Coaching Burnout
- Thread starter mc140
- Start date
I think people are tired of putting up with BS. I was told by many about a year ago when I went on my rant regarding athletic departments stepping up and supporting the kids that there are always people willing to take the place of volunteers that have had enough. I did not see that this past fall. Hopefully it turns around.
A lot of people had free time during times they normally did not in their life the past year. Add to what was essentially a 9 or 10 month season. Pre-covid head coaching turnover was hitting close to 20% turnover for two consecutive years.
I think there are more coaches now than ever who look at what they make and the needed time commitment and feel it is not worth it. Especially after getting a taste of down time in the summer/fall 2020.
Parental demands and Players overall attitudes get worse and worse every season. Lot of sense of entitlement now, hence the increase in transfers growing.
On the flip side if it’s what you do to pay the bills and feed the family and you don’t have much else to fall back on, you deal with it.
On the flip side if it’s what you do to pay the bills and feed the family and you don’t have much else to fall back on, you deal with it.
It’s no longer a 4 or 5 month commitment. It’s a 12 month grind. Couple that with the spring season, shortened summer and bang another season, it’s asking a lot.
What coaches put up with is simply mind blowing. The unreasonable expectations of parents and fans is chasing many very good coaches out of the sport.
The days where players play, officials officiate and coaches coach are gone.
I feel for those guys. There is no love when they lose and more of a “why didn’t you win by more” chatter when they do win.
What coaches put up with is simply mind blowing. The unreasonable expectations of parents and fans is chasing many very good coaches out of the sport.
The days where players play, officials officiate and coaches coach are gone.
I feel for those guys. There is no love when they lose and more of a “why didn’t you win by more” chatter when they do win.
Let's also be honest, for the vast majority of Illinois HS coaches (in any sport), mortgages aren't being paid by the coaching stipend. It helps, but is not paying the bills. When little Johnny and Tommy are undersized offensive linemen Akron isn't paying for college. Good luck telling that Ken and Karen.
Coaching burnout will likely parallel classroom teaching burnout. Returning to 100% in-person learning this fall after what happened in education March 2020 through May 2021 has been nowhere near as seamless as it might appear from the outside. Much collateral damage is in place including, but not limited to: students being passed along to next level of classes without mastering the prerequisites, communication challenges due to speaking through masks, attendance interruptions due to COVID exposures in or out of school, cheating techniques using technology honed via remote learning, parents not expecting that course failure is an option, lack of administrative support in returning to pre-pandemic academic and conduct standards - to name a few. Come spring, positions for next year will be increasingly difficult to fill and getting subs NOW is a major challenge. Like all the other job sectors, finding and keeping teachers should prove to be a problem in many areas.
At the rights schools that’s the easiest $$$ in the district and those won’t ever be short. Most surburan schools it’s in the teacher contract. Maybe not chains but clock, announcing, ticket gate typically are.
Perhaps. Heck, they probably make more for their work on Friday night than I do. I'm only suggesting that like others had mentioned, priorities might change to spending time at home rather than a football field on a Friday night.
There is some burnout but looking at the current openings I think it has some do with younger guys getting Admin opportunities and are no longer allowed to be the HC and the old-timers retiring.
Not probably, they do. Officials pay needs to be doubled. Not that I know how it will be paid for, but if this doesn’t happen there won’t be many stepping up to do it.
There is a really big problem with most kids (and parents) not understanding where they are in the "pecking order" when it comes to college football scholarships. Further, they also do not understand that many colleges do not offer football scholarships. They simply do not know how it all works, which sometimes creates problems for coaches.
Every school should have a recruiting seminar available for all athletes.
When my son played HS ball, the Head FB Coach took time at the annual required fall sports meeting attended by athletes and parents/guardians to deliver a "come to Jesus" message about college scholarships. Fantastic.
We did a seminar with the head coach, AD, current recruits, past recruits and their parents my son's sophomore year. It was very beneficial, however, the parent that put it together no longer has an athlete at the school and then COVID
If the district(or boosters) can’t find the extra $2-3k for the 5 home games to pay the stripes at the appropriate level perhaps they shouldn’t be fielding a football team.
I think the issue with the kids and parents now are the trainers, 7v7, speed coaches, etc that make $$$ off telling them how great they are, so since one person tells them that.
I think one of the worst things that ever happened to high school football was ESPN highlights. Fewer and fewer kids watch entire games, only watching highlights. Social media just magnified this 1000 times. For example, kids only see highlights of a great receiver making spectacular catches. Without watching a full game, they get an unrealistic idea about how those throws were set up with different plays. They have no idea that receiver gets only 5-10 targets a game. Many kids have no idea that not every run goes for a 25+ yard game, or a touchdown. There are rarely, if ever, clips of linemen highlights. Bottom line, when kids don't watch full games. They don't understand what goes into team success. This translates into kids not wanting to put in the work in practice. This translates into kids wearing coaches out about targets. This translates into fewer kids wanting to be linemen. This clearly has to be stressful for coaches, leading to burnout. Combine that with the kids participating in the 7 on 7 teams , etc..., not associated with the school, and it becomes less and less worth it for coaches. Obviously, there are programs that are able to consistently and successfully overcome these obstacles, but even many of them are seeing numbers go down.
Not sure about this. I watched highlights when I was a kid. What I find is that kids don't watch sports any more! I used to watch every bulls game and every bears game from start to finish. It just doesn't happen anymore. They follow individual players as opposed to being diehards for their teams.
Agreed, when I was a kid you got 3-4 games a week and had to try to stay up until halftime of the Monday night game to see the rest of the league's highlights.
I know its a small sample size, but both my boys, ages 23 and 17 watch tons of games on TV. There is never not a game on TV in our house, and often multiple games at the same time. They watch every Bears, Bulls and Illini game in full. (And Bama, as their sister is a student there) And in the last few years, have watched the majority of White Sox games.
Perfectly stated. I loved watching highlights, it was the only way to see what happened in the other games I couldn't see while I was watching full games.
