Why are so many coaches idiots?

Interviewing the coach wrote:

In my experience most coaches are ego driven and suffer from narcissistic personality disorder.

I don't know the kind of people you know but most coaches I know do it for the love of the sport and providing a platform for kids to become a better runner. But the people I hang with are generally the better coaches.

Even some coaches that may seem clueless, the "teachers" let's say do it for the kids. Even the ones who don't want to do it are out there for selfless reasons. The pay here is maybe 2k but that is usually spent in gas and meet entries and things for the team long before that big pay day comes in. Again, just the coaches I know.

There are a few a-holes. A few people who know nothing. But is this any different from your workplace. These comments here are the same for Google, start-ups, doctors.

If you know better take a coaching job. Volunteer. Make the sport better.

Just Wondering... wrote:

So much bitterness and self centeredness in this thread. Instead of complaining go coach. Report back when you knock FM off the podium.

The one guy above gave up and QUIT on his team apparently so he could go make more money for himself and now he is bashing the guy that took over.

Really sad.

In my experience, idiot coaches is the norm even at the NCAA D1 level. As far as I can tell, people who are smart enough to be decent coaches typically do something else with their life. That's more or the less the answer. Becoming a head coach can be a long process, and even once there it's not a very lucrative career (most places) if you want to have a family.

It really is astounding to me how clueless so many coaches are though. If you have one who even understands things like periodization, going balls out in workouts isn't smart, recovery is even more important than workouts, etc, consider yourself lucky. Our head track coach harassed me every day to run on a injury I was taking off for (I was still cross-training) and finally told me I had to run on it, so I did, and then I was out for the season. This was not an isolated incident. This coach had over 25 years of coaching experience. Another coach I had whose name would probably be recognized by every person on this board regularly runs his athletes into the ground and will make them keep running intervals even if they're 20+ seconds off the time they're supposed to be hitting for 800s (for example). His program is essentially a food blender, and I can name over a dozen runners off the top of my head whose careers have been ruined by this idiot/Ahole. I can only hope one of them seeks vengeance on him at some point so he will no longer destroy people's running careers.

The Real Donger wrote:

Interviewing the coach wrote:

In my experience most coaches are ego driven and suffer from narcissistic personality disorder.

I don't know the kind of people you know but most coaches I know do it for the love of the sport and providing a platform for kids to become a better runner. But the people I hang with are generally the better coaches.

Yes that's the trait of a good coach. My senior year HS coach and my second college coach wanted to get the athletes better and have the love for the sport.

I plan to coach HS because I love the sport and from what I went through in my first 3 years in HS, I want to make sure my athletes won't go through what I went through.

Coach wrote:

Boo was head coach at LSU?

My mistake, I thought he was but was actually head jumps coach at LSU it seems.

I wonder how many people on here had pretty good coaches and didn't know it. Letsrun attracts certain runners. One of those being the know-it-all. Maybe some of the people posting on here were just uncoachable people and would think any coach is an idiot.

Almost all members of the species homo sapiens are idiots. Why should coaches be any different?

answersplz wrote:

Real talk here. Why are so many coaches idiots? Never experienced this myself, but I keep hearing stories of people with coaches that don't understand the sport. Anyone wanna chime in on this?

They start off as athletes

singtomefreddie wrote:

answersplz wrote:

Real talk here. Why are so many coaches idiots? Never experienced this myself, but I keep hearing stories of people with coaches that don't understand the sport. Anyone wanna chime in on this?

They start off as athletes

^MALE althletes (usually)

singtomefreddie wrote:

answersplz wrote:

Real talk here. Why are so many coaches idiots? Never experienced this myself, but I keep hearing stories of people with coaches that don't understand the sport. Anyone wanna chime in on this?

They start off as athletes

I for one try to be the best coach I can possibly be, I've dedicated myself to learning as much as I can about the sports I coach and having an involvement that goes beyond my own experience as an athlete. To me, that's imperative, especially in coaching track and field.

But I will confess being bad something many coaches are bad about: we bolster our learning in areas where we're already sufficient instead of where we're deficient instead. In example, despite knowing I need more education in throws I went to seminars on sprints instead at the recent USATF convention, even though that's already my area of expertise. I WANT of course to hear what Loren Seagrave is saying about sprints more than I naturally am motivated to learning about throws. So, after that experience I learned that next time I have to force myself to also strengthen my learning in areas that appeal to me less, because they're areas I have the least training in already. I think many of us are kinda that way, tbh.

I understand your frustrations and anger, and am hopeful that your therapist is working on some form of progress for you. Your assumption was actually in the ballpark, but on the wrong end of the field. I was a coach who came along when a head coach was already there. I was in charge of the distance runners. Soon, it became apparent that the head coach, while doing his best, was only repeating things he read in RW and coaching biographies. I even went as far as to use terms like "I had them do a turtle run today", and the coach nodded and said "Hmm, I like those, keep it up" Later when asked what was a turtle run, he had no idea. So, as you see, I was actually defending the head coach, even though he was not experienced as me in long distance running or training, he was in fact, someone who was willing to be there daily. And, for the 8 years I was there, we won class state titles 3 times and the state open title 2 times. Yes, they overlapped. But, he has developed into a coach who now, knows a little about each event. And, spends countless hours with the team, away from his family during indoor track especially.