Difficulty of landing a D3 College position??

[coachnicholson]

Coaches,
I realize the pay is crap and D3 College coaching isnt the flashiest level of coaching there is but none the less I have questions. If there are any coaches on here who either have experience in coaching D3 ball or coaches who just have knowledge of what it takes to GET IN I would love to hear from you.

The basis of all my questions is How hard is it to get into D3 coaching??

I often hear that most if not all college openings are already filled by the time they are posted on the job boards. Are D3 jobs also this way?

How many yrs of coaching at the high school level would a person normally need in order to have a legitimate chance at landing a D3 job?? What about the intern coaching positions at D3 schools? How hard is it to land an intern position at a D3 school?

[swarm2ball]

Your best bet is to develop great relationships with the coaches who come through your doors, maintain contact through staff or personal visits, show you are dedicated to the game, ask DIII coaches about what it takes to get in the door and from there, they will see that you are interested and if a spot comes up, you may be able to jump on in. It is not who you know, it is truly, who knows you. The college coaching network is insane, and nobody necessarily hires "off the streets".

[coachnicholson]

Thanks for the reply.
I realize its all about who knows who in the college game. Im just asking these questions out of curiosity for now but you never know what the future might hold.

[swarm2ball]

From my experiences and talking with GA's and college coaches, I usually hear the following theme:

"The only way to fight resistance is with persistence"

You are never going to get a call from a coach or you are never going to have a coach at your door offering you a job. There are 1,000's of individuals looking to get into the college coaching profession. You must stand out from all those other coaches.

If you are truly interested in doing so, I would say get on the horn, and call a dozen DIII coaches and ask them what they look for from prospective candidates, what do you need to do to get in, can you meet with the HC and spend 10-15 minutes picking his brain. This for one opens the door to networking, and it also is practice for what it is going to take when you are truly ready to find a college job. You will get to know the football secretaries very well!

[swarm2ball]

Actually this post reminds me of a story that explains how the world can work in weird ways and the significance of taking one last shot at getting an opportunity. I heard this at a clinic from Cincinnati Bengals OL coach Paul Alexander.

He was a senior OL'man at Cortland State (NY) and realized he wanted to get into college coaching. He spent a whole year writing hundreds of letter to college teams, looking to do anything for them; water boy, towel boy, ball boy, coffee boy, whatever it took. He got no replies. He knew he wanted to go to grad school and so he applied to Penn State and was accepted. During those two years, he would call, write, stop by Paternos office and seek a job doing ANYTHING. He never was offered.

He got a call from his old HS Principal with a job offer to be an assistant and teach physics. He told his principal that he would think about it over night, but he actually wanted one more chance to call Paterno. Well he called, and the secretary answered the phone and he said "Hello this is Paul Alexander, I am wondering if Coach Paterno is available to speak to?" Well, the secretary knew that Coach Paterno was looking to meet with a player on the team with a last name of Alexander, but she must have got the names conflicted and gave PAUL the phone number to Paterno's house. Paul called and Paterno went IRATE "HOW DID YOU GET THIS NUMBER, WHY ARE YOU CALLING ME" and so forth. Paul hung up and said "well I ain't getting that job, and I dont know if I would want to coach for that SOB anyways."

Paterno finds out about the mishap in communication, calls Paul the next day, apologizes and asks PAUL to come in and gave him a video cut up task as an interview and hired him that day! Less than 10 years, he is in the NFL. He stated the most influential person in his life was that secretary (he stated her name, I forgot). But one hell of a story!

[coachnicholson]

That is an amazing and inspiring story!

[bulldog]

A friend who was a D1 Asst mentions the word 'trust'' a lot when I ask him about college jobs. He says that HC's tend to hire people they trust. That means established relationships and a familiarity with how they work - their loyalty, work ethic, ability to establish relationships with the players, recruiting ability, ability to think on the feet . . .

That speech by Uban Meyer at the 2005 AFCA proceedings was pretty informative. Among the things he outlined that he expected from his coaches were:

- he meets with the spouses of each coach he hires and he tells them that he expects loyalty
- they are expected to recruit 2-3 players per year, and they are held accountable for the success of their players - it determines their raises.
- they are expected to go the training room, study table, physical therapy with their players.
- they are in the weight room with their players

[brophy]

if you have a school locally, attend all their Spring practices & sit in on the coaches meetings. It helps develop a relationship, you learn "their" game, and the most important thing - they learn to trust you.



to be honest, I believe that's what I'll be doing this year....