complaining about a coach

Let me know what school and I can help I work in the NAIA and have some connections.

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some advice wrote:

Here’s the situation The coach is the one who not only I, but a lot of other runners have a problem with.
...Our Athletic Director hasn’t been too happy with him and even our coach has complained about him.

What should I do? I’ve sat down and talked to my coach, but it hasn’t helped at all.

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read a lot of running books so you're smarter than him and then tell him you can train yourself and that he can stay out of your business

Hey Outlaw, sorry about that. I understand what you got confused by (I reread what I said earlier). First off, the coach that I’m talking about is the head coach.

What I meant to say was that my head coach complains about our Athletic Director to us (myself and the other guys on the team).

To add on to what I said earlier, at times my head coach has said how he doesn’t care about getting his runners to nationals, but then flip-flops by saying he wants to be competitive.

What also hurts is how my head coach says how not only does he want us to perform good, but he wants our competitors to perform good also (he never did say that he wanted us to do better than our competition; he wants our competition to be as good as us). Now, I want a race where my competition is actually good, but I don’t want to hear my coach saying how he wants our competitors to do as good as us. He also said that he would cheer on the other competitors.

And for “how would you know”, what kind of connections do you have?

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some advice wrote:

And for “how would you know”, what kind of connections do you have?

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If you don't like his rules then leave his team. simple.

talk to the athletic director

Honestly, I don't think your coach sounds that out of the ordinary. I also ran for an NAIA school and my coach was like a carbon copy except mine was VERY concerned about how we did at Nat's (as well he should be and we generally did well). I used up all my eligibility and stayed at the school for five years despite not liking the coach as a person. He was a jerk, but he trained us right and got us ready to compete. Knowlegeable coach, zero bedside manner. It worked for me, but I guess it depends how sensitive you are and how much stroking/attention you need. Are you seeing your times drop from high school and making steady progress?

There are those coaches that know the science of training.

There are those coaches that can teach you about the sport and about life.

There are coaches that know how to treat people and get the athlete to recognize Respect, Responsibility and Pride.

There are coaches that lead by example, those that give 100% and ask nothing but 100% from you in return.

There are very few coaches who can do all of these things.

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dont do it wrote:

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some advice wrote:

And for “how would you know”, what kind of connections do you have?

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Probably none. He just wants to get you to expose your coach and school on letsrun. Not a good idea.

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Good example of why I don't coach small college teams. To many whinny crybabies who don't like rules and want to do what ever they feel like and will second guess and question everything the coach does.

There is a reason why you aren't on scholarship at a D1 school, its because you aren't good enough but you want everything perfect at your smaller school. Oh well, not going to happen. So how do you deal with it, by going on a public message board and complaining about stuff that ain't no real big deal. You decided to go there and you took the scholarship and you knew who the coach was. Suck it up and deal with it, ya little baby. Learn to make the best of the situation rather than complaining and being bitter.

If you get him fired from his job I at least hope you are man enough to go and apologise to his wife and kids afterwards. But you won't, hey what do you care, just so long as you get your way and there are no more rules in your life. But within a year you'll be back on here complaining about the new coach because he might have rules to or not phrase something the way you want him to.

I'm not just that #1 guy who's got a problem with him. There are plenty of other guys on the team who have the same beef with him also.

And when you have a coach who says inappropriate things (like spooning another athlete or says that he sleeps in the nude), that’s disgusting. He said those things when we were traveling to other meets where one of our athletes had to sleep in the same room or bed with him.

Why I still go to this school and put up with all this crap is because of all the caring people there are at this school, how good the teachers are, and how awesome the atmosphere is at the school. I didn’t choose this school because of the running. I chose this school because of the actual school.

Figuring that you’re a coach, I’m not stooping to your level and doing the name calling game. All I want is advice, none of this “how I’m not good enough to run for a D-1 school or how I’m a little baby”.

Also about him being fired, he’s the one who complains and blames us how he’s getting paid very little money, he doesn’t see his family at all, he said how he could just let this program fail, how he doesn’t see his kids enough, he blames us for him not having free time, and on and on. He’s the one who schedules the meets and schedules them during break (example: how he schedules a meet during spring break which at that time he could spend that week being with his family).

I have made the best of the situation. I’m enjoying the people around me and blocking out all the crap that’s surrounds me also. I’m not just coming on Letsrun.com to complain, I’m coming on Letsrun.com asking for advice from other people on what I should do because I’ve talked to other people who knows what situation I’m in.

"bed checks"?! What is this, a summer camp for 10-year-olds? I understand that he would want you guys to get enough sleep, but you're in COLLEGE. Anyone making inappropriate comments about spooning and treating his athletes like children has the wrong attitude about coaching. Get out, or talk to your AD about firing him. I know from experience that having a coach with a bad attitude can make running a lot less fun. If you want to enjoy running during and after college, you don't want it to be an activity associated with that coach.

The best way for us to tell what is your primary complaints is to see what you talked about and listed first. The first two complaints you listed are about his rules.

Then you saw that didn't fly well with others you immediately starting bringing the focus on the things he supposedly said. Hey, so maybe you don't get his sense of humor fine. But I think if everyone took him seriously he'd have been gone by end of day. Are those things approriate to say, no, but context is everything. Lots of people make jokes and its not the end of the world.

So you don't like the guy fine, but be a little clearer on what your beefs are and analyze why you don't like them. Not just because you don't like the guy and figure that you can get him outed by playing up stupid playful remarks like its the end of the world.

Spoiled kids, geez.

here's an idea:
you may decide to put together a list of grievances, it would look something like this:

11/15/08: sexual innuendo issued towards a teammate
3/10/09: told us he wants us to fail

something like that, i dont remember all the details. but make it clear and to the point.

review this with your teammates. Present it to him and tell him that you are looking for a leader, not a downer. If he doesn't change, then go to the AD with the same list, and his response to it.

Most likely, your AD doesn't care much about XC, so be careful--you don't want the program cut.

I've got news for you, this attitude is also at the D-I level. There are plenty of crybabies who will be in the AD's office at the drop of a hat. In D-I the athletes KNOW they have a shoulder to cry on, especially SWA's, who will entertain every single complaint. Topics range from, he yelled at us after a bad race, to we feel that more athletes should make the travel squad(even if they can't get into the meet!), to "we've heard other teams get to do x, and we want to as well, to we feel that using only a time criteria as the basis for selection to the conference team is wrong, to we feel the coach takes it too serious and is taking the fun out of it, to I spend as much time out here as the next guy, I deserve scholarship also. The list goes on and on. They don't care about the time a coach puts in behind the scenes. For most, the perception is that the coach is only working the 2-3 hours a day that they see him or her, but the biggest kick in the pants is the absolute sense of entitlement, and position that coaching is a service industry, and the coach is there to serve their every whim as an athlete, and if you don't, or can't, you(gasp) have failed them, and life will never be the same. Just my 2 cents.

Well said, and absolutely the truth.

All coaches are a little wacko.

As for the complaining about the amount of hours at work, little pay, and spending time with family, I think all coaches, and people in general do that, though for some reason coaches and teachers in general seem to do it the most.

With regards to the yelling and being weird in general, it sucks but one thing I've learned since starting work is that there are a lot of weird illogical people out there, and you're just going to have to learn to deal with that. Same for getting yelled at.

Just curious, what is a 'bed check'? He actually goes to everyone's apartment and dorm and checks everyone to see if they are sleeping? That could take hours if you guys lived off campus.

So you’re telling me that my coach saying those inappropriate sexual things is “ok” to joke around with? That it’s not the end of the world? The man admitted to us about how he had a sexual addiction in his past. He didn’t “supposedly” say this, he did say this! It’s not ok to joke around sexually around your athletes. You think a guy who coaches a girl’s cross country or track team is allowed to joke sexually around his athletes? You be the judge on that since you’re a so called “coach”.

The rules, I will say, suck. Were in college and I feel as though were being babysat by him by having bed checks and being in your room at midnight every day of the week. And one of our athletes has gone to our AD, but I don’t know the full details about what was said in that conversation, but supposedly that athlete is quitting.

I bet if you were in my situation you would be saying the exact same thing I’m saying now. You just don’t know. So I give thanks to everyone else for giving me advice and not being a complete jerk like this guy is being saying that I'm being spoiled. I'm not the one being spoiled when my coach is doing the things he's doing.