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Reply to "Are keyboards creating high-school coach killers?"

Iowamom23 posted:
2020dad posted:
RJM posted:
2020dad posted:
coach2709 posted:

I will readily agree there is a ton of blame to go around to MANY stakeholders.  Also, in my experience the best principals are the ones who have coached before.  They get it because they went through it.

In terms of the scrutinizing aspect I'm wrapping up my 6th year as AD at my school.  I have yet to have a parent come up and say "coach so and so is doing a really good job.  I'm glad they are our coach".  But I have definitely heard "coach so and so is terrible.  You need to fire him".  I always reply with "and replace them with who? Nobody is lining up to take the job because they don't want to hear it from you".  Luckily I have the principal I do because I tell parents the truth.  I do it as nicely and professionally I can but it will always be the truth.  I won't be surprised if I get fired with a new principal.

Lol.  Well I hope you don't.  But agree about principals who have coached.  I only had one of those but yes he was a lot more rational.  These days you don't find many principals who were coaches.  

In middle school there was a new female principal who never played sports. By spring of her first year she decided to handle parental complaints with everyone makes the team with equal playing time. 26 baseball players shared 7 innings.

The next year my son and all the other good baseball players signed up for lacrosse. Due to the physicality of lacrosse kids wouldn’t sign up just to be on the team. They weren’t quitting baseball. They were on travel teams. But they weren’t going to waste their time with 26 players in practice and games. 

The high school varsity baseball coach freaked out. He was afraid these kids would like lacrosse and not play baseball in high school. He had to use the might of the board to rescind the principal’s rule. 


And that right there is what I am talking about.  In reality they simply despise sports and in some cases despise any kind of exceptionalism unless it is in one of their pet areas like music or art.  Imagine telling the play director the lead role has to be shared by everyone.  Or the band director that everyone must rotate instruments during a concert.  OMG they would flip out.  They would hyperventilate in an overly dramatic meltdown.  As athletic people we are second class citizens now.  Hmmmm.  been a while since I started a thread...  gonna give that some thought.  Would be interesting to see how many out there are feeling the same, like they are looked down upon  condescendingly.

So clearly you don't spend a lot of time with arts people. If you did, you'd hear the theatre director complain about being forced to do huge production shows so everyone can have a role. You'd hear parents at rehearsals complain that their kid would make a much better (whatever the lead is) than the kid who has the part, etc., etc., and so on. And you'd hear staff angry because the baseball field just got new lights while the curtains over the stage are falling apart.

Whatever group you're in, the tendency is to think that your group is treated like second class citizens and other people are getting something you're not. That's not just in high school, think about the fights between rural areas who think people in town get services they don't, or people in town who are mad that farmers get subsidies they don't.

Seems to me we'd all be better off if we just worry about finding the best experience possible for our own child, and not worry about what other kids, other teams and other activities are getting or what they are thinking.

Actually I guess it comes down to the interpretation of what 'a lot of time' means.  Having been in education many years and having two daughters go through drama program I think I have but perhaps you would think not.  At any rate suffice to say I am not unfamiliar.  And yes I hear them complain.  But I am more talking about what is trending.  Its very true that Athletics 40 years ago received way way more funding attention admiration etc.  Now not so much.  Keep your ear to the ground and you will find the pendulum is swinging.  And I think its great that my daughter went to a school which is very new and the auditorium is state of the art.  I don't want these kids to be second class citizens.  I personally am more of a sports guy but appreciate other things.  It doesn't always work that way for the arts people.  They walk around often with pride at knowing nothing about sports. "oh is that where the  ball goes through the thing and then you get points or something"  My own daughter acts like this sometimes and I remind her that I enjoy the theater.  I wouldn't go around saying "you now that monster of the opera house or something"  That smugness makes you less intelligent not more.  I am not a theatrical expert by any means but could at least accurately name many classic productions.  However we as athletic people are more and more looked at as backwards ingrates.  

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