When the Shoreline School District posted an opening last summer for a varsity fastpitch coach at Shorecrest High School, few résumés trickled in.
Now, more than six months later, despite the fact the program won a state title in 2001 and has made the state tournament four times in the last six years, interest remains low. Only three applicants are in the pool to replace coach Kristie Oglesby, according to district public information officer Craig Degginger.
Oglesby, a former University of Washington softball player, moved to North Carolina for family reasons after seven seasons as coach. The pay range for the job, which is supposed to start in February, is $3,357 to $4,387.
“For the length of time this position has been posted the pool is significantly smaller than normal,” Shoreline School District Athletic Director Don Dalziel said.
It can be tough to find qualified candidates for specialized sports such as fastpitch, but the overall trend is that candidates usually aren’t breaking down the door to apply for high school coaching jobs.
The Everett School District only had five candidates who filled out paperwork when it had a recent opening for a boys basketball coach at Everett, district athletic director Robert Polk said.
“In years past it would have been 15 candidates,” Polk said. “It’s definitely changed.”
Atmosphere has changed
The often year-round commitment needed to run a successful program, the modest pay in comparison to the responsibility, and the pressure to win from parents and the community are all factors that converge to make coaching much more than a fun part-time job.
Wally Nagel coached boys swimming for 35 years at Meadowdale along with a variety of other sports, sometimes as many as three a year. When he began coaching, coaches “were the bosses,” compared to now when a coach can get “beat up with parental concerns,” he said.
In the past, “it was a matter of respect on all parts — kids, parents, administrators,” said Nagel, who retired in 2005.
Open positions in the Edmonds School District usually attract three to four serious applications and one to three are viable enough to warrant an interview, said Edmonds School District Athletic Director Terri McMahan. Sometimes the top candidate isn’t someone who is quite ready to be a head coach but has potential, she said.
“There are good people out there,” McMahan said. “It requires more work on our part to attract those people.”
Trend of ‘out-of-district’ coaches
For area districts, the dearth of coaching candidates is a trend that hearkens back to the 1980s, athletic directors say.
“We had this gigantic explosion of sports teams and positions,” McMahan said. “The pool became smaller and smaller. It seems natural to me. It’s supply and demand. We have more demand (for coaches) than supply.”
Years ago, hires usually came within a program. Long-time assistants took over for the head coaches who mentored them.
“That stopped pretty abruptly in the late 70s and 80s,” McMahan said. “Coaches started coming from outside the school district.”
Over the past 20 years, high school coaching has turned from being a teacher-dominated profession to a mix, where in many districts, at least a third of coaches are “out-of-district” coaches who have a day job outside the district. Shoreline, for example, has 15 out-of-district coaches out of 40 varsity head coaches.
It’s not easy for teachers to dedicate adequate time to both teaching and coaching and be good at both, Polk said. Districts also look outside the district when coaches retire from coaching but keep their teaching positions.
It can be a challenge to find teachers in the building who are qualified, interested and willing to take on coaching duties as well, said Marysville School District Athletic Director Greg Erickson.
Out-of-district coaches hold a variety of jobs, from working at Boeing to construction to driving a truck.
First-year Shorewood boys basketball coach Shawn Hall, who works for Boeing, said there are benefits to being in the building but he believes opening up positions to out-of-building coaches also diversifies the coaching profession.
“You want the best person for the job,” he said.
Competition for candidates fierce
Competition for coaching candidates is fierce with athletic directors calling and e-mailing a wide range of sources as soon as a coach leaves. Veteran coaches often get calls from administrators at other schools asking if they are interested in a job or if they can recommend anybody.
McMahan said her district tries to maintain high standards and will wait until the last minute before it fills a position if necessary.
“We try very hard not to settle,” she said.
The proliferation of year-round club programs in many sports also makes the hiring process even more competitive. Some top coaches stick to club sports because they aren’t subject to as many rules, such as limits on out-of-season coaching, a provision of the Washington Interscholastic Activities Association that oversees high school athletics in the state. Some, like Shorewood girls soccer coach Teddy Mitalas, who works as director of soccer at Starfire Sports in Tukwila and coaches the Seattle Sounders women’s team, do both.
Coaches in Washington state are classified employees and work under separate contracts from teachers.
Athletic directors and administrators look for coaches who have developed solid teaching methodologies, who know how to break things down into small pieces and bring parts into a whole, McMahan said.
Ideally, a coach would be a teacher who is in the building during the day, but McMahan said some of the best coaches in the district have been off-campus coaches.
Edmonds currently has four openings and Shoreline has two.
“Obviously our goal as a school district is to retain coaches as long as possible,” Dalziel said. “Consistency generally correlates to outstanding programs.”
An example is the Shorecrest volleyball program, which has been led by coach Dave Morehouse for the past 19 seasons and is a perennial state playoff team. The Scots took third at the state Class 3A tournament last November, the best finish in school history.
Long hours, little pay
However, coaching can be especially hard to justify to a spouse given the amount of hours a coach puts in when compared to the pay, said Marv Morris, the head boys basketball coach at King’s. During the season, Morris estimates he spends at least 30 hours a week on the job. That includes practices, games, preparing for practices, watching film, travel and administrative duties.
“It’s really asking a lot of your spouse to be supportive year after year,” said Morris, who believes an increase in pay would make coaching more palatable to a coach’s family.
Most varsity coaching jobs pay between $3,000 and $6,000, with football and basketball coaches at the top of the scale. Some coaches receive bonus pay from booster clubs, which Morris sees as a positive.
“I think the job is a difficult one and a lot of people burn out quickly,” said Morris, who has coached high school sports for more than 30 years, including serving as head boys basketball coach at Shorecrest and then King’s, the past 16 seasons.
Coaches at private schools like King’s generally make less than those at public schools. Morris said he makes about 60 percent of what he would make at his old job at Shorecrest.
However, because of already stretched budgets, more pay from districts for coaches is unlikely, athletic directors say. And some believe more money may not necessarily be a panacea.
“It’s truly for the love of the sport,” Nagel said. “For them to say to raise the salary I don’t know if you’re going to get the right people in there…You don’t get into education and coaching for the money, you can’t. It’s pure pride working with kids and coaching and teaching.”
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