A high school coaching career is problematic. I believe there are two kinds of coaches: those who want to coach and those who must coach. The wannabees usually leave the profession when faced with a few relationship negatives. The negatives might be parental craziness, power source vindictiveness or administrative impotence. There are stories upon stories from across this nation about coaches quitting or getting fired because.. . Some kid does not make the team; another kid did not play enough or some kid was not made 'captain' or not afforded top-attention. These coaching-pressures run rampant as parent perceptions become parent realities and are acted upon by mommies and daddies.. Then there is the power source that seems threatened and becomes a constant source of irritation as they fear some prestige loss.. I faced all of these factors by my second year at Edwardsville.
Often the coach with a sub-par record is more easily fired when his adversaries point out losing records. My Edwardsville teams were too successful to fire the coach. However, those adversaries did not disappear, they invented road blocks to deter program development or frustrate the coach; that's what I dealt with for the last five seasons at Edwardsville.
You wish for specifics? .I advance the following: I was charged $230.00 gym rental for a week to conduct a summer basketball 'feeder' camp. Occasionally, a building administrator would come to my high school varsity practice and tell me that they received a telephone call from a superior stating that a school board member was accusing me of playing 'Black Players' but those players don't come to practice; I suppose the building administrator came to my practice to count 'Blacks." Once an administrator came to my practice and he was upset with a telephone call he had just received. He was told to check a particular player's locker for drugs. That administrator said to me, "I told my superior to have the accuser join me and we would check all 1,820 student lockers."
One particular season, EHS coaches were NOT permitted to have keys to the school. That's correct, we did not have carte' blanch access to the gym. I suppose the policy makers were saying, 'We trust you coaches with our children but not with the keys to your workplace.' Coaches could CHECK-OUT keys FOR WEEKEND PRACTICE AND MUST CHECK-OUT KEYS WHEN PLAYING OUT-OF-TOWN GAMES. Therefore, in the midst of a highly competitive basketball season with such demands as scouting, film breakdown reports, player-academic checking and practice preparations, I had to remember to check out a building key. One out-of-town game night, I forgot to check out the key and realized my error as our team bus pulled into the school parking lot at 11:00 P.M. I knew that some of our players left car keys, wallets and homework assignments inside that building's locker room. Realizing that dilemma, I blurted aloud, "Ah, shit, I forgot to get a key!" Immediately, a 15-year sophomore ball player spoke up. "Ain't no problem, coach, I 'll get us in." As the team approached the main doors to the gym foyer, the youngster reached into a nearby dumpster pulled out a coat hanger and made a simple bend in the hanger. He then fished the hook-end through the seam of two doors, pulled the panic bar towards himself and WALLA!.. A coach with two advanced college degrees can continue his passion to coach because of a street-smart kid.
While the youngster was working his 'door-opening-magic,' one of my upperclassmen, a 'Black' player, leaned near my ear and whispered, "Coach, how does it feel to have a little 'brother' get you IN your house?"
That was a particularly good night; we won a ball game, circumvented our spiteful adversaries' games and had a laugh!
I stayed the coaching- course for a total of 39-years and loved ALL the challenges!
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