Moonlighting
The Life of an SPU Assistant Coach
By Frank
MacDonald
"There are definitely some difficult days during the season, but I enjoy it," says Lorinda Flikkema, who spends days teaching math at Newport High School (top), and afternoons and evenings coaching the Falcon women's basketball team (bottom). "I want to help the SPU players get better - and it's a great learning experience for me."
By day, many are teachers, students, fitness instructors, camp administrators or flight attendants. By night, they become tacticians, surrogate parents, travel agents and goodwill ambassadors.
They are the dozen or so men and women who moonlight as assistant coaches at Seattle Pacific University. The majority are part-time staff or volunteers. Though "enriched" by their coaching experience, their efforts may go unrecognized except by student team members and a handful of colleagues.
"We ask a lot - an awful lot - of the assistant coaches," admits Ken Bone, head coach for the SPU men's basketball team. Bone spent nine years coaching at the high school, junior college and four-year levels before landing his current post. He remembers what it's like to be an assistant.
"They're constantly pushed to the limit," he says. "There are long, long days and long weeks. It's a role that requires a tremendous amount of energy and character."
Lorinda Flikkema is well aware of that fact. An aid to Gordy Presnell, head women's basketball coach at Seattle Pacific, she has a full life and profession outside of coaching. She is now in her second year of teaching algebra and geometry at Bellevue's Newport High School.
A typical midwinter day for Flikkema, 24, begins well before the sun has crested over the Cascades. She arrives at Newport by 7:00 a.m. to prepare for the day's classes. At 3:00 p.m., she makes the 30-minute drive to Brougham Pavilion. Practice begins at 4:00 and lasts until 6:00. Afterwards, there's a brief meeting of the coaching staff. More often than not, evenings are consumed by watching high school and college games for recruiting and scouting purposes.
Flikkema played four seasons for the Falcons, yet had little concept of the coaches' many responsibilities. "I honestly thought that it was about drawing Xs and Os on a board," she recalls. "But there's so much behind the scenes: scheduling games, recruiting players, scouting opponents, making travel arrangements."
The roles of Seattle Pacific coaching assistants vary from sport to sport, and coach to coach. Most are involved in recruiting since tough competition means 300-400 prospective students may be contacted in the process of finding five or six new players. Often the assistants are the buffer between the players and head coach, listening to individual concerns - be it homesickness, problems with roommates or questions about a player's assigned role on the team.
Bone tries to reward his three assistants with greater responsibility, and respect from the players. This past fall, he requested that Jeff Hironaka, his chief assistant, be given the title of associate head coach.
"I've given Jeff so many responsibilities, it's only right that he have a title which reflects his true role," says Bone. "I believe you have to give the assistant some ownership of the team."
Assistant Bob McLaughlin is an integral part of the Falcon soccer team's great success. A former Falcon player, he has apprenticed under Head Coach Cliff McCrath for more than six years. His responsibilities expand with each passing season.
"Although Cliff is considered one of the top coaches in the game, he wants me to express my ideas," says McLaughlin, 30. "We will differ on things, whether it's picking the lineup or choosing tactics, but he likes weighing options."
McLaughlin's "day job" is closely intertwined with his role of assistant coach; he is instructor and coordinator of day camps for Northwest Soccer Camp, founded by McCrath some 25 years ago.
For Flikkema, Hironaka, McLaughlin and the other assistant coaches, the rewards of the job are two-fold: gaining experience and supporting young people.
"It's challenging work, motivating these guys, working with them day after day, for four years," says McLaughlin. "But what makes it worthwhile is to see one or two players and then a whole team grasp an idea, to suddenly understand how the game is played. That's a great time, because you know success won't be far behind."
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