“Two heads are better than one,” so does this mean the more assistant coaches for a sports team, the better? Head coaches tend to get the most attention, but assistant coaches can be just as valuable, especially for large teams.

According to assistant cross country coach Nellie Triedman, one of the benefits of having multiple coaches is the ability to run practices and meets even if the other coach(es) can’t make it.

“Having two coaches gives the cross country team greater flexibility in terms of scheduling practices and meets. For example, next weekend Coach Glennon will attend an invitational with some of the athletes, while I conduct practice with everyone else at Brookline high school. This arrangement would not be possible if the team did not have an assistant coach,” Triedman said.

According to Sammy Guttell, a junior on the boys varsity soccer team, the perspectives and specialities of each additional coach can be beneficial to a team.

“They give us multiple views and perspectives to learn from. They both have their strengths and weaknesses to work together to coach better. It also allows more people to have a time when they can get personal advice from one coach as the other runs the drill. They can both run drills at the same time, for different people like offense and defense,” Guttell said.

Junior Arik Howe, a junior varsity football player, agreed with this sentiment and added that in football, having a coach for a certain set of positions can be very helpful.

“For football our coaches are position-oriented. If you need to work on something related to your position, they are helpful because that is their specialty,” Howe said.

Howe thinks that all teams should have an assistant coach and that additional coaches can bring more experience to the table.

“The more coaches you have, the more experience there is to help you. Also having more coaches allows for more opportunity for individual help,” Howe said.