Head Coach Ready: The Eight-Module Course for Coaches Who Want the Next Job

A search committee has an hour of interviews and a stack of paper to decide whether you can run their program. What they are trying to reconstruct, from a résumé and nineteen questions, is a file: do you understand where their program is, what you would do in the first 30 days, how you would build a roster with their money, who you would hire, what your former players say, and what you would do on Monday. Almost no candidate walks in with that file built. The ones who do are the ones who get the call back.

Head Coach Ready is an eight-module course that builds it, one module a week, for one real program you could be hired by in the next two cycles. Each module has a lesson, an exercise, a deliverable, and a checkpoint you clear before moving on. It ends in front of a mock committee, scored on the rubric real committees use.

The eight modules

• 1. Where you stand. An honest market read: ten named target programs, your score on the four criteria with evidence, your network map, and your gap statement.
• 2. Your Value Add file. Six to eight documented entries with numbers and confirmers, ranked and matched to your targets.
• 3. Your program plan. The six-part plan framework, built twice from public information in three timed hours, with a trade-off in every part.
• 4. Your staff plan. Roles, the kind of person for each, real names with honest answers on whether they would come, the pool math three ways, and your position on the current staff.
• 5. Roster, recruiting, and the portal. A roster philosophy that starts from the program's actual constraints, the retention plan, the 72-hour portal evaluation, and what you say in April.
• 6. The committee. Nineteen answers in the four-part shape, a recorded interview, and a scored case presentation.
• 7. References, vetting, and the first call. A reference portfolio nine calls deep, a confidentiality plan, and a first-call script.
• 8. The offer and the first 90 days. Your four numbers, your two asks, a complete First 90 Days Plan, and the year-one goals you would propose by day 60.
• Capstone. The mock committee: a 45-minute finalist interview, a 20-minute case presentation with questions, and a teach-the-room session, scored independently by three people. The teach-the-room session is a six-step Teaching Cycle in front of the panel; coaches who run their practices on it walk in ready.

What's included

• The course workbook (36-page PDF) with every lesson, exercise, deliverable, and checkpoint.
• Seven editable Word templates, one per module: Readiness Review, Value Add File, Program Plan Framework, Staff Plan, Reference Portfolio, First 90 Days Plan, and Question Prep Sheet, plus the Committee Scoring Rubric so you can score yourself the way they will.
• The Other Side of the Table (36-page guide) and The Problem Set (27-page guide), both included and referenced module by module.
• Recorded lessons when released, at no charge to enrolled participants. This is the written edition; the workbook stands on its own.

For the assistant who wants the head job in two cycles. You have the coaching. What you do not have is the file, the market read, or anyone who will tell you what the committee saw. The course builds all three, and the deliverables are yours to keep and update every season.

For the head coach who wants the next level. Your last search was a different market. The course rebuilds your plan, your staff list, and your roster answer for the portal era, against a specific program, in front of people who will push back.

For the athletic director developing a coach. Departments buy this for the assistant they want to be ready when the head job opens inside the building. The deliverables double as a development plan and the capstone scores double as a readiness read.

Want to run the capstone in front of real athletic directors? The Head Coach Ready and Assistant Coach Ready cohorts do, and course participants are told first when a cohort opens.

Instant download. Licensed to the enrolled participant for personal use. Not legal or career advice.