Anatomy of a Coach Rich Scouting Report

I firmly believe that we have the best assistant coaching staff in the country. We have four coaches, who are all different but bring a lot to the table individually. Our lead assistant, Tom Richardson, is very detail oriented. Rarely does anything slip by Coach Rich, he is incredibly sharp and notices everything. While that is great for the team because he does a great job of preparing and teaching the guys, when it comes to his scouting reports, it can be a bit tedious.

Each of the four assistants, at the beginning of the season, are assigned teams to scout on our schedule. After watching the team play, and picking up on trends they turn their observations into a 6 to 8 minutes scout tape. The 6 to 8 minute tape is if you let it run from beginning to end without stopping, but Coach Rich is not really into a free flowing scout tape. The DVD remote that allows him to control the pace of the scout tends to nestle into his hand like a baseball into a worn in glove. The remote becomes a part of his hand, a true extension of it. And his thumb and the pause button develop an intimate relationship as the two interact every few seconds. This constant stopping and pausing of the scouting report can be cumbersome as the scout tape starts to turn into a short film that might be eligible for the "Best Short Film" award at the Oscars. I'll file the paperwork for next year's awards.

I love watching the scouting reports because it is interesting to see the tendencies of the players on film show up in the game, but there are only so many times I can see Archie Goodwin use a jab step to get to the rim. We do the scouting report at the end of team meals so after I've eaten a lot, and the eating part of the meal tends to last about 15 minutes before we delve into the scout which can last another 15 to 20 minutes. So being on a full stomach, with the lights dimmed and a hotel bed screaming my name can sometimes lead to drowsiness during the scouting report, but overall they are really well done.

This post is all out of love for Coach Rich (all of my posts are really, I love the opportunity I have had to meet different people throughout the program) and the job he does, especially since he complimented me on the blog the other day, but felt it was timely given that I nearly dozed off during the Auburn scout this past weekend.