Everyone who has ever volunteered to coach youth sports remembers the parent or two who thought Suzy was a superstar in the shadows and would surely prove it if only she got more playing time.
Or the parent walking up and down the sidelines, screaming directions to Jimmy and others, despite what the coach tells them.
A longtime coach in each of two local school districts lost his position over the past year after complaints from athletes and/or parents were brought to the athletic department, administration and, ultimately, school board.
The situations are not the same — in one nearly the entire team spoke out against rehiring the coach and in the other it was a clear minority of the athletes — but what is the same is the situation was handled so poorly that it had become a public event.
That’s why there should be clear, established guidelines for what is expected of athletes, their parents and coaches, how to address any issues within the athletic department and what rises to the level of requiring administration intervention.
There also must be clear consequences for missing practice and insubordinate behavior, as well as how the offenses are addressed by the coach and what involvement parents have in the process.
Another factor causing problems is the rising influence of club teams in multiple sports, which can cause conflicts with practices because of mixed loyalties. Here, too, there must be clear guidelines for athletes’ responsibilities to their high school teams so parents, coaches and athletes know beforehand what to expect and how to prioritize.
Disharmony on a sports team rarely results in success, so having better guidelines could prevent situations rising to the level of the coach being dismissed. With things spelled out in detail beforehand, and with an effective conflict resolution process — including between players and coaches — small problems can be resolved before they grow into issues that tear teams apart.
Brian Smith, a teacher and coach, asked the pertinent question last week in the growing issue regarding the role of parents in high school sports.
The issue came up during a Mainland Regional High School Board of Education meeting Jan. 17 at which many lamented the forced resignation of longtime southern New Jersey swimming legend Mike Schiavo as coach of the girls team.
As one of Schiavo’s colleagues, Smith said if school districts continued to side with parents over coaches in disputes of this nature, no one would want to coach.
It’s not clear what behavior prompted the complaints, but public statements indicate the coach was unhappy with some swimmers skipping practice and let them know about it. The school board amended its policy the same evening, requiring swimmers who were going to miss to inform the coach in advance.
Board of Education President Jill Ojserkis said that board members know things the public does not, while Schiavo said if it had been serious enough he would have lost his teaching position as well.
Smith said he experienced a similar issue involving a student athlete last year that nearly convinced him to quit. He said he went back and forth all summer but eventually decided he was not going to be “driven out by a parent or a group of parents.”
“This is the road we are heading down,” Smith told the school board. “What’s in place to ensure that we have coaches in the future, because who is going to want to do this with the lack of support? If I can’t discipline, if I can’t coach an athlete, what power do I have as a coach? I have none. And we can’t have that because no one is going to want to do it.”
The stipend of about $5,000, depending on sport, is hardly worth the time and effort required, which means most willing to give it a go also have a love of the sport and/or contributing to the positive growth of young athletes.
Add to that high expectations of winning and fear that demanding accountability of athletes could lead to dismissal or worse, and the candidate pool gets smaller and smaller. With fewer willing to put themselves out there, the level of coaching would surely drop, as well as the level of training, level of skill and level of success.
High school athletics are about more than the win-loss record, so finding and supporting coaches who foster teamwork, camaraderie, character and maturity should be encouraged. And let’s not forget this is high school, where athletics are also about young people having fun and building fond memories.