As I see that there is some disagreement on this subject in other places, I wanted to place the question:
What in your mind does it take to be a coach?
Please provide evidence of your experiences with coaches of different kinds, as this qualifies what you are saying.
Take for instance:
My father, coached cross-country, track and wrestling. His past experience was as a state wrestling champion, runner-up in the 800 and then as a marathon runner after college (late 60's all the way through today). He coached all of these at the high school level, and also coached at the college level (it was NAIA or DIII, I don't know which). He also was an assistant coach at my high school my last two years. I feel that he is a qualified coach because of his experience at many different levels. He read up on what he did and worked hard at it. Does his lack of high level coaching make him ill-suited to be a coach of a professional athlete, or have his athletes call him by the title "Coach"? I personally don't think so.
But I would like to hear other opinions on this.
Or take for instance my high school coach, who ran track in HS and then played football and baseball in college. Yea, he has his USATF certificate and officiated at Olympics and coached on an olympic team, but I am sure that he had to start somewhere and that his first year out they called him "coach."
Then, where should coaches begin? What do you think that it takes to be a "COACH"?
Thanks