bench coach

noun

Definition of bench coach

1 sports : a coach (as in basketball or hockey) who actively manages the game and the players (as by directing strategy and making substitutions) from the bench area And Bowman, who got nearly $2 million to coach the next two years, is arguably the greatest bench coach ever.— Jeff Gordon, Hockey Digest, November 1993 Calipari has a track record as a bench coach and recruiter, making his reputation by lifting UMass out of the abyss to a Final Four in 1996 before becoming the coach of the New Jersey Nets in 1996. — Dick Weiss, Daily News (New York), 31 Mar. 2009

2 baseball : a coach who functions as the manager's primary assistant and who advises the manager on strategy and tactics during games Currently he is the Yankees' bench coach, whose job during games consists of sitting next to manager Joe Torre and dispensing advice based on intuition—intuition that distills more than half a century of experience.— George F. Will, Newsweek, 3 Apr. 2000