Coaching Shortages in High Schools Causes and Solutions
Case 5: ADs facing challenges in hiring, keeping head coaches
By JEFF D’ALESSIO THE NEWS-ENTERPRISE, Jul 1, 2023
David Dawson is starting his 21st year as athletic director at LaRue County High School and over that time he has hired dozens of coaches for the school’s numerous athletic programs. Never has it been harder to find quality coaches and keep them, he says, than it is in high school sports in 2023. It’s a challenge, Dawson says, that is not just his, but one that is facing many athletic directors. “I think you’ve seen a little bit of a change of culture,” said Central Hardin High School Athletic Director J.C. Wright, who is in his 10th year as athletic director. “Some of it is just society — it’s just a busy time. Over the years, just how much time is involved. Many sports are almost year-round. Baseball and softball coaches still have to take care of their fields during their offseason.” For instance, when the Elizabethtown High School girls’ basketball head coaching job opened in May when Donnie Swiney stepped down, EHS Athletic Director Alex Todd said the opening attracted just six applicants for a position he considers a “top 10, top 20 job in the state.” “That was a little surprising,” he said.
Dawson is the longest tenured AD in the area and he said many factors go into the decline in interest in coaching from increased coaching demands to pay to parental pressure. “I really think it is a combination of things that keep people from coaching teenagers,” Dawson said. “The main expectation of coaches is to win and to compete for championships,” he added. “It is a big sacrifice for people to coach. I get it.” Wright, himself a former head boys’ basketball coach at the school, said coaching today is far different from what it was 10 or 20 years ago. He was raised in a coaching family with his father, Harry, a former head coach of boys’ basketball at West Hardin High School. “The pressures from the outside with parents, it’s tough,” he said. “You hear a lot about how hard it is to get officials anymore, but it’s getting harder to get coaches because you don’t want to put up with a lot of those headaches. With social media, everybody is brave on social media putting out their thoughts and we’re all guilty of that. … It’s a lot of pressure to be put under when they hear that and see that. “Really, 98% of the parents are great people,” he said. “It’s the 2% causing the headaches and nowadays do you want to give up time away from your kids and family for that and make those sacrifices?”
Recent coaches who have stepped down such as Swiney, Jared McCurry as John Hardin boys’ head basketball coach and CHHS boys’ basketball head coach Matt Nickell all have said spending more time with their families was the primary reasons to leave the profession. They all were head coaches for seven years. “Basketball just takes up a lot of time and I miss a lot of things with my family and being with my girls,” McCurry said when he resigned. “It’s just time to put them No. 1.” Todd said coaches put pressure on themselves and then when there’s added pressure and criticism from supporters and others, it’s a fine line to walk for coaches. “The social media world, it’s becoming merged with real life,” Todd said. “How do coaches go about navigating that? To be quite honest it’s not just sports. I want to help my coaches help navigate that. “In coaching, we’re in the people business,” he said. “You’ve got to have relationships with these players, these parents, administrators. It’s hard to gauge who you are dealing with anymore. Are you dealing with somebody authentic or from the social media world? For our coaches not in that world, I think it’s great, but that’s not the majority of coaches. If you get your feet in both of those worlds, this is a short life span of being a head coach. Mentally it’s tough.”
And then there’s the matter of compensation. “Let’s be honest, the pay is not attractive at the high school level across the state and nation,” Dawson said. “Good coaches are not doing this for the paycheck.” Wright understands that, too, and notes that even slight increases in pay can mean a lot to coaches. “In all reality, it’s nice to feel appreciated a little bit,” he said. According to the Kentucky School Boards Association citing Elizabethtown Independent Schools extra service pay schedule for 2021-22, head coaches for football and basketball were paid $9,250 a year and the money could be used as they wish. For instance, coaches in any sport could have added some of their salary to an assistant’s salary. The head baseball and softball coaches were paid $5,250, and boys’ and girls’ soccer $5,250, for instance.
“At the end of the day, you’re going to have to love it because it’s not about the pay,” Todd said. At HCS for last year, the pay rates for the same sports, according to the HCS website, are $10,706 annually for basketball and football head coaches and $4,273 for baseball, softball and soccer head coaches. “Coaches put a lot of time in, more than most people will ever see,” Wright said. Added Dawson, “This is a secondary job for almost every coach, and the expectations and demands do not align with a secondary job such as coaching.”
Coaching today takes on an even broader responsibility from being educated in health and safety protocols, being involved in fundraising efforts and more. “Coaches have to spend extra time fundraising for their program, counseling players, administrative duties, off-season workouts, etc.,” Dawson said. “It is definitely safe to say that it is a year-round job for most. Coaching is not a seasonal job at the high school level anymore.” Attracting coaching candidates into a school system also can be difficult and at Fort Knox Middle High School, for instance, Athletic Director Jackie Prather said, “Our struggle comes from hiring restraints. We are required to hire coaches from within DoDEA employees.” Todd said the decline in coaching interest coincides with a decline of college graduates getting into the field of education.
“I don’t think you’re going to see 30-year coaches anymore, and probably not even 30-year educators, and definitely not 20-year administrators,” he said. “It’s just so intense; things have changed, so if that’s true then the turnover is not necessarily shocking. “I also think what you’re seeing is people just aren’t going into education anymore so those young coaches that you hope to groom and keep in your system, you’re not seeing the number probably that you saw 20 years ago — it’s just not there,” he added.
Many schools use paraprofessionals for specialized sports such as bowling, bass fishing and archery for instance. “It’s great to have them, but a lot of times it’s parents and when their child graduates, you’re looking again,” Wright said. Athletic directors said they always want the best for their programs and that student-athletes “… are the most important element of all of this,” Wright said. Hiring assistant coaches also is big challenge for many of the same reasons as a head coach, some ADs said.
Ideally, head coaches would teach in the high school where they coach, but that always isn’t easy to accommodate based on open teaching positions from year to year. “Sometimes positions are just not available for those interested in coaching as well,” Dawson said. The future of high school coaching is headed down a bumpier path for a number of reasons, athletic directors fear. “I don’t think you’re going to see a James Haire who has endured all of that,” Todd said of the EHS boys’ basketball head coach, who has been in place for nearly 30 years. “… Being a head coach in a major sport has a short shelf life. … It’s just a lot coming at you.”
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