Any Coaches out there thinking about not doing it anymore?

This is an interesting thread as I am gathering materials for a college course where one of the modules is on coach well-being and burn out is part of it. Below are 2 papers I came across. Not sure how easy it will be get them.

College Coaches’ Experiences

With Stress—“Problem Solvers”

Have Problems, Too

Can Learning Self-Regulatory

Competencies Through a Guided

Intervention Improve Coaches’ Burnout

Symptoms and Well-Being?

D1 xc head coach here. Assistant track coach. Under 40 yrs old. I've been keeping my eye out for an exit strategy for a few years now. The lack thereof has probably kept me in the game but it's been borderline miserable. My wife tells me to start getting angry, get fired, and go work for McDonald's as I'd be making about the same as a fast food manager.

All my athletes are great; I feel we have a fantastic team culture and they respect me and do the work they need to do. Nearly every one of them is improving as well. The fatigue is coming from the absolute lack of interest from the head track coach in having a decent cross country team and also from the athletic director that forgets that we have a cross country team (literally). We get very good improvement out of our athletes but just don't have the funding to get people good enough to start with to make a significant impact and therefore we're not that good. I'm way too competitive to be bottom half of our conference every year. Instead, 90% of my time is meet management, travel arrangements, budgeting, equipment, academic concerns, and recruiting (which is incredibly frustrating with almost no funds to work with). I have a couple kids and a wife that are growing in frustration by my absence every weekend. My kids are doing their own sports but I have to be with other people's kids instead. That alone is becoming an issue as well for me as far as value is concerned.

Rants aside, it's not a fun job. I wish I found more fulfillment out of it. I see a lot of coaches say it's the best job in the world and I wonder what I'm missing...

Going to add to my complaining above:

The extra tasks that come with college coaching are horrible. CARA logs, logging recruiting contacts/evals, tip-toeing through the rule book, annual recruiting exams, endless meetings/presentations about consent, suicide prevention, gender issues, etc., staff meetings, and so on.

Lastly, I don't feel it's a job that you can be successful at and have a healthy family relationship. Most the coaches I know and work with are single and literally have nothing else in their lives. It's borderline pathological. I'm trying to keep my family together which takes up most my evenings when I could be/should be recruiting. So instead of being just that much better as a team, I take the hit so I keep my wife and kids in my life. But, as a competitive person, it's painful to lose to teams with more resources and to coaches that do nothing else in their lives but coach.

/rant

Absolutely loved my college coaching gig until we had kids. I never minded the long hours unending phone calls or crazy paperwork until I felt it robbing me of time with my young children. I fortunately had a great exit opportunity and then enjoyed a bunch of years as a volunteer coach. That is a fun gig for sure.

Yes. California is changing high school start times next year. School will start later, and run later in the day.

I've lost count the number of coaches I know of, who are all quitting after this year.

TieMoonie wrote:

I went from coaching HS all 3 seasons to giving it up about 2 years ago. I coached for 15+ years and all the extra crap drove me nuts, Kids not coming to practice, all new rules every season - not allowed to run on roads anymore, kids skipping weekend meets for club lacrosse or soccer, ahole parents, .....

I started up a club team made of HS kids that WANT to run, We go to more than enough invites up and down the East Coast that don't last 12 hours. They are seen by more college coaches than before. No more fat camp kids, parents that are supportive.

Should have done it a long time ago.

This ^

High school sports should be club. Period.

I am coming off my head coaching xc job for this season at a high school. I love it but it is a commitment of 4+ hours per day in season and 5 days per week over the summer if I want to have a successful team. All that for about 4k of a stipend from June to December.

It's difficult when you have a family. Thankfully I have one that has understood my passion. Honestly, it does wear on me, especially toward the end of the season where all of the neglected tasks at my regular job starts to bite me. I own a company and lose out on about 1k of income per week because of my absence as I leave my work each day at 1:30.

I am always afraid to leave it even when I am bogged down because the great moments are absolutely priceless. If I stepped away and tried to return at some point it would be difficult to rebuild a team's culture which can take several years.

oldcrowbar13 wrote:

Absolutely loved my college coaching gig until we had kids. I never minded the long hours unending phone calls or crazy paperwork until I felt it robbing me of time with my young children. I fortunately had a great exit opportunity and then enjoyed a bunch of years as a volunteer coach. That is a fun gig for sure.

The majority of the time the kids are great. It just takes one or two kids who ruin it for you because they aren’t doing well and want to blame everything on you. Or they aren’t good as the travel squad and want to destroy you behind the scenes. Being successful requires so much effort and it gets completely undone by The self righteous unaccountable kids.

Even when enjoying success at the national level with good kids. …. You get quickly reminded that you’re efforts are being undermined. I’d rather enjoy my family life where only they can judge me.

For this reason I’m quitting my job as head coach of NAU

For this reason I’m quitting my job as head coach of NAU[/quote]

You wish. Nice try BYU or whoever....

I left college coaching (XC only no Track team) in July after 20 seasons at my alma mater. Was very sad to go, knew I would miss the in-season part of the year and working with the student-athletes A TON and no surprise I did. I felt that some disrespect issues had become more and more of a thing at the school I was at and despite multiple assurances that they would be resolved over the past 3 or so years our administration continue to do some things that I felt moved the needle even further away from the direction they should be going. 2 deal-breaker type situations occurred in May-June-July, I gave notice and was gone.

The other issue was my full-time job (coaching was very part-time) had just added a big fall event coming out of covid lockdowns that was scheduled for conference championship weekend. For 4 months I had been trying to figure out how the heck that was going to work for me. In hindsight, having just gotten past our major event, there was no way I would have been able to do both.

Fortunately the team was very senior-heavy this year and those guys are very capable. Had there been more younger runners on the team I don't think I would have resigned a month before preseason opened. Most of the guys ended up having a pretty good season and the team was up a few spots at conference and Regionals, which was no surprise to me. I'm very pleased that they were able to do that and wish these guys and the program nothing but the best going forward.

Some of the things I won't miss... Pointless staff meetings where 95% of the time is spent having department heads read their items off an agenda. Tell me again why you couldn't just have emailed that info to us?... Zoom meetings where the stated goal is to talk big picture operating philosophies but the Lacrosse coach or Hockey coach or Baseball coach who clearly hasn't been paying attention hijacks the meeting with a side topic about something specific to their program and the facilitator doesn't have the sense to shut that down right away... XC championship meets that start at 1:00 or 2:00 in the afternoon when we have a 6-7-8 hour drive back to campus and classes the next day - when there were no races at the venue in the morning and it sure seems like it would have been a heck of a lot easier on our student-athletes to have those races wrapped up by noon...

The things I'm already missing... Afternoons as summer moves into fall and we're moving out of the stretch circle and starting our mileage... Hanging out at the start/finish of our interval spots with the stopwatch giving times... Having a bunch of guys to work with who show up motivated to be better today than they were yesterday... Jogging around courses on raceday knowing my guys aren't the best but that our training was good and if they execute their game plan they're going to surprise a lot of people... Showing these guys some of my favorite training routes in the area and discovering a few new ones every year...

20 years went by way too fast!

I left 9 years ago as I am fortunate to have lots of other hobbies and I'm thankful for that. Easy transition. I know to many people still in the game because it's their life and all they do is bxtch and complain. Unappreciative kids, THE parents, or Unappreciative kids enabled by The parents. The district I teach and coached in is rather large with mucho politics that take precedence over the right decision. Back to the parents...one 3 week stretch.....as they were their own circus. One parents asked a female athlete, "How do you run with those big bxxbs without punching yourself in the face?". Another parent admits to stealing approximately $20K from the booster club account. Another parent's son is beyond harassing a female athlete and I'm not permitted to boot him from the team. The common denominator between all of these parents....they are all employed by the district and really had no ramifications. One is an AP, one is a long time teacher, and the other is an upper level administrative assistant. I said this was a circus and they are not my monkeys. I had to go before they got me in trouble... I'm just no good at drama. Fortunate for me I'm more than happy to have the opportunity to go to some pretty good meets in CA as a fan! Perhaps another day but in ANOTHER district as I do miss the coaching aspect. The planning. Attending clinics. Summer practices. But coaching turned into a lousy job putting fires out 90% of the time.

I agree

High Schooln XC Coach makes a great point. You should be delegating a lot of the things that you don't like to do or aren't part of the "core" of coaching. If you ask nicely, parents are usually very open to help with things like team dinners, fundraising, etc. I know some coaches who pay their assistant or a parent to handle a lot of the paperwork. If you are thinking about leaving, is it because of all the ancillary stuff you described? If so, you can delegate a lot of that stuff out and focus on the parts you enjoy more.

I recently gave up a nearly 20 year high school coaching gig (head XC & distance track coach).

I enjoyed it...until I didn't. Then, I stopped.

In retrospect, I gave up a lot of my life for the betterment of others. In that sense, I have something to show for it. I care for those runners like they're my own children. But, in other ways, I don't have anything to show either. I hope that makes sense. I gave up so many summers, weekends, & evenings over the years.

I think I would keep coaching, but my time has become more valuable as I get older & my time on earth is shortening. I would rather spend the summer time traveling with my wife than be tethered to the school for Summer Running (for a mere hour+ a day). I still get mad thinking about how many summers I spent doing nothing but Summer Running! Argh!

Do I miss coaching? Absolutely. Will I go back? Um, the juror is still out, but I doubt it. I'm almost done with teaching career & will be retiring in a few years.

The NAU coach I believe has a bachelors degree in psychology. I think it’s major reason why his program is so successful. It’s mental gymnastics to be a coach, teacher, manager, or leader of any kind.

You need to be able to psychologically handle those you’re leading. While at the same time taking your imperfect mental health into account. This is why it’s so important to have mentors and outside support. ADs are not that for XC/Track. Let’s be honest most of them just want good football and basketball teams.

My suggestion is get to yourself in a support network. See a counselor once a month that is familiar with athletics. It’s only getting worse in society. Get all the support you can get if you want to continue coaching or leading in general.

21 year veteran of college coaching - power 5 D1 assistant…want out. Tired of the BS. Coaches used to be important, now we are the bottom of totem pole…it’s admins, behavioral health, academics, trainers, athletes, then coaches…we are at the bottom. No accountability anymore. Kids do what they want and medical/admin supports them. Kids are changing for the worse and suits in admin that never made JV think they known it all and are only concerned with themselves and getting rich. Politics run rampant…ADs want to be woke but have no idea of real issues. They talk student athlete well being but never talk to student athletes! Title 9 is a farce. My minority females have comparatively less today than they did 5 years ago. It’s dysfunctional. Transfer portal just makes for more cheating and less accountability. I will move to private sector where hard work and success is rewarded and getting the job done is important. If you are gonna work your ass off you may as well get paid real money! I will miss track meets, maybe…I won’t miss the job. The job sucks now.

You get it.

You get it too.

Did the same for 35 years at hs level as an assistant and head coach. I hear you. Im fi ding that I can actually enjoy being a spectator at high quality meets again. Yeah, I mis the kids and the relationships but it wasnt always rainbows and butterflies for sure. Maybe ill get back to it in some capacity someday, hs, club, D3 or D2 in our area but probably not in the next few years. Ive thought a lot about officiating but I'd miss most of the meet as a spectator :) I had my time, great experiences etc...but Im ok with the extra time for family and new relationships, outdoors, travel etc...that I never had/made before.

Separation/Withdrawl is hard for coaches that have that passion. But your heart, gut tells you when its time. The brain catches up after you finally let go. Some people just need a break for awhile and get recharged for another go with a new perspective. Im hopeful, but im also ok if it doesnt happen.