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Working With Administrators
By Lem Elway
September, 18 2008
A little understanding can go a long way to keeping this important relationship positive.
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In today’s educational environment the relationships between coaches and administrators range from great to average to horrible. If both sides agree on the purpose and direction of a program, great things can happen. But when coaches and administrators pull in different directions, something will eventually rip.
When coaches make decisions, they look for support from their superiors. If none is forthcoming, anger and resentment can result and quickly accumulate. By the same token, coaches must be cognizant of the stresses and pulls an administrator faces in making decisions. It’s easy as a coach to focus on your team and situation and not look at the big picture. To facilitate a positive culture, it is important to develop a professional bond with your administrators and make sure they know and understand the rules, consequences, and coaching philosophy within your program.
Coaches, meanwhile, must understand that administrators are rarely going to be willing to jeopardize their salary or job for you. No administrator wants to be constantly putting out brush fires created by a coach, so, if you become too much of an inconvenience, you become expendable. You must become a team player while staying within your value system.
Like any partnership, relationships between coaches and athletic directors require constant communication, understanding, flexibility, and organization. Personalities, communication skills, leadership qualities, professional aspirations, school culture, and community values can all influence whether the regular interactions between these two groups will be positive or negative. The ultimate objective of education is to enable each individual to be able to be successful in the world of work. Thus, both groups must work together to develop student-athletes through positive experiences. In doing so, each group must have the respect of the other.
In my 30 years as a coach, I have seen an increased strain caused by the burgeoning number of extracurricular activities available in high schools. Tight budgets, increased complexity of student-athlete eligibility rules, and, in some cases, inept leadership has only heightened this strain.
These changes have also saddled coaches with more administrative duties, which among other things, can eat into hands-on coaching time and family time. For coaches, these added duties can result in anxiety and feelings of a lack of appreciation, especially when superiors send off an attitude of “That’s your problem,” to coaches concerned about the extra workload.
In today’s world, outside sources put additional strains on coach-administrator relationships. Parents for one, can cause headaches for both groups and easily drive a wedge between them if situations aren’t handled correctly. One of the rules a coach should never forget: parents have tunnel vision, and thus are rarely objective when dealing or evaluating their own children. Their ability to deal with a situation involving their child in an objective and unemotional manner is almost impossible. Some parents will cry foul if rules are enforced against their child, or if they feel their abilities are not being recognized by a coach. If these complaints are not met to their satisfaction, they will complain to administrators thus threatening the relationship of coaches and administrators. A procedure for dealing with these types of situations in a proactive manner rather than reactive must be established.
The motives of the complainant must also be thoroughly understood. Under “old school” principles, a parent with a problem or concern would talk face-to-face with the coach at the right moment, not during or right after a game. The “new school” parent feels they can express their displeasure to the coach at any time, or they may go over the coach’s head and talk to the athletic director or principal about their complaints. While most policy manuals call for administrators to tell the complaining party to first talk with their child and then the coach, they don’t always follow that rule. Some administrators feel they have the ability to solve all problems themselves, but when procedure is not followed, a coach may feel his or her authority is being undercut by the administrator.
Another big strain is the growing financial needs of sports programs. Schools do not seem to finance sports programs at a level that meet the needs. Coaches, therefore spend time fundraising and monetary and time investments by parents and boosters become a necessity. Coaches have had to recruit parents and players to earn the extra money necessary to operate their program at an acceptable level. This has empowered parents to feel entitled to certain expectations, and, if not met, to express their dissatisfaction freely and sometimes inappropriately. It’s not unusual to hear a parent say, “I work at all the fundraising events and donated a lot of money, so my son or daughter should get to play. Johnny’s family has hardly done anything, so why does he get to play more than my son or daughter?” These remarks threaten rules coaches that value highly. Playing time, game strategies, and other player’s ability decisions are off the table in any talk I have with parents, regardless of their fundraising efforts.
Parents need to be told explicitly when they become involved in fundraising activities that they should do so with no expectations. And don’t forget some people have short memories and may be reminded of this fact again and again.
Another outside factor is “select” teams and skills camps that can give athletes and parents a false sense of their child’s ability. Parents make a significant financial investment to send their child to select team opportunities or camps with the idea of additional exposure to “scouts” increasing their opportunity to obtain a scholarship. These experiences can be beneficial and improve skills, but they can also be taken to an extreme and give parents and players a false sense of their potential. At the end of a high school career, some parents and players expect a “return” on their money. If that success doesn’t occur, the frustration is usually vented towards the high school coach—who properly assessed the athlete’s potential from the beginning. While some people want to ‘chase a rainbow,’ reality is reality and the high school coach sometimes must supply the reality check.
All parents want their child to be successful, have fun, and play—if that doesn’t happen; it has to be someone else’s fault. The blame often falls on the high school coach, who, in the parent’s view, simply can’t see the talents that the people at these camps saw. Let’s don’t forget one important fact: people who run camps do so to make money and may embellish the player’s ability so they will come back year after year and spend more money.
As a coach, it’s easy to get caught up in the challenges of the coaching profession. It seems like things get more demanding every year. Administrators, meanwhile, must balance educational objectives and student-athlete development and handle the day-to-day operations of the school. Academic and athletic success directly shape the perspective and standing of the school in the community and that perception is paramount. There are “important” people in the community who sometimes think their children have special rights or privileges and will use that power in many ways, which can intimidate school officials.
In many communities, extracurricular programs are the public face of the school and a hub of social activities. To keep spirits and public perception moving in a positive direction, some administrators avoid controversies if at all possible, and sometimes school employees might become a “sacrificial lamb.” They know these controversies can have an adverse affect on the school’s and their standing in the community, and might result in decreasing support of schools. If this occurs, decisions made for convenience sake can frustrate a coach who wants to stand up for the principles his or her program represents instead of simply making a problem disappear.
Administrators must make many decisions that might put a target on their chest and not make everyone happy, but their decision-making procedures must be consistent. If this doesn’t occur, it can create wounds that are sometimes self-inflicted. It is important a coach understands and respects the demands and pressures of administrators, but must make sure they hold their feet to the fire and make sure they are consistent in their decisions.
Administrators have the ultimate power in decision-making situations, and coaches must work to keep the lines of communication open in an honest and professional manner. The responsibility lies on the coach to communicate necessary information well before a conflict arises. If controversy arises, coaches must be objective and pick their battles wisely. This might not always be a smooth process, but total professionalism must always be maintained.
Always realize an administrator is not going to risk their job and salary to fight a coach’s battles. If a coach wants continued support, it’s their responsibility to clearly lay out good reasons for doing things a certain way, plus convince them the fight is worth fighting. Above all, both sides need to keep the student-athlete’s development as the paramount focus, but not use it as an excuse to waiver in making the correct decision.
Each resolution of conflict should be a win/win situation. The ability and professionalism of those involved will dictate whether the outcome maximizes success, which means mutual respect must be continually nurtured and developed.
Lem Elway is Head Baseball Coach and Assistant Football Coach at Black Hills High School in Tumwater, Wash. He served as Head Baseball Coach at Anacortes (Wash.) High School from 1988-2003, and was inducted into the Washington State Coaches Hall of Fame in 1992. Lem has also coached girls' high school basketball and club baseball. His first book, The Coach's Administrative Handbook, was recently published by Coaches Choice. He can be reached at: elwaysports@hotmail.com
