Prep Coach Salaries?

[downtown]

Ok, so this is a hot topic flying around the office here....I was wondering what you guys thought.

In the US, prep (high school) athletics are a pretty big deal. HS football games can attract tens of thousands of fans, and many schools use the "gate" from prep football and basketball to help pay for the rest of their athletic department.

Different states use different pay scales for coaches. Some put them on the same pay-scale as teachers (or require them to teach a class, at least part time). Others simply require them to coach. In some states, like Texas, a football coach can make more than the building principal (and get a car).

Some folks say coach's salaries ought to be directed by "the market" (what the locals are willing to pay)...and if those salaries are 80,000+, then so be it. Others think its a misuse of district resources, (or at least priorities). Some also believe that it can damage teacher/staff morale (your math class is worth 10,000 less to the community than the football coach).

What do you think? Poll Coming!!

 

[kulade]

they shouldn't exist.

 

[emzie]

I was going to argue a coach should have to be a teacher at the school, even if just for PE / woodshop, and should get paid the rate of a teacher + a bit extra for extra-curricular job activities.

But then I thought of the next level and I'm not sure how it's much different than universities paying coaches 10x what they pay their best professors.

 

[Riffraff]

Definately less than a regular teacher.

The 'market' isn't an excuse for acting ********.

 

[.Shane.]

No more than regular teachers, but also relative to how much they work. If the HS football coach works for 6 months, then he should have pay on par w/ teachers for the hours he works.

The small HS I went to didn't have dedicated coaches. The coaches for all sports were teachers who did the coaching as a (small) supplement to their teaching duties.

 

[Ansar]

Less than a full time teacher.

 

[emzie]

Well in the case of some of these football mill schools, the top tier program is bringing in hundreds of thousands of dollars a year, more than offsetting the dedicated coach's salary.

 

[Riffraff]

Well in the case of some of these football mill schools, the top tier program is bringing in hundreds of thousands of dollars a year, more than offsetting the dedicated coach's salary.

This is excatley the kind of thinking that was used to justify the excessive payments for managers in the financial sector.

 

[Zelig]

Volunteer. I was happy with the quality of my volunteer coaches through highschool, and have quite enjoyed volunteering to help coach since then.

 

[Earthling]

Why call it prep school when pretty much any USian calls it high school...that's just confusing to everyone and furthermore since we're also dealing with American football

Anyway, though, this is a rather interesting issue, first of all because, as far as I know, there is really a bimodal set of situations here. It certainly is true that in some places the football program brings in revenue and supports other athletics or the school district as a whole. However, these places are also the ones who seem far more likely to have independently hired coaches who aren't necessarily teachers. So in this situation, I think it would be rather unrealistic to not pay coaches competitive salaries even if it's apart from what teachers may - trying to enforce otherwise probably wouldn't work out and would just be silly.

However, one thing I am quite clear on - if there is no "profit" being made in athletics programs, then certainly outlandish costs and salaries of coaches is not justified at all. Either volunteering or a reasonable additional compensation (though this would ideally be for only teachers, outside community coaches would just have to volunteer) is thus fine for any sport. Simply put - if football or other sports are costing the school money in the long run, and even more so if coaches must be teachers, there is no reason for special treatment or separate standards. I'd say this holds true up to a reasonable point of significant community fundraising/gains for most of the athletics department. And of course, standard ethical cautions should be involved in any case - you shouldn't just have one rich guy who gives a school's athletics program a few hundred grand but then expects to "buy" coaching positions for his friends or something.

 

[emzie]

This is excatley the kind of thinking that was used to justify the excessive payments for managers in the financial sector.

And most of those people deserved the excessive payments. There's a big difference in that a football coach can't really lose other people's money... well directly. I know a few people who bet on highschool football.

 

[Riffraff]

And most of those people deserved the excessive payments. There's a big difference in that a football coach can't really lose other people's money... well directly. I know a few people who bet on highschool football.

Most deserved payments for running huge quasi-scams and not realizing the disastrous consequences?

 

[MagisterCultuum]

They should not receive any government money. It is ok for public schools to have sports teams only if they are entirely privately funded or voluntary.

 

[Fugitive Sisyphus]

Nonsense, having Americans getting jobs in the NFL and MLB is far more important than say Engineering or Computer Science. The government should fund highschool sports well.

 

[emzie]

Most deserved payments for running huge quasi-scams and not realizing the disastrous consequences?

Most didn't do those things. Most ran, and continue to run, very profitable divisions in legit manners. Even if all of Wall St did do what you alleged, I don't see how that pertains to highschool football coaches.

 

[Earthling]

I don't see how your wall street argument was pertinent at all in the first place - and furthermore, there wasn't ever even a good justification for high salaries - when have you heard of the public lobbying for a certain guy to keep his job and salary as they do with a beloved coach? If anything, a lot of financial managers relied on more luck than coaches trying to win games - when you have 20 guys and a large random chance of investments paying off then there's not necessarily an impact of merit more than luck. But of course, managers who lost millions of dollars can't be fined personally - thus, the only reasonable position of a company would be moderate salaries for all. You'd think they could understand the simple math behind something like that, it's just like insurance

 

[downtown]

Nonsense, having Americans getting jobs in the NFL and MLB is far more important than say Engineering or Computer Science. The government should fund highschool sports well.

We don't have prep sports to place students in the NFL. We have them as an extension of the classroom to teach teamwork, discipline, working towards a goal and leadership.

 

[cardgame]

We don't have prep sports to place students in the NFL. We have them as an extension of the classroom to teach teamwork, discipline, working towards a goal and leadership.

The Internet is a marvelous place to find unrecognized sarcasm.

 

[Earthling]

downtown didn't miss the sarcasm - if anything, he was responding to the point the poster appeared to be making, after the sarcasm had been accounted for.

 

[cardgame]

downtown didn't miss the sarcasm - if anything, he was responding to the point the poster appeared to be making, after the sarcasm had been accounted for.

The Internet is a wonderful place for people to miss the point.

In this case, me