Quick question

Started by littleguy301, February 24, 2021, 11:05:24 PM

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littleguy301

Boy I have noticed a few coaching jobs opening up on this forum and heard of a few through word of mouth.

Is this a trend or are coaches retiring?
If life is tough,,,,wear a helmet

imnofish

None are so hopelessly enslaved, as those who falsely believe they are free. The truth has been kept from the depth of their minds by masters who rule them with lies. -Johann Von Goethe

Some days it's hardly worth chewing through the restraints!

bigG

Lotta headache for very little money. Not like you run out of passion; but you do run out of time after a while. When I went from classroom to counseling that pretty much ending coaching. But that's my spiel. I'm guessing some are getting older and/or moving on to other things. For me it's hard to coach without being able to wrestle with 'em. I gotta a knee that really doesn't want me to wrestle.
If I agreed with you we'd both be wrong.

DocWrestling

I say it repeatedly that wrestling is the toughest sport to coach of all the high school sports mainly due to the schedule.

1) It takes more time than any other sport.  More time coaching and more time away from family.  Having a dual every week and then an all day tournament most Saturdays is not something any other sport has to do.  Need to find a way to at least free up more weekends.  Other sports have their all day events during school hours and kids miss a day of school. (Tennis, golf, baseball, etc)  Why not wrestling? Volleyball and maybe soccer are the only sports that have most of their tournament competitions on weekends.  Need to move more tournaments to all day Fridays or Friday nights.
2) It overlaps both Thanksgiving and Christmas-  Need to alter calendar or create some dead periods of coaches and wrestler families
3) Coaching staffs are small with many kids with a lot of needs and then wrestling rules require a lot of documentation and hassles.  Certainly a lot easier to be a club coach than a high school coach.
4) Wrestlers don't need 50 matches and not many coaches want schedules that give them 50 matches but difficult for them to not go to maximum events when people see others doing it.
5) It is tough on your body if you actually want to wrestle or even demonstrate.

The pay sucks for all of that.  Changing the schedule and reducing events I believe would draw in more wrestlers and more coaches.  For those that want a longer season or even more events, the WIAA should continue the rule of allowing 2 out of school events during the season and thus there would be more "open" tournaments the diehard wrestlers could still go to. 
Of Course, this is only my opinion and no one elses!

dman

Add dealing with Administrations, WIAA, parents, no days off for 4 months, etc....

littleguy301

In my opinion the actually coaching is the easy and fun part!

1. Schools lack of support toward wrestling is on the most part pretty limited.

2. I dont think the average parent or fan understands what coaches need to follow up with, especially this year. Skin sheets, covid sheets, daily feeling well sheets, mat cleaning schedules, setting up weight management appointment, grade issues,  discipline issues. I know people want results and it only takes a bit to enter but after filling out all this covid stuff daily it gets old and everything becomes just a little bit and that adds up big time.

3. Dealing with informing parents of changes.

4. The time suck like mentioned.

5. Fund raisers

6. Out of pocket cost like individual awards to promote the program.

7. For the non school employees that coach the balancing act of your job, amount of take off time you need, employers understanding of this, money lost at your job to what your getting paid to coach.

Lots go in and when you toss in the Monday morning quarterbacks always trying to spout yhier opinion it gets really old.
If life is tough,,,,wear a helmet

Ghetto

Quote from: littleguy301 on February 25, 2021, 08:36:13 AM
In my opinion the actually coaching is the easy and fun part!

1. Schools lack of support toward wrestling is on the most part pretty limited.

2. I dont think the average parent or fan understands what coaches need to follow up with, especially this year. Skin sheets, covid sheets, daily feeling well sheets, mat cleaning schedules, setting up weight management appointment, grade issues,  discipline issues. I know people want results and it only takes a bit to enter but after filling out all this covid stuff daily it gets old and everything becomes just a little bit and that adds up big time.

3. Dealing with informing parents of changes.

4. The time suck like mentioned.

5. Fund raisers

6. Out of pocket cost like individual awards to promote the program.

7. For the non school employees that coach the balancing act of your job, amount of take off time you need, employers understanding of this, money lost at your job to what your getting paid to coach.

Lots go in and when you toss in the Monday morning quarterbacks always trying to spout yhier opinion it gets really old.

Having an AD and administrative team who truly supports you is huge. We've been blessed with two who really cared about helping our program, even though they never wrestled.

The amount of paper we have to push is crazy. If you aren't a paper/organized person, you better have one on your staff or it is going to be a really tough road.

This year, with only quads and duals, the weekend stress was much less for coaches. If we take nothing out of this Covid season, it's that the 7/7 rule HAS to go away. It's not a NFHS rule as far as I know, as every state seems to have a different way of doing things. Having less 12 hour Saturdays is good for everyone involved.

I am not sure when schools stopped hiring teachers who could also coach, but it goes against what we believe in education. If you are truly trying to educate the whole child and build relationships, it is time to start hiring people who are willing to coach and teach.
As long as we are keeping score, I've got something to prove

padre

Tough year to coach no doubt. It was never so clear that we are are not the favorite sport by the WIAA.  Hard to explain to kids why their basketball counterparts could play 4 games per week.  Really found out we have no voice when giving opinions and it makes you wonder at times if it's worth it.

As far as teachers needing to be the coach not really sure what that has to do with anything.  While it's easier to have a coach in the school for recruiting it would seem odd not to have the best coach in the room whether they are a teacher or a carpenter.  Between youth, junior high and high school we've had one coach amongst them all that was a teacher for the last 22 years. 

Preparewrestlingcoach

Saturdays, Saturdays, Saturdays.

I get that COVID gave us some extra things to navigate but BOY as a high school wrestling coach for the last 8 years it sure was refreshing to have a weekend off in the winter. Perhaps having these weekends made some coaches wonder, how am I gonna do a regular season next year?

People outside of our sport don't understand that a Saturday Scramble means Friday practice until 5:30/6 staying in the weight room until 6:30/7 to make sure a kid runs off some weight...Being to school at 4:30 or 5am and then getting home at 8-9 pm. Just to have enough energy to make sure all the kids get picked up by the time you make it home or go get some food its time for bed. Just to wake up Sunday upload the film, email parents, plan practice for the next week and hopefully find time to play your role as a family member before its Monday and time to start the grind again.

Covid to me taught us we have to find a way to do Friday PM or Thursday afternoon tourney's in order to open up a few weekends so coaches are allowed to be human beings and maybe be able to stay awake for the entire packer game  :o

DocWrestling

Coaches,

I beg of you to start a trend.  Even if the 7/7 rule stays, you do not have to go to 7 Saturday tournaments.  Your wrestlers will thank you, their families and yours will thank you.  If they go to 2-3 less tournaments is that really going to change who they are at end of season.  I think many might get better from an hour Saturday morning practice if needed where it can be optional and you can work individually with kids.  Those are the Saturdays where you bring in your kids, etc and it is fun and relaxed and does not take up the whole day.  Maybe even bring in some middle school kids to roll around and get to know you.

If you can't just eliminate those matches then add some duals or triangulars to replace tournaments on some Friday nights or weeknights!

What if 3 non-conference programs got together and just had some live wrestling on a Friday after school?  Wouldnt all that live wrestling with a fun relaxed atmosphere be better and more wrestling than your kids will get sitting at a tournament all day Saturday.  Pretty sure you could do this if you called it one of your competitions.  Then take all the money you would have spent on refs, workers, etc and get the kids pizza and expand the brotherhood as wrestlers hang with kids from other teams.

YOU CAN DO IT DIFFERENTLY!  Even without rule changes
Of Course, this is only my opinion and no one elses!

mojo123

Preach....

We are thankful to attend 2 Friday night varsity tournaments in January @ Port Washington & Homestead and 3 JV tournaments on weeknights @ Fort Atkinson, LG Badger & host one of our own.

Taking away kids Saturdays, especially at the JV level, does not help the sport or numbers whatsoever. I'm all in on this movement!

MNbadger

#11
For me, I love Saturday tourneys  Given the choice, I would opt out of our conference schedule, schedule maybe one single dual per week with teams we can compete with and do mostly Saturday Individual tournaments.  The kids I coach agree with me and through the years most of the kids said the same thing.
I particularly hate weekday tris and quads.  It is too late on a week night and that is worse if you are home and have to set up and tear down.  WAY too much when you see basketball long gone by 9:00 at the latest.
Eliminate the recent additional tech stuff, including trackwrestling and the like.
Eliminate all the weigh loss control stuff that does NOTHING to make kids any safer.
All I need as a coach is your weigh in sheet and your wrestler's names, then let's wrestle.
People who are cheaters will cheat no matter what we do.
We are weighing in at home this year during COVID.  We did this a number of years ago as well.  In my opinion, one of the best things we have ever done, period.  Actually, when we did home weigh ins before it was in the morning of the competition, this was good for kids and good for wrestling.
Back to the tech stuff.  The day my assistant can't or won't do it, I am out. 
I love practice, I love coaching, I love individual tournaments.  That is what I want to do. 
To those who love the technology, seeding meetings are maybe 20 minutes shorter at a normal 8-12 team tournament.  Is it really worth all the extra stuff? 
Yes, it is a great deal of time.  I have spent most of my career coaching three sports.  I am normally at school by 6:30 or 7:00 and for most of my thirty plus years I am the last one leaving the parking lot almost every day(this year with COVID the exception).
Another thing for me is that I have forever worked in a district that does not support sports in general, wrestling in particular.  That is a killer.  A couple of years ago, we cut middle school sports for a second time.  It ultimately is the death knell for all sports over time.
Lastly, on top of this we have people posting about coaches not promoting their sport enough.  Trust me, they do.  A more important question to me is why doesn't football need to do this?  Or basketball? 
It is one more thing that gets dubious results(trust me, I've been through it all).
I would like to reach through the screen and slap the next person who starts a thread about "global warming." Wraslfan
"Obama thinks we should all be on welfare."  BigG
"MN will eventually go the way of Greece." Wraslfan

Ghetto

Quote from: padre on February 25, 2021, 10:18:02 AM
As far as teachers needing to be the coach not really sure what that has to do with anything.  While it's easier to have a coach in the school for recruiting it would seem odd not to have the best coach in the room whether they are a teacher or a carpenter.  Between youth, junior high and high school we've had one coach amongst them all that was a teacher for the last 22 years.

Never said that it needs to be a teacher/coach. I could say the sky was blue and you'd argue it...

My point is that districts have gone away from looking for the dual role. They'd rather hire someone outside the district. Being on a non-teacher can cause issues with practice and competition due to job schedules. The school days end at the same time every day. If you are a carpenter, etc there are days you have to work late, etc.
As long as we are keeping score, I've got something to prove

MNbadger

To add:  If we in MN had to do all the weight descent stuff you guys do in WI, I would literally resign on the spot.
I definitely feel for you there.
I would like to reach through the screen and slap the next person who starts a thread about "global warming." Wraslfan
"Obama thinks we should all be on welfare."  BigG
"MN will eventually go the way of Greece." Wraslfan

DocWrestling

Our high school coaches have to be teachers or sometimes retired teachers.  We have a few assistant coaches in sports that are not teachers but otherwise everyone is a teacher.

If you want the ideal coach you want a single guy or maybe a guy without kids.  Then they can be married to wrestling.  LOL!
Of Course, this is only my opinion and no one elses!