[CLOH-News] Fwd: Coaching profession

[Mark Rauterkus]

Hi,

What a summer for me. More on that later.

Today on the Facebook Swim Coaches Idea Exchange a thread came up about the
high volume of coaching openings.

We need to grow the profession, I think.

Let’s kick around some ideas. And this email can help jump start the
discussion too.

Mark
ISCA WEBMASTER

---------- Forwarded message ---------
From: Diane Jones <diane.jones at borgia.com>
Date: Mon, Aug 22, 2022 at 3:18 PM
Subject: Coaching profession
To: <Mark at rauterkus.com>


Hi Mark,

I'm interested in what you are trying to do.

I coach for a small Catholic high school one county west of St. Louis
County.  We swim at a 6-lane YMCA that is the only indoor pool in a county
of 105,000 and growing rather quickly.  There isn't much swim culture out
here.

The young people who were the first generation to do swimming out here are
now old enough to coach, but it's hard to get anyone to make a commitment.
The boys' program needed someone in a hurry--I'd worked with the guys for
three weeks last year.  So I've stepped up.  This is what I've done for the
girls program too, five years before.  Now I am a 60 year-old woman
coaching both.

It's cool, I love doing it.  I don't look at the stipend and start
calculating hours worked and what that turns out to be hourly.  Instead, I
look at what I can do to help get these kids the best training for their
skill level, individual attention, etc.  I love and care about kids, and
that helps me, I think.

I will say that it's a bit daunting to come into this from rec coaching
other sports.  I had a great masters coach, and I use a lot of those drills
and sets.  I do have to say that I find a lot of coaching ideas, etc., are
pretty filled with jargon.  I understand them conceptually, but to apply
them in a real practice--with no assistant--it's too much for one person.

I really wish there were some materials, especially specific to high school
coaching.

I do think baby boomers -- I was born in 1962 -- tend to have a strong work
ethic, and most likely have emptied the nest of their own youth and high
school athletes.  But there has to be a training path that is more basic,
and less jargon-filled.  I happen to be a very motivated person, so I've
gone the extra mile on my own. I think there needs to be training that
better suits the specific coaching role a person might take.

I've noticed with my own kids just how pervasive club sports have become in
every sport.  When my older two, now 35 and 33, were middle school age
playing soccer (and everything else), the big deal was to put together a
local team to practice in the summer to go to Missouri State Show Me
Games.  One weekend with hotel.  Done.  By the time my youngest, now 25,
was that age, the better athletes were doing club soccer--three practices a
week, far from where we live, lots of games.  We found coaches that were
highly skilled, but didn't require a year-round commitment.  St. Louis has
a lot of great soccer tournaments--so we played in the ones we could drive
to.

The expectation now, too, is that parents are supposed to be there for
every single game or meet in which their kids are competing.  Multiply that
by multiple kids, multiple sports, and the expectation is mom and dad will
be at games/meets most nights of the week between them.  Basketball was the
same way.  Swimming is getting to be the same way.  When I played field
hockey and swam in high school, most parents did not come to the games.  I
graduated in 1980.

The other thing is this "stay to play" tournaments--where a team outside a
defined geographic range must book at least 8 rooms from a partner hotel,
as a condition of participation.  These parents then end up out of town
lots to stay in hotels, rack up expenses.

This puts a strain on everyone.  The young people who have kids of their
own, the veterans in their 30's and 40's are in the thick of this with
their own kids.

Meanwhile, I have a 4 year-old granddaughter who started dancing at 3,
going to field hockey training at 3 (I kid you not.)

Anyway, those are some thoughts I have.

Curious what you are looking at...

Take care,

Diane

-- 
Diane Jones
Varsity Boys & Girls Swim Coach
St. Francis Borgia High School
diane.jones at borgia.com

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