Volunteer Assistant Coaches: Is it OK to compete?

Just do it. Make sure you beat your athletes otherwise they will stick it to you and your coaching expertise pretty much will be in shambles.

Assert authority on the track, gain respect, coach smart and well.

It's a bit different I think between a volunteer assistant and a real (paid) position. Some of these volunteer assistant cases for the likes of Jenny are simply to not run afoul of NCAA regulations if you train with a team.

But if you really ARE a head/asst coach and paid for it, I think you need to keep the focus on your athletes, not yourself. And where the conflict normally comes is in racing not training. Teams normally only train for 2-3 hours in a day, so its not hard to find training time. But it's difficult to be doing your best for the athletes you coach, if you're thinking about your own race in the same meet. So what it comes down to is that if you're doing your job, you don't get to race that much.

What kind of asshole would have a problem with their coach running a few races? Wouldn't you rather have a coach that could compete and train with you?