For schools across America today, finding good coaches has become quite the task. In fact, ask any Athletic Director what his or her top challenges are and you will soon hear how tough it is to find — and keep — good coaches who understand the sport and work well with kids. For some schools, simply finding a single applicant for an open coaching position is an ongoing reality, creating a constant sense of uncertainty relating to whether the school will be able to continue to support a specific team if they can’t find a coach. Today’s coaching issues are in contrast to generations of the past, where most school sports were coached by teachers in the building more than happy to take on the extra role and earn a few more dollars of pay. So, why are the problems finding good coaches today?
Crazy hours & low pay
While it is true that kids don’t have teams to play on without coaches, we certainly do not treat coaches as though they are that important when we take a closer look. Most experts agree that sport participation plays an invaluable role in human development and mental health for kids, yet we do not prioritize coach pay to match with the responsibilities we place on them. In most schools across America today more than 50% of the student body participate in interscholastic sports, yet finding quality coaches to lead kids is more difficult with each year that passes. The teacher-coaches left long ago (in some districts not a single teacher coaches in the school), and now we are seeing similar challenges in finding quality adults from local communities take on school coaching positions. When there are no adults to coach, teams dissolve, and kids lose out.
Some would-be coaches voice their concerns around “crazy parents” and decide against coaching, but that is not the primary reason why it has become so difficult to find coaches these days. Truth be known, schools need coaches, but schools generally do not pay coaches very well (in fact, they usually pay quite poorly), and the hours a coach works includes early mornings, late nights, and weekends. Would you coach a high school team for 3-4 months that regularly expected you to run morning practices (often at the school by 6AM, if not earlier), late nights (sometimes not over until after 9PM), and weekends — and to do all that for a stipend of maybe a couple thousand dollars total? It’s doubtful that you would, and herein lies the problems that school across the country currently face, a problem that does not appear to have an answer in sight under the current fiscal straits and expectations we hold for school coaches.
The bottom line is this: As long as schools provide sports to kids, there will be a need for quality coaches to oversee and lead teams. The expectations for coaches have changed in recent years, and today’s school coaches are expected to put in long hours, often at unusual times. Unfortunately, while the demands for coaches have risen, the pay has not, resulting in fewer adults interested in coaching school sports — leaving millions of kids at-risk for a future with limited sport opportunities.
Final thoughts
School sports are vitally important to kids for their physical and mental health, yet we don’t seem to prioritize this fact when analyzing how we pay coaches today. For some schools, a coach is hired simply because he or she was the only person to apply for the job, while other schools have cut teams entirely when no coaches show interest in coaching. Big changes will need to be made in the years ahead if we are to continue to offer kids interscholastic sports, starting with a prioritization of better coach pay, as well as support if we are to continue expecting coaches to work late nights, early mornings, and most weekends.
drstankovich.com
