Getting Started


Becoming a strength and conditioning coach can be a difficult undertaking for most aspiring coaches. In this profession, you cannot simply graduate from college, send out a few resumes, and wait for a response. That just doesn’t cut it in the coaching industry.

In getting my career started, I’ve learned a few things that may be of value to those interested in coaching. Hopefully, the first part of this article will shed some light on how an aspiring coach can fulfill his/her goals to get their career started. In part two, I will discuss some practical applications that don’t get discussed very often in working with inexperienced athletes.

Passion

First off, you have to have a passion for strength training. If you don’t, then find another career path! Being a strength coach should never be a job in which you simply go to work, do your job, and then return home at the end of the day. When you go home at the end of the day, you should be reading or doing research to find ways to make your program better. It is your job to help athletes develop their capabilities, and this entails much more than telling them to go squat.

Passion is not something that is quantifiable. It may also be something that each individual defines differently. Tim Kontos asked me the other day to define what it means to be passionate. To be honest, I was stumped for a few minutes. The definition that I finally gave was that having passion as a strength coach involves genuinely caring about the profession and the athletes that you work with and having a strong desire to do whatever is necessary to make your athletes and yourself better. Tim’s description was that it is something you are so devoted to that you think about it 24/7. He also mentioned that there are times he loses sleep over not being able to get an athlete stronger or over a certain plateau.

I don’t think there is much to be said about passion. You either have it or you don’t. And you can’t just say you have it. You actually have to have it. If you don’t, it will be obvious to those that do, and they are the people you want to be working for or learning from.

Another thing that I think must be said about this topic and that I have often wondered about is how can you have passion for something that you do not participate in? To my knowledge, there are many strength coaches who do not lift on a regular basis, and some do not lift at all. If you’re a strength coach, you should at least have the guts to get out of the office, away from the keyboard, and lift some weight. How seriously will an athlete who doesn’t like to lift take a strength coach who never lifts? I’m not saying every coach has to compete in a strength sport. Let’s face it—some just do not have that much time. But they do need to be willing to get under some weights and lift.

Experience

You have to get experience any way you can. You will be amazed at how much you will learn when you get away from the classroom and start coaching. The books are great, but they just can’t teach you everything. When I first began coaching, I already knew how to perform decent techniques for most exercises. However, as I quickly discovered, knowing how to do something and knowing how to teach an athlete how to do something, although related, are really two different things.

There are many different avenues in which to gain experience in strength training, but if you have a desire to work with athletes, you may be more limited in your selection. Although personal training may be a valuable experience, it is still much different than working with athletes. The research setting, which is common in many universities, will also provide you with valuable knowledge and experience. However, it is still much different than what you will encounter in an athletic setting. Below, I have listed the route I have taken that has brought me to where I am now.

One day shadowing Rick Perry at Southwest Missouri State University
Three semesters, Strength Center staff at University of Wisconsin-La Crosse
One semester, internship at Arizona State University under Rich Wenner
Two years, volunteer strength coach at Winona State University under Jeff Reinardy
One year, graduate assistant strength coach at Virginia Commonwealth University under Tim Kontos
Current, part-time strength coach at Virginia Commonwealth University
Looking back, I don’t feel that I gained enough experience before graduating college. If I could do it over again, I would have tried to find more ways to get experience while still an undergrad. Working in high schools or other colleges would have been a tremendous experience, and I would have had more experience to draw from when I performed my internship at ASU.

An important note about getting experience is that you will probably have to do it for free. That’s right—you most likely will not get paid. In our profession, getting a paid position early on is difficult to say the least. If you can find a position that pays then by all means take it. However, most likely you will need to work for free. I did not get paid for my internship at ASU or for my two years at Winona State. During my GA position at VCU, I received tuition only. But those facts are noted when you are being looked at for a potential position. This may mean that you have some rough times ahead of you, financially, while getting started. I know this from experience. If you love coaching though, it will be worth it.

One thing to keep in mind when trying to gain experience is to find positions that will help you build your own philosophy regarding the training of athletes. This was Joe Kenn’s advice to me when I began looking for a GA position. Although you can always learn something from any position, it is better to find a position that will allow you to develop yourself as a coach.

For example, in the two years I spent as a volunteer at Winona State, I learned many things. However, I may have been able to learn much more in a program that was run by like-minded individuals. Winona State is highly Olympic-based while my philosophies tend to be more, although not solely, powerlifting oriented. Therefore, much of what I saw at Winona State did not help me grow as a coach because it followed different philosophies.

On the contrary, coming to VCU has allowed me to build upon the training philosophies that I already had. Tim Kontos, and, at the time, Jim Roney, both have philosophies similar to mine. Watching them implement their programs allowed me to further develop my own beliefs. By seeing how they did things, I was able to take what I felt was useful and adapt it to what I was doing.

Remember, getting experience is not a resume builder—it is a coach builder.

Get to know other coaches

This is the area in which I have fallen short. Although I understand why, I still feel it is very unfortunate that many coaches are hired not based on their qualifications but on whom they know. If you know the right people, it doesn’t matter how smart or dumb you may be or how good or bad of a coach you are. You will still beat out other coaches who may be more qualified than you just because of who you know. However, with that said, your contacts will be more willing to recommend you for a job if you have proven yourself to them in the past.

Although the people you work for may be your best references, do not limit yourself to that small of a selection. It is imperative to build a broad network that you can draw from as your career progresses. Go to conferences and clinics and talk to the coaches there. Talk to the sport coaches that you have met along the way. Go visit the strength coaches who you would like to get to know. And most importantly pick up the phone! Many coaches are more than willing to discuss what they do and what has been successful for them. It is just a matter of asking them. By getting to know other coaches and sport coaches in the industry, not only will your probability of getting a job improve, but your knowledge will also improve.

You will not be hired based on what you know. When you are in an interview or sending in a resume, your knowledge is not being examined. Your references and experience are.

Communication

Everyone talks about how important communication is, but I have met very few people who really communicate well. And just because I’m writing this doesn’t mean I’m one of those few. There are many different aspects of communication, but below are four that I feel are very important.

1. X’s and O’s. This is the communication that most people refer to. This entails determining who needs to do what, when it should be done, and where it will be done. Basically all of the programmatic elements of any program fall into this category.

2. Why you do what you do. Coaches have to be able to communicate why they do what they do. This is vital to gaining credibility with other strength coaches and sport coaches. If you leave other coaches scratching their heads after they talk to you, they may assume that you do not know what you are talking about or that you have not thought out your program very well.

3. Body language. Another communication factor that must be considered is body language. Athletes are reading your body language every time they see you. And, believe it or not, this will affect how they go about their workout and how much they trust you as a coach. Learn to coach in an enthusiastic and approachable manner, and you will begin to notice a difference in their workouts.

4. Different people, different communication styles. You have to be able to communicate with different types of people. Each athlete or coach that you work with will communicate in a different manner. For the most part, you can probably get by using the same communication style with the majority of your athletes. However, some of those people will communicate in an entirely different manner. For those people, you have to adapt your communication style to fit their style.

Develop your resume

I had the opportunity this past year to help Tim (the head strength coach at VCU) go through resumes to find a new GA. You would be amazed at how many resumes barely got glanced at simply due to how poorly organized they were. Everything on a resume should be laid out in a neat, orderly, and professional manner that is easy to read. Many positions will receive upwards of fifty resumes for each position they post. They do not have the time to hunt and pick through each resume. If the resume that they are looking at is too cluttered, they will simply move on to the next one.

A few examples of the things I saw that you should not include in your resume are listed below (yes, all of these examples are things I saw on actual resumes).

Cover letters addressed to Mr. instead of Coach (coaches take pride in being a coach so acknowledge them for who they are)
Pictures of the applicant in the header of the resume (especially if it looks like you’ve never touched a weight in your life)
A cover letter addressed to our school, but in the body of the letter, the applicant said he had a desire to work at a different university
A resume divided into four columns all on one page with no lines to separate the columns (this resume was actually four pages shrunk down to fit onto one page; very confusing to the reader; it took me about 15–20 minutes to figure it out)
Lists of all the awards won since the beginning of high school
If you need help creating your resume, most colleges offer resume services and/or classes. It’s only an hour out of your day for a potential intern, GA, or actual position so take advantage of it! And before sending your resume out, proofread it!!! Don’t be that person who sends out a resume to school A with school B’s name on it.

Hopefully, this article will give coaches who are trying to get started an idea of how to get themselves in the market. This is not a career that allows you to send a resume and wait for a phone call. You have to take avenues that will make you more marketable in the profession. The most important of these is to be passionate about coaching and get to know other coaches. Although these two factors are not always the determining factor of whether or not you will be hired, they do make a significant difference in getting you to the interview process.

David Adamson is an assistant strength and conditioning coach at the Virginia Commonwealth University. He is pursuing a master’s degree in sport leadership. In the spring of 2003, David held an internship as a strength coach at Arizona State University. He has worked with a variety of sports including football, basketball, wrestling, baseball, gymnastics, soccer, and tennis. At VCU, he works with women’s track and field, men’s and women’s tennis, men’s and women’s cross country, and golf.