"coaches have to win or they lose their jobs"

I had a discussion about this with some folks about a month ago. It was interesting.

Every program is different as are the expectations.  Some schools don't care, to others it matters a great deal.

For a coach to keep his job, IMO, they have to be consistant from year to year. The key, IMO is conference appearances and wins, regional and super regional appearances.

But I think, what it comes down to is the alumni, the people who help raise the funds, and give out of their pockets year after year. They put the pressure on the AD to make changes or he is gone too!

Some schools don’t care about winning. When we moved across country I chose the school district based on its academics. They stunk at everything but country club sports. There are four country clubs within the school’s district zone. My kids played multiple sports. But I’ll limit the conversation to baseball and softball.

A new AD came in when my daughter was in 7th grade. He had been an assistant AD at a district accustomed to winning. He started bringing in new coaches.

The year before my daughter entered high school the previous softball coach was fired. The team had.a 32 game losing streak with in the previous two years. They were 4-18 the year the coach was fired. He was nothing but adult supervision. He hasn’t even played baseball in high school. The environment was more like intramurals than varsity.

The new coach was an All Big Ten softball player. She was also the roving hitting coach in a major travel program (14u to 18u Gold). She was fortunate to inherit five freshman who would go on to play D1. They were all in quality travel programs. Two, including my daughter were in the travel program she came from. By the time my daughter was a senior the starting lineup was seven future D1’s, two D2’s and a D3 who barely got on the high school field. With this talent and one of the top pitchers in the state my daughter may be one of the few whose high school team could beat her travel team. They won four consecutive conference titles with three trips to states. After a one year drop off when “the five” graduated the team resumed winning.

The baseball team had seventeen losing seasons in twenty years before the new AD had enough. The coach was a nice guy, supervisor. The parents owned him. There was baseball talent in the district. They were all avoiding the high school program playing for Catholics and privates. We considered letting my son leave for one of the privates recruiting him. He decided to stay long enough to see what the new coach would do.

Varsity was terrible when he was a freshman on the JV team. The next three years they had a second and two conference titles. After my son was gone they kept on winning. His coach was a former D2 All American. All the assistants and the JV coaches played college ball.

The difference is the old AD was interested in pleasing parents and being non confrontational. Success was control freak parents being happy. The new AD was interested in winning and didn’t give a damn what the parents thought. He refused to meet with parents unless the coach was in the room.

Over the eight years my two kids were at the high school the new AD replaced almost every coach and turned every team into winners. But, ask parents in general and the old AD was the good guy and the new AD was a (bleeeeeeeeeep, bleep, bleep). It seemed a lot more kids got “screwed” by the newly hired coaches who were hired to win. What the new AD did was hire all the best, young, up and coming top assistants from the area and made them head coaches.

College ball at D1’s was win or lose your job.

anotherparent,

I think this can be summed by.....it depends on the competitive level and expectations.  For college D1 P5s are definitely in the category of win or else, depending on where the program is at the time.  Some ADs and fanbases are patient other not so much.   Take the SEC for example.  There are far different expectations to be managed at Alabama vs Florida baseball.  My son played at a mid to low-D1 program.  The expectations were to raise money, graduate fine young men, and develop a competitive baseball program in that order.  Any conference championship which led to a single NCAA bid from that conference was a bonus and typically coaches contracts were renewed 5-years if that happened.   His college baseball expectations were far different from the expectations in mens & womens hockey, mens and womens lacrosse, and wrestling which the school was well known for.

To add a little color to your closing statement:   It seems to me that, when choosing a college or even a high school, you would want to know the programs level of performance, historical expectations, and AD experience.   As I write this, I'm thinking of Whit Babcock the AD at Virginia Tech (ACC).   He is under intense pressure to get his coaches and teams to perform but he has a sense of fairness and evenhandedness (is that a word?) about him.   He's had to fire some really good head coaches across many sports who couldn't produce, but he gave them more than enough opportunity.  If I'm a Head Coach this is the kind of guy I want to work for.

As for high school in my area it is a little different.  The good public school teams have a coach that has been there many, many years and the bad teams are looking for someone to turn their fortunes around.   Coaching requirements in my area are 1) county employee or work at the school 2) pass a background check 3) drug test.  There are a few kids that have choices between their home public school or a magnet high school if they qualify otherwise they are going to their local high school.   My two oldest son's opted for a magnet high school with a far worse baseball program than their home public school.  My youngest son went to our home public school and got the best baseball coach in the Commonwealth.   He'd been coaching high school baseball for a long time and I suspect was never in jeopardy of losing his Head Coaching duties even though he'd only won one state championship (came close many times) So, there is no real analysis to be done there.  Embrace public high school,  apply to a magnet public high school, pay for a private high school or lump it.  The coaching ability at this level is pretty much determined by longevity.

JMO.

I think it depends on the school as has been said.  There are many high schools and colleges that do not care as long as you keep people out of the principal or president's offices.  Do you job and stay out of trouble.  But there are others that it is vital you win.

Was talking to Kendall Rogers 2 weeks ago and the pressure this year for LSU to win will be incredible.  I think if he does not win a Natty he is gone.  You don't spend $5-10 million on NIL deals not to win.  In the past several years there was little to no expectation to win at UT but that has changed now.  Each school is different.  I wonder how long certain SEC schools will let their formerly successful coaches continue.  LSU had it 2 years ago and sent him packing.  Someone will be this year if they don't win.  The problem with building a winning program is you are expected to continue to win.

I think some coaches can read the room and don't win intentionally so they don't have to keep it up.

@PitchingFan posted:

I think some coaches can read the room and don't win intentionally so they don't have to keep it up.

Who?

I wish it was more like that in HS.  At least in those cases when you've got a coach who's checked out, it would be great for new blood.

I think below the D1 college level and at high school the goal should be to create a good Program that is a good experience for the players.

That includes a lot of stuff but winning is part of it. I'm not discounting Team chemistry, culture and so on, those are real things but reality is losing a lot sucks and hurts culture and team chemistry. If you have ever played in a team that wins less than 30% of their games or even less you know how that wears on everything.

Winning is not everything but it can cover up a lot of other stuff. Not saying a good team can't be dysfunctional and there are some losing teams with great culture but it is much harder to do.

Not to be redundant as I have posted this many times here before but when I became the HC of the baseball team, I was given one year to win.  I was told that in the interview by the AD and in front of the superintendent.  I was also made the HC of the girl's basketball program.  The baseball program was alright.  The girl's basketball program was a joke.  In general, all sports at this high school were a joke and the school was often referred to as a "coaching graveyard."  I was fortunate in that the athletes in both programs bought into what I wanted to achieve and the school allowed me to bring in my assistant coaches.  We became an area powerhouse in both programs.  The school followed suit and is now an area powerhouse.  I recall the AD, who was not in my camp, remarking that I had earned another year when I was evaluated but he stated that I still was on a short leash.  It wasn't until we had proven winning programs in both sports that he relented and came over to my camp.

For any coach to "win," they have to "win" kids.  I have been blessed with outstanding records in the 4 sports I have been a HC in.  The truth is that it was always the kids.  When I was barking, ranting and acting the fool, they understood the method to the madness.  They were the winners.  I was blessed to get to go along for the ride.

I forgot to add that there is a sport at this high school that is not winning this year.  They did not do well last year but were close to .500.  I expect that this coach will be released. 

Been where you are at CoachB25 except there was no pressure to win.  Coached middle school boys basketball first year and lost 3 games, lost 4 games second year.  Became head baseball and the most wins ever in the school in one season was 11.  We went 23-3 and lost 4 games second year then we moved.  The biggest obstacle was teaching them how to win.  The school had lost for so long in everything that they forgot how to win and baseball had never won so no one cared.  Now it is back to where it was.  No expectations and no winning.  I believe expectations have to be there in most cases for a team to win.

There are a lot of smaller jucos that are run like a big high school but no expectation to win and they don't win.  I think you find it in most colleges that have a JV.  As long as you bring in money, we don't care.  But at some point once you win there is a huge expectation to win.  I've seen it watching programs for years.  I've always believed you don't want to be the one who follows the big time winner as a coach.  You want to be the one who follows the one who fails following the big time winning coach.  He gets beat up for not winning and you only have to win a little to be liked, to start with.  Nobody will want to follow Saban at Alabama, except for the money.

@PitchingFan posted:

Been where you are at CoachB25 except there was no pressure to win.  Coached middle school boys basketball first year and lost 3 games, lost 4 games second year.  Became head baseball and the most wins ever in the school in one season was 11.  We went 23-3 and lost 4 games second year then we moved.  The biggest obstacle was teaching them how to win.  The school had lost for so long in everything that they forgot how to win and baseball had never won so no one cared.  Now it is back to where it was.  No expectations and no winning.  I believe expectations have to be there in most cases for a team to win.

There are a lot of smaller jucos that are run like a big high school but no expectation to win and they don't win.  I think you find it in most colleges that have a JV.  As long as you bring in money, we don't care.  But at some point once you win there is a huge expectation to win.  I've seen it watching programs for years.  I've always believed you don't want to be the one who follows the big time winner as a coach.  You want to be the one who follows the one who fails following the big time winning coach.  He gets beat up for not winning and you only have to win a little to be liked, to start with.  Nobody will want to follow Saban at Alabama, except for the money.

A lot of good stuff in this post.  In fact, schools can go through such long losing seasons that the climate of the school is that they lose and they lose at everything.  When I was hired at the school I became the HC in, I had a reputation for winning but I also had a reputation for being intense.  That is why the AD didn't care for me at the start.  In his opinion, I was win at all cost.  I was not but I did make huge demands on these players.  I recall walking down the hallway right before girl's basketball season started and some of the girls in the hall were making fun of a sophomore who was going out for the team.  I knew this player's older brother who was going to be on the baseball team.  I told this girl who was obviously an athlete that if she came out, no one would be laughing at her at the end of the season.  At that time, it was easier to laugh and make fun of the athletes than it was to actually participate.  That young lady became my daughter's idol and she played in college.  By the end of that year, things had changed.  The baseball team won 2 games and lost in the regional championship game to a team that placed 2nd at state.  The girl's basketball team started a run of 5 straight years of 20 or more wins. 

I would say this, there was a point in both sports where I could have lost the players.  This was at the beginning when they didn't know me like they did at the end of each season.  It was tough.  We had 6 in the morning plyos for the baseball team and open gym for the girls.  I jumped between both of them.  As one said at the end of that first year, it finally hurt too much to lose.