An Assistant Coach's Creed

"It seems like you bond with an assistant maybe more than you do a head coach. George was someone who taught me a lot about the game." - Jerry West

Through the years, or at least at this particular life stage, I've come to see myself as a more capable assistant than leader in most endeavors. A good leader needs unflagging passion at all hours to sustain the vision and the troops. An assistant can be committed at a lesser level and apply his skill to fill in the gaps.

Over the summer I've gone back and forth about the challenges involved with coaching at a school that I don't regularly attend. That outsider status that a rookie feels in the early going. The ambiguity of not knowing what type of assistant role I'll be asked to play next year. The catch-up job I'd have to do in terms of seeing the game through a coach's eyes, in a way that I never had to as a player. The thought of donating substantial amounts of time in what amounts to an experiment to see if I can make a real difference or am inconsequential.

On the whole, I have this sense that I should stick with it for a few years, that I have talent that just isn't developed yet and might take years of investment to fully evaluate. Is it worth it?

It's quotes like West's above that help to answer yes, that the journey to coaching competence can have its own rewards. I would imagine that there's a role, even for someone incompetent in coaching a game, to be an encouraging force from the bench to a young man who is underdeveloped himself. An assistant coach provides more personalized attention than a head coach could manage alone. Lessons learned as a starter or sub, of the non-basketball kind, can and do last a lifetime.

I like to think that for a Hall of Famer like Jerry West, George taught him a thing or two about life as well as the game. And that I might be able to do the same.