Apprenticing as an assistant coach (AC) on a head coach’s (HC) staff has been noted as a prevalent and influential (Nash & Sproule, 2009) mode of coach development whereby mentoring occurs (Cushion, 2006) intentionally or not. To date, limited studies have explored what this apprenticeship means for ACs in terms of their future success as HCs. One source that can deepen our understanding is coaches’ social networks or ‘coaching trees’ which trace a lineage whereby one might assume coaches’ professional learning takes place (Fast & Jensen, 2006). The purpose of this study was to analyze professional football coaches’ coaching trees.
Method:
Employment histories were collected for HCs in the National Football League (NFL) during the 2009-11 seasons and the NFL HCs under whom they served as ACs prior to their first NFL HC position (N=213). Then each participant’s win-loss records, championships won, and Hall of Fame honors were obtained. As the health of a tree can be expressed qualitatively by describing symptoms or damage, or quantitatively through assessments of crown condition, so can coaching trees. Thus data were analyzed inductively using both Huberman and Miles' (1994) framework and descriptive statistics.
Analysis/Results:
Analysis of the data revealed three themes: (a) “The Fewer Roots, the Better,” coaches with two or fewer apprenticeships were more successful than their peers who served more than two apprenticeships, (b) “Roots with a Robust Constitution Are Most Bountiful,” the most successful coaches bore the most apprentices in the network, (c) “Robust Roots Are Most Dependable,” the most successful coaches begat successful apprentices.
Conclusions:
The findings suggest salient points regarding the AC apprenticeship: (a) a limited number of apprenticeships appear to be the best way to achieve success as a HC, and (b) those AC apprenticeships are best served under a successful HC. Those coaches with three or more apprenticeships had less successful records as a HC. The findings support Fast and Jensen’s (2006) assertion that studying coaching trees can be a powerful means of understanding the nature of mentoring in apprenticeships. However, while it seems intuitive that successful coaches would have apprenticed under good mentors we do not know if this pattern is congenital or is due to the mentoring relationship processes therein. Until we are able to study the mentoring processes that occur during an AC apprenticeship we are unable to fully understand the value of the apprenticeship in a coach’s career development (Bloom, 2013).