Are the personal lives of being a Collegiate Coach very stressful?

Maybe it should be a law that coaches need to remain single. That way, no conflicts in the personal realm of things. I know I sound very cynical, but hey, that's life, right?

Wow, imagine the pressure if any significant number of people paid attention to this sport.

If a D1 coach collapses on the track, do they make a noise?

random a hole wrote:

Wow, imagine the pressure if any significant number of people paid attention to this sport.

If a D1 coach collapses on the track, do they make a noise?

lol good point, I wonder how D1 xc coaching campares to D1 football in terms of strees/time

the one thing i noticed about college coaches is they answer their email within 2 secs of emailing them

in HS email wasnt big back then and it wasnt an acceptable method of communication...

That's because their "inbox" is lit up like a Christmas tree. Recruits, questionnaires, school junk, conference junk, NCAA junk, entries, etc., etc.

They respond before it gets buried.

Plus they have absolutely nothing better to do than surf letsrun.

Re: "Almost any career that is a "vocation" rather than a "job" can be consuming." Good Point!

Try running a business or being an OBGYN.

Coaching at any level is what you make it. I've known many DI coaches who work 12-16 hour days. I've known others who spend far more time on the golf course than they do on the track or in their office. If you are truly successful it is far more demanding and stressful than the guy with 9-5 job and 4 weeks vacation.

No way Jose wrote:

SomeCoach,

Uh...I coached HS too, not even a comparison. And yes I taught college classes too.

As mentioned above, don't comment on something you aren't doing. I don't tell Ryan Hall how to train for marathons.

And I can PROMISE you make more as a public HS teacher/coach then the majority of college xc/track coaches.

That's complete Bullshit. Many of these college XC/Track coaches are making $150K+ a year and some WELL into the six figures. Tell me one HS XC/Track coach that makes $100K a year?

Your basic premise is wrong. If they can't do their job in a normal work day, they are either incompetent or BSing someone - probably the AD.

Porn Addict wrote:

No way Jose wrote:

SomeCoach,

Uh...I coached HS too, not even a comparison. And yes I taught college classes too.

As mentioned above, don't comment on something you aren't doing. I don't tell Ryan Hall how to train for marathons.

And I can PROMISE you make more as a public HS teacher/coach then the majority of college xc/track coaches.

That's complete Bullshit. Many of these college XC/Track coaches are making $150K+ a year and some WELL into the six figures. Tell me one HS XC/Track coach that makes $100K a year?

He said the majority. I can assure you that I know dozens of coaches at the surrounding schools and schools in our conference that make less than $35,000. You have to realize that there are 600 + non-Division I coaching jobs there. Most of all those jobs pay less than $50,000. Even only the top 40 - 50 schools in Div I probably pay more. Although those are rough estimates, I can assure you that it has been researched heavily by me, friends and others on this board. Pretty much the reason there are a lot of bums in the coaching ranks now as it doesn't make sense to put in all the work and effort for $24,000 at a top track and competitive cc program like I did for a few years.

Agree 100%. I got out of college coaching because I can easily make more money and spend more time with my family as a high school coach. It's a fact and the salary levels of collegiate coaches has been discussed on this board many times.

Thats what did it for me was the Money. I loved it, but I could not support my family on coaching love.

Had to move onto a better paying job.

If you have lots of money in the bank, and plenty of time then coaching is a good vocation.

There have been so many valid points made by the college coaches out there. High school teaching (and coaching) is certainly a difficult profession, but simply very different than college coaching.

Some people recommend that if there's so much to complain about just quit. I did exactly that and I'm much happier than I've ever been.

First, you are paid between $15,000 - $25,000 for a few years, maybe even 20 years. This means that you either have to live in a crappy house, work another job, or spend no money... possibly all three.

However, college coaches have bosses (either head coaches or athletic directors) that expect you to dress nicely without paying you to do so. Try getting another job when you are away all weekends, work late nights, and are expected in the office early in the morning. And, well cheap housing close to colleges can be tough.

If you are able to overcome those problems and survive without having money, you are then challenged with 80 hour work weeks. If your boss requires office hours, you'll be sitting behind a desk all day, at practice all afternoon, recruiting some of the night, and then from Thursday night to Sunday morning, you'll be at meets. Most teams in the west, midwest, south, and a majority of D1 teams have to travel pretty good distances to all their meets. As many coaches have alluded to, during your free time at night, you're getting email from students explaining that they are sick or behind in classes and why that is complicating their schedules. The more discipline instilled in a team the more excuses you hear. If you run a less disciplined team, they probably won't excel.

As a college coach, I was not allowed to have an assistant. I worked with about 50 athletes. However, I was expected to give each one personal attention. So throughout a day, I was expected to have 3-5 practices a day for each event group, such as throws or pole vault. If I didn't, I'd get yelled at and they would have simply replaced me with another coach willing to work for $16,000 a year.

Since college communities are so small, when I did finally find some free time to go out, it was frowned upon by the administration. So if I wanted to simply have a beer, I would have to travel far away to a few towns over.

What makes all this worse is that anyone that does stay in this profession either had an easier road to the top (especially the older people) or they have very mixed up priorities that don't include family or friends. Thus your bosses have no understanding of priorities and keep demanding that your entire life be based around the program.

I really loved coaching, always improved my athletes, helped them win titles, awards, etc. Ironically, I would be the only coach on campus and working with athletes during championship season because they were all my athletes were competing at Nationals. Every other coach that was not successful got to go on vacation and enjoy lots of free time.

Despite this success, there was never any reward, not financial, nor a pat on the back. If anything the other coaches felt threatened by success. These very people in our administration turned these positive rewarding experiences into something negative.

I now work in a different industry. I make four times as much and work half as hard. I no longer fear the administration's ridiculous temper. Via the way I was treated and the amount I was payed, I felt like I was not respected.

Just wanted to provide some insight. There's a lot to love about coaching, but unfortunately there is a lot of important negatives.

To give a different perspective of the college coaching ranks than that of my own, consider this. A NCAA Div I current top 10 cc coach, gets paid nearly $90,000, doesn't do travel arrangements or paperwork, as someone else does that job. In addition, the coach doesn't figure out and give goal paces/splits for the athletes track workouts, they just run hard. When asked about it, the response was something to the extent of, "I got a family, I don't have time to think about running all day."

So there are coaches out there that make family a priority. Some would say that the lack of effort in structuring workouts is a sign of a bad coach but they were top 10 again this year.

It is up to each to find their own balance or get out of the game completely.