College Coaches

what do they do all day? wrote:

I just had an arguement with another runner on my team about collge coaches. He said they only work 2-3 hours/day, but I just don't see that.

I was under the impression coaches worked long hours...doing what, i'm not sure.

Can someone elaborate on how long coaches work per day (in season and off season), and what they are doing all day?

Thanks.

It depends. It's whatever the coach wants to make of it. Some coaches work long hours doing paperwork, training plans, multiple practices, recruiting, budgeting, scheduling, meeting with athletes, etc. It can be an 80+ hour work week once you include travel to competitions.

Many coaches don't do crap though. They barely work at it. I know DI coaches that basically show up to practice a few days a week and do nothing else. Some don't even build a training plan, they just kinda make it up as they go along. They get paid a full time salary, but since most collegiate Athletic Departments don't care about cross country and track, they are not held accountable.

So, I guess you are both right.

6:00-7:00AM MORNING PRACTICE, WEIGHTS AND RUNNING

1:30-3:00 SPRINTERS

3:15-4:30 Middle Distance/ Long Distance

4:30:5:30 Throwers

7:00- 9:00 Recruit..........Which means during the day I have to get a hold of high school kids numbers.

The following is a pretty typical day. Obviously some things change depending on the time of year, whether runners are in season or out, and whether or not we're heading away for a meet. But a regular day goes as follows:

8:00 AM - Show up at the office, check and respond to e-mail and phone messages.

8:15 AM - Head over to the cafeteria and eat breakfast with some of the kids on the team, Shoot the shit, talk about the upcoming day's workout, recent race performances, make fun of the obese kids walking in and out of the dining hall, etc. My time to pretend I'm 19 again.

9:00 AM - Back in the office for a weekly meeting with our compliance director, to make sure some of the dummies on our team are actually hitting the books.

9:15 AM - Call up a couple of runners on the team and tell them to get on their dumb teammates asses. This usually digresses into more shit shooting and talking trash about other runners/teams/coaches in the conference.

9:45 AM - Athletics Department weekly briefing where all the coaches update the AD on the progress and goals of the team. I usually read the latest article on the team in the school paper and recite this verbatim. No one has noticed in the five years that I've been here.

10:30 AM - Daily sit down with the Director of XC/Track and Field Operations and get budget updates, information on our invites, etc.

11:00 AM - Time for lunch with other Head Coaches and athletics staff in the main complex. Usually have to listen to bickering between the Football and Basketball coaches about which team is more profitable. The Water Polo coach also enjoys turning these lunches into personal campaigns for more funding.

12:00 PM - Back at my desk to browse Letsrun, check up on other results from our Conference, and share funny Youtube videos with my assistant coach.

1:00 PM - I hit the restroom and then jump on my golfcart and head on out to the practice track.

1:30 PM - Talk to the team about the day's workout, big meets coming up, and anything else running related.

2:00 PM - Supervise the workout. This usually means standing on the track and yelling while my assistant does most of the "heavy lifting" (taking splits, etc.) My favorite is when we do repeats out on the golf course - we just drive around and harass the guys (it's motivation, really).

4:30 PM - Grab a post-practice meal with the team and head home, unless it's recruiting season in which case:

5:30 PM - Back in the office working on recruiting. I call up the main prospects, send out e-mails, sort through piles of applications, and beg our admissions department to let this kid with a 2.7 and an 1800 into our fine institution.

5:00/6:30 PM - I call it a night.

D1 Coach wrote:

...My time to pretend I'm 19 again.

.

Isn't this pretty much why most ex-runners want to coach? (I hear that "Glory Days" song by Bruce Springsteen in my head right now)

recruiting recruiting recruiting- 60 hours a week- tell your friend he's a loser- 2-3 hours a day? You guys must be great!

I\'d love to know what school or at least conference you are coaching at. This sounds like a kick ass job. How good is your team. Give as much information as possible please.

raining blood wrote:

I'd love to know what school or at least conference you are coaching at. This sounds like a kick ass job. How good is your team. Give as much information as possible please.

I'm afraid I can't give any detailed information, I wouldn't want to get fired :)

What I will say is that if you think being a coach is something you really want to do, then go for it. But the schedule above is the culmination of around 10 years of less than glamorous coaching work.

In order to truly enjoy the profession, you have to find the right school for you. In my case, our AD is a stand up character who really gives most of the coaches a fair amount of personal responsibility and flexibility to do their jobs. The facilities are great, the student body supports athletics, and things are going well.

And if you're thinking you're going to get a lot of cash, you should know that the salary isn't astronomical by any means. But it pays the bills, and the way I see it is that it's more money than I should be getting for this job.

Looks like Boise State

Why don't you teach any classes?

raining blood wrote:

I'd love to know what school or at least conference you are coaching at. This sounds like a kick ass job. How good is your team. Give as much information as possible please.

Definitely sounds kickass. Alternating between schmoozing the higher-ups, and dicking around with the lower-downs (athletes), with some random internet browsing thrown in the mix. Hell, that's basically what I do now in college, except I'm paying the $$$ to be here, instead of the other way around... Plus, anything that involves driving a golf cart is pretty sweet.

shock the monkey wrote:

raining blood wrote:

I'd love to know what school or at least conference you are coaching at. This sounds like a kick ass job. How good is your team. Give as much information as possible please.

Definitely sounds kickass. Alternating between schmoozing the higher-ups, and dicking around with the lower-downs (athletes), with some random internet browsing thrown in the mix. Hell, that's basically what I do now in college, except I'm paying the $$$ to be here, instead of the other way around... Plus, anything that involves driving a golf cart is pretty sweet.

Coaching is what you make of it. You can put as much or as little as you want. This is true of most jobs. There are lazy jerks in every profession. Coaching is no different. You can get away with lazyiness in a lot of careers. Don't mess over young athletes by going into coaching if you just want to do it so you can be lazy and act like your 19. Go find another career to scam your employer where you will only hurt "the man's" bottom line, and won't waste the few precious years of college running athletes have.

At my last school, for the first five years or so I worked seven days/week. Days off totalled something under one month, for those five years combined (this included taking a few days for my mom's funeral).

I was coach of men's and women's track and field and cross-country. Most of the time I had a (very) part-time assistant, whom I would let coach his/her specialty; I coached everything else. Tried to get assistants to do some recruiting, but they generally felt that the 30-40 hours/week (including travel)--that they spent actually coaching--pretty much satisfied the ~$2-3k they made each year. (Hard to argue this point.)

Taught 8am class, M-F; twice per week, last evening class ended at 9:30pm. Teaching responsibilities were typically ~20 hours/week; individual meetings with students, ~5 hrs/wk; recruiting, ~20 hrs/wk; workouts and workout prep, ~20 hrs; meets and meet travel, ~10 average (some overnights, but of course also some weeks off e.g. during the summer); paperwork (entries, eligibility, etc., etc.) ~5 average. I think that comes to about 80 hours, though that varied widely: not much more than 40, some weeks in the summer; not less than 100 (including travel/overnighting), some weeks in season.

For this I was paid what would now (I guess) be ~$30-35k.

And my teams, for the most part, sucked, though we were a lot better at the end of the five years than at the beginning.

There are many different set-ups for college coaches. I personally have one that is great and works out the best for everyone involved.

I am the men's cross country coach and mid/distance track coach. I have no set office hours by the AD and don't have to be in the office at all. Any and all paper work can be done from my house, as well as recruiting. My house in on the corner of campus and if I need to meet a recruit or talk to one of my student/athletes I can meet them on campus or they can meet me at my house.

I have recruited about 60 - 80 kids this year and have landed some solid ones, all without talking to most of all of them on the phone. Emailing works just fine and you can skip over all the useless akward moments on the phone. In addition, they can answer your emails when they have time, just like I can answer theirs when I have time. Talking on the phone puts more pressure than I would like to put on the recruits. I believe that I have talked on the phone this year about, 4 hours to recruits. I have sent out hundreds of emails but those can be sent whenever and whereever.

I usually watch at least one movie a day, sometimes two. Thanks blockbuster-online. Not much television watching. This is all in addition to me getting out in the morning and doing my own training.

Our team is going great right now and we look to have a few people that might make nationals.

In a given day I would say this is the breakdown of what is done:

Get up 7:00 a.m.

1 1/2 hours of my training

Eat Breakfast - catch headline news for 30 minutes

Get online and check email 1/2 hour

Update a webpage for an hour for work

Check email again, and respond back

Watch a movie

Eat lunch (1/2 hour)

email (1/2 hour)

make final changes to workouts for the day/make final notes to go over at practice(15 min)

Team meeting/workout-run/talk to guys after run (2 hours)

Dinner (1/2)

Movie or television (1 1/2 hours)

Email while watchin movie or television

I have a girlfriend and we do a lot of this together. My job is certainly not normally but is great for many reasons. The guys are great and get all the attention the need. I get to take care of them without having to eat with other coaches or communicate back to the AD as he knows we are getting very good results.

So in recap:

No phone calls, mostly only emails - still get good recruits

no office hours wasting time in the office, everything is done from home, which is right next to campus

workout schedule is created before season and small changes are made throughout each week. it doesn't take much time to make a great training plan that is individualized to your athletes if you know them well enough.

I watch a lot of movies and train in the morning and get to hang out with my girlfriend a good portion of the day.

The team is not neglected but instead gets plenty of attention when they need it and the team is doing very well.

Not a normal situation but a good one for me. Hope this offers a different perspective.