GREAT COACHES ARE MADE, NOT BORN

I recently had a very interesting conversation with a former coach of mine about who makes a great coach.

The gentleman in question was of the opinion that the best coaches in any particular sport are those that played the game at the highest level, where they naturally played under top coaches.
He argued that it is better to be taught or coached by someone that was a master in a certain sport.

Granted, having a master can be a huge advantage for any team, but I was forced to disagree with him simply because some of the best coaches in the world were pretty average performers during their heyday.

Here’s a look at three coaches in different codes to validate my point:

Boxing trainer Freddie Roach, who counts eight-division champion Manny Pacquiao among his protégés, never won a world title during his fighting days but has seen a number of his fighters become world conquerors.

American Basketball coach Phil Jackson, who holds the record for the most National Basketball Association (NBA) titles as a coach (11 shared between Chicago Bulls and LA Lakers), was mostly used as a substitute during his playing days with the New York Knicks in the early 1970s.

However, he is now widely considered one of the greatest coaches in the history of the NBA, despite what some termed ‘limited offensive ability’ when he was active.

The third person on my list is Brazilian football coach Luiz Felipe Scolari, who led his country to the 2002 World Cup. In addition, Scolari has won numerous trophies in his native Brazil but during his heyday he was known as “perna-de-pau” (wooden leg), a Brazilian-Portuguese term for a bad player. In fact, Scolari never even represented his country at international level.

The above thus proves that being a great player is not a prerequisite for being a great coach.

Instead, I found that these gentle men have a passion for excellence combined with an extraordinary eye for detail for their different sports which has set them apart from their peers.

These qualities are what people should look for in coaches, instead of simply looking at their achievements as athletes during their heyday.

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