Let’s face it, first-time assistant coaches normally don’t walk into jobs with two perennial All-Stars on a team that just got bounced in the Western finals. Normally, they get a job in the middle of a year, playing for lottery balls.
Every season is a new challenge to me, and I always set out to improve in terms of games, goals, assists.
I worked with many great assistants to Sir Alex Ferguson over the years. Yet sometimes a manager’s second-in-command is more suited to that role than any other. You confide in them – you tell them things that you would not tell the manager – and they are that bridge between the boss and the players.