Interscholastic sports have changed a lot over the years, growing from barely organized, unsanctioned youth sport competition, to the glitz and glamor we currently see with established interscholastic sports nationwide. Kids today, unlike generations from the past, enjoy state-of-the-art training equipment, safer playing fields, and even more advanced uniforms. While student athletes today enjoy a better organized sport experience, what kids miss today may surprise you. Whereas previous generations of kids were almost always coached by teachers in their schools, today’s kids rarely experience teacher-coaches; instead, they are coached by adults from the community.
Examining the loss of teacher-coaches
You don’t have to go back many years when it was common to see nearly every school team coached by a teacher in the district. For many teachers, this was a way to continue to work with kids, have fun being a part of a sports team, and make a few extra dollars to add to their salary. Parents back then, for the most part, had a more realistic view of interscholastic sports, and rarely pressured coaches about playing time, orbadgered coaches about potential missed athletic scholarships because of the coach not playing their kid properly. Without parent pressure, most teacher-coaches enjoyed their role as “coach,” as evidenced by many having long coaching careers while receiving little pay in comparison to the amount of time they devoted to their team. But then something happened, and increasingly more parents began pestering coaches, threatening them, and in some cases mounting campaigns to have the coach removed. The result? Teachers stopped coaching, and schools were forced to scramble to find adults in the local community who could pick up coaching where teachers had quit.
It is not uncommon today to see schools across America with 100% of their coaches coming from the community, not the school. While some of these coaches are experts with their sport, most lack the training and credentialing teachers are required to attain, providing for a very different experience for kids. Take the following differences for example:
- Teacher-coaches are required to have completed their college degree, applied teaching experiences, and take ongoing continuing education to maintain their teaching license.
- Teacher-coaches generally have a really good feel for the philosophy of sports and how sports fit within the overall mission of a school, and as a result tend to pay attention to things that can interfere with a kid’s academics, like sport burnout and sport retirement.
- Teacher-coaches are accessible throughout the day, with many being in the same building as the kids they coach, allowing for easy and immediate communication.
- Teacher-coaches are kept up-to-date on contemporary issues and problems student athletes experience, whereas community-coaches may miss out on these updates.
- Teacher-coaches are trained with respect to discipline and related appropriate measures, the same is not always true for community-coaches.
While an argument can be made that schools who open their coach search beyond in-house teachers have an increased chance of finding more skilled coaches when it comes to the X’s and O’s, there are a lot of things lost (see above) when trading a thoroughly trained teacher-coach for one who may know sports, but not trained to work with kids. The harsh reality, however, is that in this moment many schools are relying on community-coaches, or risk not fielding a team.
The horse has left the barn, as they say, and fewer teachers these days appear to be interested in coaching. When coaching stops being fun and all that is left are long hours and relatively low pay, it is easy to see why teachers no longer pursue coaching jobs as they once did.
Final thoughts
It is both sad and concerning that kids today rarely benefit from being coached by a teacher in their school, but that is the current state of affairs. Some communities in America do not have a single teacher-coach leading a school team, while other schools are lucky to have a few teachers still involved. By contrast, community-coaches are not bad people, nor are they ill-equipped to coach sports, but they are fundamentally trained differently, resulting in a different experience for kids today compared to previous generations.
drstankovich.com
