Elitetrack: Sport Training & Conditioning

After 10 years of being a head coach of a large high school program, I have resigned.  I realized that I love interacting with athletes, creating and administrating workouts, and strategizing over and watching meets.  It was the 100 other head coaching responsibilities that have worn me out.  Example:  Uniform check in/out, emails/phone calls from parents, notes from parents about their child not being at practice, data entry before and after the meet, fundraising, budgeting equipment items, managing meets, taking care of youth athletes in lower programs, and the list goes on.  Now I am faced with the first season since my seventh grade of not being involved with track.

Do others get burned out?  How does a coach avoid burn out? 

Has anyone left the coaching field and found other capacities that allow them to be involved with track and field?  If so, doing what?

Coaching burnout is EXTREMELY high. In fact, I was at a USOC coaches ed meeting where I was the USATF rep for coaches ed and all the other NGBs had their coaches ed reps there and there was an entire presentation about it. The speaker (who I can’t remember there name) said that coaching has the second highest burnout of any profession. I could be wrong but I believe nursing was number one. And for women, the statistics were staggering…basically showing that any woman that stays in the profession for more than 3-5 years is a complete anomaly.

I HATED doing all the non-coaching stuff when I was at the collegiate level. I just wanted to be out at the track 5+ hours a day and not have to worry about it.

What’s sad is that the coaches who are most likely to get burned out are often the best ones because they invest everything they have in to their craft.

Yes i agree with the last statement Mike made…I have known coaches who have been a head coach for 20+ years and it became VERY CLEAR that their love for it deminished, thus making their effort deminished, thus making their overall quality diminish…which is a really bad cycle when you have athletes coming to you with high hopes and your basically failing them as a coach…

i feel better now…

So, well done for realising your frustrations and not just staying a head coach for the pay cheque!

Hey, Gator.  Everything you say is true.  Being head coach at a high school entails so much shit other than coaching.  I can’t believe what they go through for the pittance they get paid.  Simple solution: be an assistant coach!  Works for me.  All I have to do is work with the kids, plan workouts, enjoy the afternoons.
I look forward to every day on the track and I’ve been doing it a long time.

I left coaching HS and MS track and XC, but most of this had to do with the birth of my child and attendance at graduate school classes.  I stayed active coaching on the club circuit and have a couple of clients although that is dwindling down as I recently moved, but I hope to have secured a volunteer position at local university for this upcoming season.

As for getting burnt out, sometimes the head coach needs to learn to delegate.  Usually I find the older generation of coaches are reluctant to hand over responsibilities to their assistants.  Sometimes because they weren’t allowed to pick their assistants at the HS level.  However, all of those aspects are a part of coaching.

“As for getting burnt out, sometimes the head coach needs to learn to delegate”

Head Coaches arent the only ones who burn out…

For me and the area I reside in, coaching youth and open T&F seems to work in alleviating those stresses.  A more practical schedule and planning program provides more time to manage training requirements and reflect on that which was completed.  And serving as a personal trainer for off-season athletes helps to keep me close to those elements as well.

However, prior to those activities, simply coaching HS track seemed always a pre-mature burn out waiting to happen!  As most have stated, support coaches that have no desire to learn or improve their coaching skill level, growing admin responsibilities (with less personnel) that were never part of the work description, athletic directors that could care less about the sport or make necessary investment into the program (despite a state championship and several nationally ranked performers)and the constant selling of the sport to those that simply want to bury it.

Of course in my case, the work area for all this might have alot to do with it.  Ranting, right?

Mike Young - 26 September 2008 08:07 PM

I HATED doing all the non-coaching stuff when I was at the collegiate level. I just wanted to be out at the track 5+ hours a day and not have to worry about it.

I could definitely be happier with less office work. I never realized how good I had at as a graduate assistant. I was at practice 5-7 hours a day and would rarely be in the office. Now it is the opposite. Long office hours with endless paperwork. Sometimes feels like there are walls at every turn, but I never dread work. I enjoy waking up every day because I realize that there is some light at the end of the tunnel. I can get outside to practice and be free from the hum of my computer. There are lots of jobs in this world without that opportunity.

coachformerlyknownas… - 27 September 2008 10:47 AM

“As for getting burnt out, sometimes the head coach needs to learn to delegate”

Head Coaches arent the only ones who burn out…

I understand this, but I was referring to the original posters comment about being a head track coach.

Thank you to all for your input…

Some follow up - delegation - a must - but at the high school level I felt it was a fine line to giving some responsibilities to the assistant coaches and over burdening them.  I gave assistant coaches one responsibility each year, and they couldn’t thank me fast enough when their responsibilities were concluded. They were great assistant coaches in working with athletes, however, they didn’t want to complete the administrative work either. While I believe it is important to delegate, it is ultimately still the head coach’s responsibility to make sure that all the LITTLE stuff gets done.

For those of you that are coaching, I would like to offer some things I saw:  As our program gained success over the last 8 years (seven straight conference championships), I felt like MORE needed to be added.  Looking back at it - that was what did me in.  More isn’t always better - the workouts, meets, and the relationships with the athletes is the most important thing.

I would really like to see more clinics offer GOOD information on preventing coaching burn out.  Not sure what the specific details would be…Mike, would love to know more about some details of the clinic presentation.

Lastly - I do hope that I can be an assistant coach someday.  I personally believe track and field is the greatest sport because someone who is great or not so great can measure improvement through times or distances. 

Again - thank you to all who contributed to my topic.  I respect the information that is presented on this site!

gator9192 - 27 September 2008 08:25 PM

Thank you to all for your input…

Some follow up - delegation - a must - but at the high school level I felt it was a fine line to giving some responsibilities to the assistant coaches and over burdening them.  I gave assistant coaches one responsibility each year, and they couldn’t thank me fast enough when their responsibilities were concluded. They were great assistant coaches in working with athletes, however, they didn’t want to complete the administrative work either. While I believe it is important to delegate, it is ultimately still the head coach’s responsibility to make sure that all the LITTLE stuff gets done.

For those of you that are coaching, I would like to offer some things I saw:  As our program gained success over the last 8 years (seven straight conference championships), I felt like MORE needed to be added.  Looking back at it - that was what did me in.  More isn’t always better - the workouts, meets, and the relationships with the athletes is the most important thing.

I would really like to see more clinics offer GOOD information on preventing coaching burn out.  Not sure what the specific details would be…Mike, would love to know more about some details of the clinic presentation.

Lastly - I do hope that I can be an assistant coach someday.  I personally believe track and field is the greatest sport because someone who is great or not so great can measure improvement through times or distances. 

Again - thank you to all who contributed to my topic.  I respect the information that is presented on this site!

The administrative work is all part of coaching, a workout plan is administrative, meet scheduling is administrative, assigning participants to events at a meet is administrative and so on.  Most of a coach’s work is administrative, if your assistants don’t like it they need to get used to it.  Ultimately, the head coach is responsible, but that doesn’t mean you cannot check to make sure it is done and done properly.  I always was stressed out with online meet entry systems mainly because almost all of them suck.  I was always afraid I would show up at a big meet and my kids wouldn’t be able to participate because of some system malfunction.  I made a huge mistake my first year and a kid of mine was left off the sectional list of participants, i convinced them to let her run and they let her run but would not post her official result.  It still is my worst ever coaching experience, because my actions almost prevented her participation and in a way it still did prevent her participation as a contributing member of the team.