Coaching Career
Clarkson moved into coaching, first with Werribee in the VFL, followed by roles at St Kilda and Central District where he was a Premiership coach in 2001. In 2003 he became the midfield coach at Port Adelaide and forward coach in 2004.
He was appointed his first senior AFL coaching role at the Hawthorn Football Club for the 2005 season, when the Hawks appointed Clarkson to lead their rebuilding phase. While his side could only manage five wins in his debut season, finishing 14th, 2006 saw the side improve, winning their last four games in a row and taking them to 11th spot on the ladder. The Hawks continued to improve in 2007, winning 13 games and finishing fifth on the Premiership table. This took them into the finals, where they defeated Adelaide in the Elimination Final, before being eliminated in the Semi Final against North Melbourne.
On 13 May 2008, the Hawthorn Football Club announced that Clarkson had signed a contract until the end of 2011. In 2008, Clarkson took the Hawks to second place on the home-and-away ladder, before guiding the team to the premiership with a Grand Final victory against Geelong, a team which had lost only game during that year. In doing so, Clarkson became the first (and, as of 2011, only) coach to ever lead his sides to a Premiership in both the AFL/VFL and the SANFL.
Read more about this topic: Alastair Clarkson
Famous quotes containing the word career:
“What exacerbates the strain in the working class is the absence of money to pay for services they need, economic insecurity, poor daycare, and lack of dignity and boredom in each partner’s job. What exacerbates it in upper-middle class is the instability of paid help and the enormous demands of the career system in which both partners become willing believers. But the tug between traditional and egalitarian models of marriage runs from top to bottom of the class ladder.”
—Arlie Hochschild (20th century)