Interview Questions

Hey, Coach Hoover here.  Thanks to hshscoachtom from Coach Huey for posting this extremely thorough list of questions that he has accululated over time from Jerry Campbell's and Coach Huey's forums.  This is the time of year to land that big job, so pick out your best coat and tie and study up on these questions.

INTERVIEW QUESTIONS EXHAUSTIVE LIST – by hchscoachtom


ACADEMICS

1. Will Athletes be able to attend extra help after school if needed?

2. What steps will you take to insure the academic eligibility of the athletes?

3. What plans do you have for study halls?

4. How do you monitor your athlete’s academics?

5. Do you believe in having the smarter athletes tutoring the academically challenged athletes?

6. Do you agree with the MHSAA rules for academic eligibility? If not, why and what would you change?


BIO/HISTORY

1. Who is the best coach you ever coached with or played for? Why?

2. Tell us about yourself and your purpose for being a coach?

3. Why did you resign from your previous position? Why isn’t that head coach listed as a reference?


BOOSTERS

1. Do you think it’s important to attend boosters sponsored football banquets at the end of the season?

2. How should the booster club be set up and should there be one club or a separate club for each sport?


BUDGET

1. How much do you need to operate your program?

2. How will you raise the funds you need to operate your program?

3. What will your relationship be with the booster club?


COLLEGE RECRUITING

1. Is college recruiting important to you and how would you help my son get recruited?


DISCIPLINE

1. How do you handle individual player discipline?

2. How do you handle team discipline?

3. What is your philosophy of discipline and what is your method?

4. How do you handle athletes who are disrespectful to other people?

5. What is your policy on foul language by coaches and players?

6. If a player misses practice what is his punishment?

7. How do you prevent lawsuits?


INJURIES

1. The health of our kids is important. How do you see yourself handling injuries, especially concussions?

2. How do you handle your trainer and injuries?


MEDIA

1. How do you handle the media?


METHODOLOGY

1. How do you motivate your athletes?

2. How do you coach? Are you demonstrative? Are you laid back? Have you ever been profane?

3. Are you a visual teacher or an audio teacher?

4. Do you teach in contrast or in abstract fashion?

5. How do you handle learning support football players? How do you teach them when others understand and they don’t?


MISCELLANEOUS

1. We want our coach to live in our district. Would you be move here?

2. How do you handle your equipment situation?

3. Are you willing to coach more than one sport?

4. How do you handle these online football forums that bash you and your program?

5. Will you use social network websites for your program? What safeguards will you use?


OFF-SEASON

1. Describe how your off-season strength and speed program will work.

2. What are your thoughts on attendance during off-season workouts and involvement in practices and how that reflects to playing time on the field?

3. How does your weight room program deal with the multi-sport athlete?


PARENTS

1. How do you handle helicopter parents?

2. When do you contact parents regarding your players?

3. How do you handle issues with parents?

4. Tell us what the roles of the parents might be and what you would talk to them about in the pre-season.

5. How would you handle a parent who threatens you physically? Who wants to handle the issue with a fight? Our former head coach actually had this happen to him.

6. How do you respond to the parent that thinks football is too big of a time commitment?

7. If a parent calls you and yells at you about why his son is not starting, how do you handle the situation?

8. Dealing with parents is a major factor that comes with coaching today’s high school athlete, what is your philosophy on fielding complaints, phone calls, emails, etc from disgruntled parents?


PERSONAL INFORMATION

1. Tell us about your weaknesses.

2. Tell us about your strengths.

3. In what area do you believe you could grow professionally?

4. Body language is interpreted by parents and fans, what would your body language on the sidelines tell us?

5. Would you be willing to attend clinics? If so, what would you expect to gain?

6. What subject areas are you qualified to teach?

7. What word would players use to describe you?

8. What word would parents use to describe you?

9. Who are your heroes? Explain why.

10. If we call a former coach or employer, how would they describe you?

11. What are two mistakes you made in your coaching career?

12. What are your long-term goals? Where do you see yourself in 10 years?

13. If offered the position, are you prepared to accept the position now?

14. What compensation do you expect?

15. What type of a coach are you in terms of perception by your players?

16. What community service activities do you plan to involve yourself?

17. How do you handle the other opposing coaches of whom you compete?

18. HOW DO YOU HANDLE YOURSELF?

19. Give an example of how you are a team player.

20. If you are not hired as head coach would you remain on the coaching staff?


PHILOSOPHY

1. What is your coaching philosophy? How will you achieve that?

2. What is your philosophy on playing time at all levels of the program?

3. How does your faith impact your football philosophy?

4. How do you value winning? How do you value losing?

5. Why do you want to be the head football coach at our school?

6. What is your program philosophy/Mission?

7. Define success individually for each level of the program (9th, JV, Varsity).

8. What is your philosophy on life?

9. Is winning the most important thing?

10. What is your definition of leadership?

PLAYERS

1. What will kids remember after they are done playing for you?

2. How would you purposefully go about developing players on and off the field?

3. How are captains chosen?

4. How do you communicate with your athletes?

5. How would you develop the football players throughout all age groups in our system?

6. What do you need to know about your students in order for them to be successful?

7. What are the most important criteria you look for in a player?

8. What do you do with seniors in your program?

9. Do you want your athletes to play other sports?

10. What is your opinion about specialization, and the multi-sport athletes in high school?

11. What should be the top priorities of a high school athlete?

12. Since you do not have a faculty position at our school, how will that affect your relationship with the players in the program?

13. How do you evaluate players?

14. If a player is openly badmouthing the coaching decisions that you have made, how do you handle the situation?

15. You learn of a party being planned following an upcoming game, how would you handle the situation?

16. How do you handle players who criticize, complain, degrade, or use foul or abusive language, or have trouble with teammates or being part of the team concept?

17. Do you have a plan if a female student wants to come out for football?


PRACTICE

1. What is your practice philosophy?

2. Describe a successful practice that you have led?

3. What time would you start practice and dismiss practice? How long will practice be?

4. What is your overall practice structure? How would you describe a typical week of practice during the season?


PROGRAM

1. What are some team building activities that you do?

2. Why will students want to come to your games?

3. How are you going make a difference on campus?

4. How do you handle the local youth program?

5. Why will kids want to play at your school in your program?

6. What is the role of administration and faculty in your program?

7. What do you expect from your administration/school board?

8. How will your program differ from your rivals and opponents?

9. If time and money were not concerns. What would you do to make us state champions?

10. How will you increase participation in football at our school?

11. How would you get the faculty involved in the football program?

12. What is the head coach’s responsibility and role in the community?

13. How do you see yourself with the administration as being important to the success of the overall program?

14. We are having a difficult time getting people to attend our games. How would you create excitement for our program in the community?

15. How will you run your training camp?

16. There is a possibility that you could go 0-18 over the next two years. What would you do to remedy that?

17. How does your weight room program deal with the multi-sport athlete?

18. When we watch your team play, what are a few things that would show this is “your team” or “your program”?

19. What would you say at your first team meeting?

20. What would change or do differently with our current program?


RULES

1. What are your team rules?


X’S & O’S

1. Will you bring in your systems for offense and defense and expect players to adapt or will you base what you do on offense and defense upon the talent you have available?

2. What is your primary concern when developing your basic offense and defense?

3. What system are you going to use on offense and defense?

4. You have been a defensive coordinator. How will you handle the offensive side of the ball?

5. How will you transition your offense and defense systems into ones that our kids are running now and understand?

6. How do you win football games?

7. How will you make your offensive system work?

8. How will you make your defensive system work?

9. What skils do OL need to develop?

10. What skills do WR need to develop?

11. What skills do RB’s need to develop?

12. What skills do QB’s need to develop?

13. What skills do DL need to develop?

14. What skills do LB’s need to develop?

15. What skills do DB’s need to develop?

16. What are the overall defensive skills that a great defense needs to have?

17. What are the things that a great defense must do?

18. How do you handle special teams at practice?

19. What is your philosophy of each special teams unit?


STAFF

1. What kind of staff will you put together, who will you bring with you?

2. Ideally, how many assistant coaches would you like to have?

3. Assistant coaches are important. What attributes of an assistant coach are most important to you, and why?

4. What qualities do you seek in assistant coaches, and how will they be handled?

5. What is your philosophy on staff development?

6. How will you handle your football coaching staff assignments and organize your staff among the teams we promote? (9th, JV, Varsity)

7. What is your philosophy on hiring assistant coaches?

8. How do you plan your staff?

9. Will you have student trainers/managers?

10. What are you looking for in a statistician?

11. What are you looking for in a game film person?

12. How can you have a productive staff environment?

13. How much do you plan to delegate within your program?

14. What qualities do you feel are important for an assistant coach and head coach?

15. We are working hard to develop a staff that trusts each other, how would you develop relationships with the coaches/teachers in your building?


WHY YOU?

1. We have 10 candidates applying for this job. What makes you stand out from all the rest?

2. Our last head coach was loved by the whole school system and we didn’t want to see him go. Our next head coach will have to follow in his steps. In one sentence, tell us why you will or won’t be that coach 10 years from now?

3. Why are you the right person for the job?

4. Why do you want this job?

5. What do you know about the school district?

6. Why do you want to coach?

Good article by Deuce on the 46 Defense: http://footballislifeblog.blogspot.com/2011/02/46-nickle.html