To those who constantly complain about your coach or your kid's coach consider the pay into your evaluations

I would agree that HS coaches are not making much (aside from the major sports).

I am not sure how many HS coaches are flying all over the country attending coaching conferences though.

They were aware of the pay when they took the job. Turn down the job if you can’t commit to doing a good job for the pay offered.

I volunteer at a free healthcare clinic fairly regularly. Should I be a shitty doctor while I’m volunteering just because I’m not getting paid? I think not.

I don’t tend to judge people (coaches included) very harshly, but if I do have a criticism, the person’s salary won’t factor into the assessment. If you’ve committed to doing a job, do the job well.

That makes sense. We should cut them some slack.

I guess the talented ones have to put extra effort into self-training by looking at running books, blogs, and videos if their high school coach is inadequate.

I volunteer too wrote:

They were aware of the pay when they took the job. Turn down the job if you can’t commit to doing a good job for the pay offered.

I volunteer at a free healthcare clinic fairly regularly. Should I be a shitty doctor while I’m volunteering just because I’m not getting paid? I think not.

I don’t tend to judge people (coaches included) very harshly, but if I do have a criticism, the person’s salary won’t factor into the assessment. If you’ve committed to doing a job, do the job well.

First off, thank you for volunteering.

I think this situation is a little different in that you are volunteering within your profession.

Gosh

Somebody seems bitter!

All coaches are also certified teachers in Texas and make $50,000 per year on average plus stipends that bring them closer to $60k. Sorry you guys are from crappy liberal states lol

Luv2Run wrote:

I would agree that HS coaches are not making much (aside from the major sports).

I am not sure how many HS coaches are flying all over the country attending coaching conferences though.

True, we make about 3K and work with the athletes from late June until early December for that.

I have been to some of the certifications around the country and there are many HS coaches from all around. I also know quite a few in my area that have traveled very far for clinics and certifications. I have actually paid more for coaching education than I have received in compensation.

In a way I think it is good because it keeps some of the teachers that have no experience in the sport uninterested in coaching. I have a feeling if they paid more the union would take a hold of it and require that teachers only can coach.

Low pay is no excuse for mediocrity. A bad coach is worse than no coach. In fact a bad coach will make you SLOWER than if you had no coach at all and just jogged around.

Want to know if your coach is good or not?

How long have they been on the job?

How many champs have they had?

Is the team currently good or does your coach talk about the good old days and how the team used to be good?

Where does the team place at conference/section/state?

Are they successful every year?

Do the runners progress season to season, year to year?

Does the team peak when it counts?

No amount of money is worth the incessant whining, complaining and meddling that high school parents dole out to their kids' coaches. Not a job for me, that is for sure!

This is a garbage argument. I think our CC is paid a $900 supplement. Nobody is going into debt to coach CC.

I volunteer too wrote:

They were aware of the pay when they took the job. Turn down the job if you can’t commit to doing a good job for the pay offered.

I volunteer at a free healthcare clinic fairly regularly. Should I be a shitty doctor while I’m volunteering just because I’m not getting paid? I think not.

I don’t tend to judge people (coaches included) very harshly, but if I do have a criticism, the person’s salary won’t factor into the assessment. If you’ve committed to doing a job, do the job well.

The point is good coaches DO turn down the job, which is why parents shouldn’t complain when they get bad coaching.

Try volunteering at that clinic 2-3 hours a day and 8 hours on Saturdays. Then have those patient’s parents get upset at you because of the genetic disorders they gave their kids and you’ll be in a similar position to a high school XC/TF coach.

MediocreCoachSpotter wrote:

Low pay is no excuse for mediocrity. A bad coach is worse than no coach. In fact a bad coach will make you SLOWER than if you had no coach at all and just jogged around.

Want to know if your coach is good or not?

How long have they been on the job?

How many champs have they had?

Is the team currently good or does your coach talk about the good old days and how the team used to be good?

Where does the team place at conference/section/state?

Are they successful every year?

Do the runners progress season to season, year to year?

Does the team peak when it counts?

I would agree with some of this. Keep in mind though that no coach means no team and I don't think for most of the kids that not having a team at all is a good thing.

With all of the crazy parents out there I can't blame any coach from walking away from it.

I have coached both a small team and a large team. With the large team I have had considerable success.

If you maximize the potential of the limited talent level you have in the situation you are in then you are successful as a coach.

When I coached the small team there was a limit as to how much I could do. Sometimes you can put a good team together and other times it's not possible. With limited training partners you also have a high probability of losing that really talented runner to a private school. There is not much you can do as a coach when the physical limit of the eight kids that have signed up for your team is very limited. It's also difficult to recruit from within the school sometimes when being blocked by administrators interested in only promoting ball sports. If I didn't have the experience coaching with the smaller program I would probably have not seen these challenges.

With the larger team most runners experience a positive progression but I coach a girls team. Most girls do not develop in a way that positively impacts performance the way the boys do. This can be very challenging. They can work through it and run well into their senior year but some get frustrated and leave the sport. Coaches are not in control of this.

Some of the kids decide not to run over the winter and do softball or baseball as a sport in the spring. As much as you encourage them to keep their aerobic fitness for this group they generally are not doing anything for it. Again folks, you can be persuasive but at the end of the day you are not in control of that decision.

So we are successful year to year but it's not always the same kids. We have had girls come in their freshman year where XC was their lives. Some stick with it but there are definitely those that get into other things like dating, staying up late with friends, and for some even vaping. I have had parents who were losing control of their kids blame me for that because they could not face the music on what was really happening with their kids.

Some kids put on weight that we do not address with them. You can't if you want to keep your job. The parents get confused why they are running slower. They really don't know why.

Some get a job so they can afford a phone or a car. They leave the sport. Not always our fault.

So it sometimes depends on perspective. If someone looked at our program objectively they would think we are very successful, but for that parent of that kid who is now into the social scene and running slower than they were freshman year we're not looking so good. Parents are limited in that most of them can only judge the entire team through the lens of just their child.

As a coach the parent that can become your biggest critic is the one that praises you to everyone when their kid is running well. If during their career they start to slip through no fault of your own as a coach they will come at you with that same amount of passion.

The most important part of coaching that is not talked about often enough is developing that solid team culture that keeps kids from ever wanting to do anything else. This is what I work the hardest on as a coach and it's the number one reason why we are successful.

What ever, man wrote:

This is a garbage argument. I think our CC is paid a $900 supplement. Nobody is going into debt to coach CC.

I'm not a teacher.

I leave my job each day at 1:30 where I make $100+ per hour to coach XC which amounts to around $8 per hour. I also spend around $1,500 each year on coaching education.

I'm not complaining because it is exactly what I want to do. But, don't tell me I'm making money on it.

Who complains to a XC coach?

What kind of complaints? I mean parents, not kids.

Don'tGetIT wrote:

Who complains to a XC coach?

What kind of complaints? I mean parents, not kids.

Some parents are very supportive. Some complain about everything. I had one complain the other day that we have practice on Saturdays. He told me that it is getting in the way of family plans.

I have had parents complain that I don't want kids playing powder puff football instead of practice, that some of our practices are going too late, cool downs at meets are making them wait too long, etc...

Then there is the parent who thinks their kid should be on varsity because of one break out race in the middle of the season.

"How come you didn't make my daughter a captain?"

There are many other complaints but I'll spare you.

I see you took the time to post salary. Classy. I mean that expecting someone to spend all the time in the world on CC for $900 is asinine. Kudos to you for knocking off work at (gasp!) 1:30. Imagine the teacher who does this for $900 after teaching a full load of classes making $30/hr.

Gee Doc, if you were volunteering at Habitat for Humanity instead of a medical Clinic I would cut you some slack for not being a great house builder.

I applaud you for taking in the trainings. I took more issue with the "flying all over the country" aspect. But even if you are sitting in a clinic with 30 coaches from around the country, what is the number of high school XC/track coaches in the US? Tens of thousands?

It take just one trip to a conference to exceed what a lot of coaches are getting paid.

It might not seem as cool, but I would recommend checking out some coaching resources that are not specific to the skills involved in your sport. Check out the content at icoachkids.eu especially the free online courses (MOOCs). You need to register at the site to access them. They deal a lot with the non-technical/tactical aspects of coaching youth.

I LOVE my kid's cross country coach. He does his job, is fair, even tempered, holds the kids accountable, and is also a great teacher.

I HATE the track coach. He doesn't know anything about distance running. Tries to control me as well as my children outside the school. I'd rather coach them myself or just let the distance coach be over the distance kids. It makes zero sense at all to have a sprint coach over the distance coach during track season.