Assistant Coaches

There's a football saying, "You never see an assistant coach quoted in the news". It's not entirely accurate, but it's point is made. The assistant coach is mostly anonymous and often ignored. They are the offensive lineman of the coaching staff. They are the backbone of the team and rarely acknowledged.

When I was a kid first learning the grand history of football, I was shocked to notice the assistant coaches of the New York Giants of the '50s. I see Jim Lee Howell as the head coach and immediately think of "Gilligan's Island". The Giants of this era were dominant, winning the '56 title and playing for the title in '58 and '59. Who is this Howell fellow that leads this powerful team? Well, he had a couple of coaches named Vince Lombardi and Tom Landry working for him. I'm spinning. In the early '70s, I think of Landry and Lombardi as coaching legends, not hired grunts. The Super Bowl trophy is a Lombardi. His name is synonymous with coaching. They couldn't possibly be working for this Jim Lee Howell. In Howell's defense, he understood his place on the team, saying "I was around to pump up the footballs". It's interesting to note that Lombardi only spent about a third of his 30+ years of coaching career as a head coach. It is the career assistants that often know the most football, effect the most change. There is a lot beyond football that goes into being a head coach. The most successful head coaches are often the ones that hire the right assistants, best delegate authority, best see the big picture. Often the best head coaches are the ones that best stay out of the way of their assistant coaches (Jim Lee Howell). The assistant coaches spend all of their time concentrating on football, teaching fundamentals and schemes to the players. Most assistant coaches dream of being head coaches. There are a few, like Dick Hoak, Tom Moore, Dick LeBeau, Jimmy Johnson (not that one) that sit in the dark film room, away from the glare, that just love to scheme and tinker.