Who is better:
#1 Coach/#10 Recruiter OR #10 Coach/#1 Coach
If you’re truly Top 10 in both categories, I’d say it doesn’t make much difference. But if you’re a Top 10 coach, you’re going to have an easier time recruiting.
#1 coach
“He can take his’n and beat your’n and take your’n and beat his’n.”
Personally I didn’t read this as top 10 in both categories, I read this as “on a scale of one to 10…”
I would have to say, that if you were ranked a 1 out of 10 on recruiting, but ranked a 10 out of 10 in coaching, you couldn’t win no matter how good the players were. Whereas there are probably lots of examples where a good coach managed to win games with a team that wasn’t the most talented, but played harder and with heart.
What sport are you talking about?
In football, for example, you have to weigh the coach very heavily, because he’s so intimately involved in play calling. In baseball, the manager (i.e., the guy who runs the team day-to-day) doesn’t make anywhere near as much difference. Sure, he is in charge of the strategy, but in-game strategy is much less important in baseball than in football, even in the National League where managers have to deal with getting pitchers in and out of the batting line-up. In baseball, the front-office guys (especially the General Manager) who put the team together are more important than the guy who runs the team on the field.
A decent people manager, who knows nothing about baseball, could probably get a top-quality team of players like the Yankees to the playoffs. The same can’t be said for a decent people manager who knows nothing about football.
First off, as mhendo says, it depends on the sport. That said, I think recruiting is much more a function of having winning team and one that people can expect will continue to win than so much of the actual recruiting. If you look at college sports, the teams that are traditionally power houses may have better overall recruiting, but half of their work is done for them because, for the most part, the best athletes are going to be looking at the best schools for their sport. As such, I’d generally favor a coach, especially in football, as a good coach can win with average talent and a bad coach can lose with great talent. Once that good coach starts winning, the recruits will start flowing.
It might be different in a sport like baseball where the manager has less impact on the overall performance, but he can still do a lot to create a winning atmosphere. He might still lose out to a top notch recruiter because of his relatively low effect, but I think it would be much closer than it is in the opposite direction for sports with more emphasis on the coaches.
#10 Coach/#1 Recruiter = Charlie Weis at Notre Dame, Ron Zok at Florida and a bunch of other good Sunday-Friday college football coaches. Given the 2 extremes, I’ll take the #1 Coach/#10 Recruiter just about any day.
Let’s stick to men’s collegiate football and basketball, since those are the two sports most fans get most excited about.
In the LONG run, recruiting takes care of itself. That is, Mike Kryszewski doesn’t have to beat the bushes looking for star players to come to Duke. Duke is ALREADY established as one of the premier college basketball programs in America, which means that a large percentage of the biggest high school basketball stars ALREADY wants to play for him.
In the same way, Nick Saban doesn’t HAVE to visit every high school in the South to get top notch players for the Crimson Tide. The Tide is ALREADY established as an elite program, a program that wins national championships and sends players to the NFL. Loads of elite athletes are ALREADY chomping at the bit to play at Alabama.
So, at the elite levels, I’d go for the #1 coach. Once you’re established as a top-notch coach, the best players will flock to YOU.
But if you’re JUST starting out as a head coach at a college that has never been highly regarded in your sport… well, you’d better be a heckuva recruiter, and an extremely energetic salesman. You HAVE to get to know all your state’s high school coaches by name, and you HAVE to sell a lot of talented kids on your program.
So, to use a hypothetical, if a perennial doormat college program has to choose between
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A brilliant X’s and O’s guy who doesn’t have great people skills or salesmanship skills, and
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A so-so tactician who’s extremely charming, energetic and extroverted, and forms lasting friendships and relationships easily
I’d suggest they go for coach #2, and then make sure coach #2 hires smart, X’s and O’s men to be his coordinators.
I WAS thinking of football mostly. I agree once you have established yourself, players come to you.