Monday, August 18, 2008

The importance of keeping a staff together

Last month, a friend in Phoenix emailed me a story from his local paper about Cardinals coach Ken Whisenhunt's commitment to maintaining his staff and how a coaching staff's turnover sets a team back.

"Former NFL coach Marv Levy said a few years ago that changing coaches was so traumatic that it meant almost becoming an expansion team. Philosophies change. Rosters turn over. Players are a little lost, like the kid in high school who was never on the right page."

According to Coach Whisenhunt:

“We felt like we made progress last season and if you have a change in your staff you’re going to lose some of that, because you’re trying to catch the new coaches up to speed. Now as a group, we know the corrections we made last year and the process we went through last year. It’s invaluable. You build a level of trust with your team. It makes things smooth, instead of arguments and disagreements.

Coaches who are passionate are always going to have opinions, and sometimes you are going to butt heads, but the ability to be able to do that and come to a resolution as to what the best thing to do and move forward is the product of a coaching staff that has good chemistry.”