Rising Coaches' Report - Rice's Adam Gierlach
Adam Gierlach - Head Manager - Rice University
Before I begin, I would like to thank Rising Coaches Elite and
College Chalktalk for the opportunity to write for this site. I am
only a senior in college, just a student manager, and to have this
opportunity is truly amazing.
I am currently in my fourth year as a student manager at Rice
University, my second as head manager. The stories of managers
becoming coaches is one that by now is fairly well known. Made
famous by Lawrence Frank, now the head coach of the Detroit
Pistons, other highly successful coaches like Joe Pasternack, an
assistant coach at Arizona, and the rapidly expanding National
Association of Collegiate Basketball Managers (NACBM), I believe
there are intrinsic qualities to being a successful student manager
that allow one to succeed as basketball coach.
The opportunities I have had as a manager at Rice for Coach Ben
Braun have been absolutely amazing. During my four years, I have
been involved with almost every aspect of our program, from
opponent preparation and self scouting, to organizing
recruit mailouts and being in meetings, to player development
and statistical analysis, and locker room design and construction.
The sheer breadth of experiences I have had during my time as an
undergraduate student has made me a well-rounded worker in the
basketball world. There has been a lot of discussion lately on the
current state of college basketball and the future of coaching.
There seems to be an image of future coaches as people who are not
well-rounded and do not have a multitude of skills that are needed
to be a successful college assistant or head coach. Perhaps my
situation is unique to Rice and the makeup of our staff arranged by
Coach Braun. Our support staff is comprised of our Director of
Operations, which right now is an administrative position, our
Video Coordinator, an administrative assistant, another
administrative position, and our four student managers. Since our
support staff is not a small army, I have been able to find a niche
as a do-it-all guy, somebody with a wide-range of skills who can
serve a program across the board. While our situation at Rice may
be unique, I still believe that the experience of a student manager
necessarily lends itself to developing a wide range of skills that
enable one to be a successful future coach.
My mentor, Associate Head Coach Louis Reynaud, has defined our
managerial position
at Rice as “making sure the coaches coach and the players
play, every day in a manner that lends itself to success.”
What this job description essentially boils down to is one word:
service. As managers, it is our job to serve the program in
whatever capacity needed to make sure the players and coaches can
lead our team to victory. As a coach, the essential job description
is one of service. It is a coach’s job to serve the
university and make sure it is represented well by the players and
the program. It is a coach’s job to serve the athletic
director, boosters, and athletic department who have provided that
coach with employment. The coach does this by putting a team that
competes every day on the floor. It is a coach’s job to serve
his players. No coach would have a job if not for his players, and
it is a coach’s job to do whatever he can to make sure the
players are successful. It is a coach’s job to serve his
staff (in the case of a head coach) or his head coach (in the case
of an assistant). Whatever role the coach occupies, the other parts
within the program allow the coach to be successful. I am sure I
have missed some of the ways in which a coach serves, but
nevertheless, the coach’s job is essentially one of
service.
As a student manager, Coach Braun, Coach Reynaud, and our staff
have taught me that this is what the managerial position is about.
When one thinks of a student manager, the image that comes to mind
is the person who shows up early, leaves late, wipes up sweat,
rebounds for players, fills water bottles, and lugs heavy bags
around. While this may be a gross oversimplification of the
position, it captures two essential qualities that are essential to
managing and essential to what positions successful managers to be
successful coaches: reliability and hard work. Another definition
from our Associate Head Coach, Coach Reynaud, accountability can be
defined as, “I can count on you, and you can count on
me.” As a manager, the program counts on you to to do your
job: set up for practice, rebound for players, be early, and stay
late. The fellow managers within a program count on you to do your
job as well. The essential nature of accountability is that one
person’s actions affect everybody else’s. If a manager
fails to complete a task, he cannot be counted on and the program
suffers as a result. Accountability is very much tied in to
responsibility. There are certain tasks and responsibilities that
must be accomplished in managing and in being a basketball
coach.
As a manager, one learns what it means to be responsible for tasks.
I’ve taken this quote
from a USA Today article on managing five years ago, but the Wake
Forest managers used the slogan, “nobody knows what my job is
until I don’t do it.” That is what managing,
accountability, and responsibility are all about. Accountability
and responsibility essentially boil down to one question: are you
reliable? There is perhaps no other question more important for a
basketball coach. A coach needs to be reliable across all areas of
the position. He needs to be reliable to bring his best effort
everyday, and be there for his boss and the players. I am a firm
believer that nothing worthwhile in life can be accomplished
without hard work. Not only that, but that all people who
accomplish things through taking short cuts will eventually be
passed by those who work hard and do things the right way. Once
again, as with all of these qualities, the managerial position is
about working hard and doing things the right way. It’s about
staying up late to do laundry while breaking down film when there
is homework to finish and early practice the next morning. It takes
hard work to be a successful manager, and it takes hard work to be
a successful coach as well.
I’m sure this list is not comprehensive. I’m sure I
missed on some qualities and experiences successful student
managers have that lends itself to being a successful basketball
coach. But during my time as a manager, I have found that breadth
of experience, learning how to serve, reliability, and hard work
are essential qualities that come with being a good manager that
are also required of good college basketball coaches. Like I said
earlier, maybe my time at Rice University working for Coach Braun
has been extremely unique and uncharacteristic of the common
experience; I owe more to the our staff than I can imagine and I
will never be able to repay them for the things they have taught
me. However, I believe I know enough people who have risen through
the ranks of college basketball coaching in the same ways that I
hope to, who also exhibit these qualities. Hopefully with the
continued rise of coaches with these qualities and backgrounds, we
will know that the future of college basketball coaches are in good
hands.
* * *
