A few of us have discussed with Jeff the possibility of him coaching, but this was the first time we as an entire core spoke with him.
The primary concern for the core was not so much whether having a coach would be a good idea - we are all in agreement that the right coach would be a huge help - the question is whether Jeff Snader is that guy. For myself, i would break that concern down to two questions:
- Does Jeff have the strategic/tactical wisdom to guide a national level contender in the open division?
- Would bringing in Jeff to a scenario where we're looking to bring in players from 5+ teams - a process that some people are already skeptical about - be too crazy and alienate tryouts?
- I should probably say that most of us are confident in Jeff's general management/people/communication skills.
We discussed Jeff's vision for leadership involving him as headcoach with a possible assistant coach and offensive/defensive field captains. Jeff gave us a sense of how he'd use the collective experience of the team while still being the final word and avoiding the all too common "too many cooks in the kitchen" problem.
The core is looking to come to a decision on whether to bring on Jeff as a coach before we meet with the SC on 7 March.
After Jeff left, the core continued to discuss. One suggestion was to use a model some of us had used before where the leadership was supported by a braintrust of experienced players who discussed issues (e.g. practice agenda, schedule, strategy, etc) on an online forum, but communication with the team was left to the leadership.
Other topics of discussion included:
- SC dynamics: We're looking at a core of 3 people: Trey Katzenbach, Walt Kalicki, and J Dono who have voting power over personnel. If we go with Jeff Snader as a coach, he'd have final say on roster decisions. That group would be assisted by 4 additional "scouts": Dusty Rhodes, Tom Pribicko, B-Lo, and Steve Wherry. The scouts would not have voting power but would provide insights and help facilitate tryouts.
- Schedule: We're debating the merits of going to Henlopen. We're also looking at attending Ring's invitational. We're also waiting on definitive dates for ME College Regionals, CUT, and Boston Invite.
- Jeff George has expressed interest in coaching the second team.
