing plays. In this case, there would be a quarterback, two receivers, and a defensive
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movement key. The movement key is the player that the quarterback makes his decision off of.

In this drill, the movement key would choose to play one of the receivers’ routes. After

completing his drop, the quarterback would then make his throw based off of the decision of the

movement key. Like the zone read drill, this is intended to make the decision making process

easier for the quarterback once all 22 players are on the field. Clearly, I would make sure to be

an effective teacher of the tactical skills of football once I become a head coach at the high

school level.

After completing this class, I have been enlightened on the many different aspects of

being a head coach at the high school level. The values that I would make sure carry over to my

players are hard work and playing with relentless effort. I feel that these two values are essential

to being successful in all sports. In addition to this, it is also for me to use my personal strengths

in order to create positive relationships with the players on my team and to achieve my desired

results. Also, it is extremely important for me to create a positive team climate and culture. I

will do this by making sure that there are no selfish players or cancers on my team that would

prevent good team chemistry. Finally, it will be important for me to teach the tactical skills of

football to my players. The most effective way for me to do this would be using the game

approach of coaching.