Someone who can find a way to make things happen. Every club has constraints (court availability, costs, etc). Some use these as excuses, others find a way to overcome them and deliver the programs that will help the club succeed.

People / interpersonal skills. Must be able to communicate well and effectively.

Also, must be able to keep disparate groups of people happy. The bulk of the junior players and their parents, who need to feel that their time and financial investment for the year has been valuable, to continue with the association. The coaches, who give up their valuable time but have their own wants and needs in terms of coaching style and aspirations, and the kids who aspire to join, or have just entered, the elite pathway and are looking for support from their association to establish themselves at the next level.

Make sure they are not related to Ben Simmons!

They need both available time and enthusiasm. They need to be able to relate to and influence a variety of personalities and work to align them on shared outcomes and goals.

Developing a successful programme is a slow burn and maintaining it once you achieve it equally challenging. Too much focus on winning and success in the growth phase can compromise your long term objectives.

From past experience with a few DoCs they are more effective when they don't have a team (or several!) they are also coaching.

"From past experience with a few DoCs they are more effective when they don't have a team (or several!) they are also coaching."

DoC's should not be directly coaching any teams if they are serious about their role.

DoC's focus should be on coaching the coaches including coaches who are parents of players.

It beggars belief that some DoC's focus on coaching one or two teams .. often 18.1s and / or NBL1 teams while paying lip service to what should be their primary role .. DIRECTOR of Coaching.

Karma Basketball.....
This is 100% on the money!!!!

Surely you get paid to coach the coaches... so if your not attending games, attending training session, how does a DOC know what that coach is doing? Do they need help? Are they teaching the right things?

And it's even more a problem when a problem arises, and the DOC doesn't even know who the coach is or what team they are coaching.

And only focusing on 1s teams is another problem. You need more than 10 kids in each age group as they age, as it is likely half the u12 team won't be there in u16/u18. More time needs to be spend improving the 2s/3s/4s etc to make the whole age group better for when kids drop off.

Integrity.

A great Director of Coaching at a basketball association needs game knowledge, good communication, motivation skills, organization, and a positive atmosphere for players to thrive.

@Turnover...

Everything you write makes perfect sense.

Several of the other posts here also make sense. However, they apply to any Director or anything.

A Director of Coaching requires traits above and beyond your typical Director of Anything.

I think that creates problems. Many DoCs focus on being a Director of Anything rather than a Director of COACHING.

The title is ... Director of "COACHING"

Imho, a DoC is should focus on managing and coaching COACHES.

They are not a General Manager. And they should not be a Player / Team Coach when being paid by the Association they work for because those roles take them away from their primary function.

What is the ball-park salary for a DOC of a medium - large association (say one that expects its 1s teams to be in VC)?

80k is probably your baseline, there's definitely some who are well over 100k.

Someone who can primarily develop and keep good coaches and, as well as the ability to attract coaches from elsewhere. There aren't many that can achieve all these and those that can are paid very well. There are also plenty of DoC's whose presence deters coaches from being involved in their club's and some of these have been around for some times, I don't know how they keep their jobs, it's not hard to assess their performances.

By the way, this is a great question. I don't think anything determines how well an association performs (in terms of teams at the pointy end of VC, etc) than the capability and performance of a DoC and a handful of others in leadership positions.

There are clubs with great demographics, finances, etc who underperform because they haven't got this right.

Integrity, creating the right CULTURE, communication skills, making people feel valued, time and enthusiasm, ensuring there is adequate progress for all and that the HP players have ample pathways and opportunities. The 36ers have just signed a gun as their GM/ director of coaching. Another big loss for Sturt.

Interesting timing for this thread to light up again. Heard there's been a restructure down Chelsea way. I'm light on detail, but believe the change involves making the full-time DOC of the junior programme redundant

imo, as a post regarding court time on the juniors forum, a director that balances winning games and developing all 10 players. Sometimes being the number 1 club isn't everything if you are spitting out fire players by the time they hit 18s.

in addition to my post above, establishing good pathways from 18s into Youth League Champ and/or NBL1 / VBL.

@ikkala, this is why I think U20 should be treated a lot more seriously than it is by many. A lot of players take a little more time to fully develop. The transition straight from U18 to the current Youth Leagues can be a huge jump for many players.

More emphasis on U20s as an alternative pathway or replace U20 with a Third Divison of Youth League.

The sport is growing quickly. There are going to be a lot more players coming out the other end of the U18 conveyer belt in the next few years. The ones that can't jump straight to YL will probably consider leaving the sport if they don't see a viable alternative pathway.