Last time, I wrote about how most strength and conditioning staffs completely botch their performance evaluations. If you read that post, you know what I’m talking about: vague HR templates, empty categories like “communication” and “professionalism,” and yearly meetings where nothing actually gets said — except maybe some surface-level compliments before everyone signs off and forgets about it for another year.
It’s a waste of everyone’s time. Worse, it hurts the staff. It doesn’t help anyone grow. It doesn’t build loyalty. It doesn’t protect your program when things get tough. After that blog went out, I got a ton of messages. Some coaches just said thanks for calling it out. But a lot of coaches said something else:
"Okay... you nailed the problem. But what’s the solution beyond the few examples you talked about. They weren’t asking for another theory. They were asking for something real they could use with their staff. So I decided to build it.
I’m excited to finally roll out the Strength Coach Network Staff Evaluation System — something built by a coach, for coaches. Something rooted in real leadership principles. Something that actually moves people forward, not just checks a box once a year.
If you’ve read The Code. The Evaluation. The Protocols. by Jocko Willink, you’ll recognize the DNA here. That book pushes a simple idea: success needs standards, and standards need to be clearly defined. If you don't set clear standards, you're setting people up to fail — and that's on you as a leader.
That mindset guided how we built this system. We didn’t want to fall into the traps that plague so many organizations. No generic “meets expectations” ratings. No “communication needs improvement” without actually explaining what effective communication looks like. Instead, every category is specific. Every score is clearly defined. If you're an assistant on staff, you’ll know exactly where you stand — and exactly what you need to do to level up.
The core of the system is a 7-category evaluation rubric you can use every fall during formal reviews. It covers professional development, communication, work ethic, leadership and teamwork, technical coaching skills, athlete outcomes, and broader departmental contribution. Nothing fancy. Just the things that actually matter when you're building and running a high-performance team.
Each category breaks down into a clear scoring system from 0 to 5. But this isn’t just a number you circle. Each score level has a real-world description attached to it. A score of 1 doesn’t just mean “below average” — it tells you what specific behaviors or actions that person showed (or didn’t show). A 5 doesn’t just mean “great job” — it means the coach has demonstrated clear leadership, exceptional initiative, and has tangibly raised the standard of the team.
And because running the meeting is just as important as filling out the form, we included a Coaching Guide for Supervisors. It's a simple playbook for how to prep for the meeting, what kinds of questions to ask, and how to make sure it’s a two-way conversation — not a lecture, and not an ambush. Leadership isn’t just evaluating people; it’s coaching them to get better. This guide helps you make the evaluation meeting actually feel like a coaching conversation, which is exactly what it should be.
One thing I know from experience is that one annual evaluation isn’t enough. Life happens between evaluations. People drift. Priorities change. Staff members hit roadblocks you didn’t see coming. So we added a Spring Check-In Form to the system too. It's a short, simple reflection sheet coaches can fill out halfway through the year. You don’t re-score everything. You just have a conversation about progress, about roadblocks, about what’s coming next. It's a way to keep things from falling off the rails quietly, which happens way too often on S&C staffs.
We packaged all of this together into a clean, professional bundle. You’ll get a printable PDF version for formal records, editable Google Docs if you want to customize it, a branded SCN cover page, and everything ready to plug into your current workflow with zero hassle.
And here’s the best part — we’re giving it away for free. No catch. No invoice coming later. Just something we know can help good coaches lead their people better, because that’s what the field needs more of right now.
If you’re serious about leveling up your staff evaluations — if you actually want to develop your assistants instead of just managing them — this system will help you do it. It’ll help you reward the right people. It’ll help you fix small problems before they become big ones. And it’ll give you real documentation if you ever have to make hard calls later.
Leadership isn’t about talking big. It’s about doing the boring work that no one else wants to do — and doing it well. Staff evaluations are part of that work. Done right, they make everyone better.
If you want the full SCN Staff Evaluation System, you can grab it by clicking here.
