As someone who is an educator in my other life, I can really appreciate what Pittsburgh Steelers head coach Mike Tomlin said about the best coaching advice he got and how it relates to teaching.
Tomlin was on the L3 Leadership podcast and he talked about the best career advice he ever got.
“There is an old coach that I worked with Rob Marinelli,” Tomlin said. “He was a defensive line coach in Tampa when I was a secondary coach. He went on to be the head coach of the Lions for a number of years. You know, he always equated what we do to teaching. He was an education major in college and he talked about the profession of coaching being a teaching one. And there’s an art to it and that we prepare for each day the way that a teacher prepares. Meaning there’s a lesson plan and there’s preparedness.”
The notion of preparedness and a lesson plan hits home for me. You can always tell that Tomlin has a plan and he executes his plan with organization and professionalism. He focuses on incremental growth and goals which are absolutely analogous of teaching.
If there is one comparison to teachers that Tomlin could apply to his coaching that he didn’t mention is the ability to be flexible and make adjustments on the fly. Every good teacher knows even the best plans are going to go wrong at times and when you are responsible for the success of a large group of fellow humans, you have to swallow your pride and be willing to make changes.
