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About The nugget. (Sisters, Or.) 1994-current | View Entire Issue (Feb. 6, 2019)
24 Wednesday, February 6, 2019 The Nugget Newspaper, Sisters, Oregon COACHING: High turnover in positions over past two years Continued from page 1 high school, and I was going to be a teacher and a coach 4 and it never changed.= Volleyball Coach Rory Rush recalled that when she was a player, <there weren9t a lot of female coaches at the time.= She wanted to step into that role and build relation- ships with players. For all the coaches inter- viewed by The Nugget, rela- tionships with student athletes are the core of coaching. <For me,= said Cross- Country Coach Josh Nordell, <it9s the relationship with the kids. I think sports is the greatest teaching tool avail- able to us.= Track Coach Jeff Larson concurs. <I think coaching is an extension of the classroom,= he told The Nugget. <You have to be able to connect with the kids (to) bring out their best.= Many of the coaches that lead programs at Sisters High School have been in the field for more than two decades. Though they are clearly dedi- cated, Sisters coaches 4 like coaches across the nation 4 are feeling more pressures than ever before; pressures that diminish both their abil- ity to coach effectively and erode their enjoyment of the work. And those pressures s are der making it harder and harder to recruit and retain new coaches. SHS programs have seen considerable turn- over in recent years, in baseball, volleyball, soc- o- cer, lacrosse and other pro- ach grams. Sometimes a coach onal relocates or other professional ake and personal obligations make coaching impossible. And sometimes they just don9t want to do it anymore. SHS Athletic Director Gary Thorson told The Nugget: <In my two years as an AD, we ing have had 16 head coaching wo changes. Of these, only two on- n- were non-renewals of con- he tracts by the district& The d turnover is alarming and hurts the growth and conti- nuity of programs, and we are looking at ways to help with this issue. Recruiting coaches in to the area is difficult as we are limited h, to what we can pay a coach, ions ns and several of the positions are now 8red flagged9 in the coaching community due e to the high turnover in that par- ticular sport. It is not unusual for there to be only one candi- date for a posted position, and we rarely have more than two to three potential candidates for a position.= Coaching is a tremen- dous time commitment. One of the factors that makes recruiting coaches dif- ficult and keeping them a problem is that the gig puts tremendous demands on coaches9 time. Thorson notes: <The aver- age practice length is two hours, but you also add in games, planning for practices and games, film breakdown, fundraising, travel, meet- ings, and answering emails and phone calls on a regular basis,= he said. <Travel is an issue, as Sisters will always be an outlier school due to our size and location. In our I think coaching is an extension of the classroom. You have to be able to connect with the kids (to) bring out their best. — Coach Jeff Larson wrong information can get out just as easily as good informa- tion, and travel just as far and as fast. <We have way more chan- nels of communication 4 and wa more problems with com- way mu munication,= Fendall said. Several coaches noted that tex from parents of athletes texts an other communication and demands can often come in the evenings, intruding on family time. Then there9s fundrais- ing and equipment manage- m ment and compliance with m myriad rules and regulations to attend to. Time spent actu- ally working with student ath- lete letes becomes limited. <I think there9s a big dif- ference between coaching and head coaching,= Fendall said. Head coaching <is not as fun.= Finding assistants to help with myriad coaching tasks isn9t easy; it9s especially hard for somebody who works a job outside the school district to commit the time necessary to get the work done and to travel with the team. While they recognize that Sisters is at the bottom end of the pay scale for coaches in Central Oregon, none of the coaches think that pay is a pri- mary factor in putting strain on coaches. Sisters pays a new coach in one of the mainline sports a stipend of $4,187, going up to $4,884 for a coach with four or more years of experience. <You could pay us a lot more and it would never pencil out,= Nordell told The Nugget. However, Larson believes that a teacher weighing whether or not to step up to coach might weigh the com- mitment against the pay and decide not to. <I do think there are teach- ers in the buildings who might be more motivated if the sti- pends were higher,= he said. Working long hours for sh short pay can get a little old, bu but coaches understand that thi this is what they sign up for. It9s when they face undue p pressures and unreasonable expectations from parents 4 and what some of them see as an increasing <pro- fessionalization= of youth sports 4 that they have to start to wonder whether it9s all worth it. Those topics are the subject of Part 2 of The Nugget9s look at coaching in Sisters. current league situation, the average one-way trip is about 2:45 (hours), with the longest trip for league being Newport. We try to help by scheduling as many non-league games as possible, but with the growing size of the Bend schools we tive often run into a competitive ule mismatch when we schedule them.= ent And the time commitment isn9t just an issue during the In my two years as sports season. <It starts months before an AD, we have had 16 your program (starts),= Larson noted. <It9s not head coaching change s. hs confined to three months — At hle tic Director and I don9t think a lot of people understand that.= Gary Thorson gram am Fendall says that program ad kes administration 4 which takes up most of a head coach9s ti time 4 is far more compli- ca cated than it used to be, espe- e Organic, natural products For me it’s th c cially since technology leads . s id k e people to expect constant with th Personal approach relationship t and instant communica- s ate re g e th is ts tion on every aspect of the for every lawn I think spor . s u to le b a program. Ironically, the il a v a l o to teaching coaches say, technological Coach y Snow Blowing tr n u o -C s ease of communication has s — Cro Shoveling • De-Icing in some ways made things Josh Nordell 22 years in business • LCB#9583 w worse instead of better. People Wood Stacking ex expect more direct, individu- Clean Ups • Hauling alized communication 4 and 541-549-2882 FREE CLASSIFIED AD! Bring in this coupon for a one-time private party text-only free classifi ed ad in The Nugget Newspaper! The deadline to place a classifed ad for the Wednesday paper is Monday at noon. • Post a personal note for a loved one to discover on Valentine’s Day. • Advertise that vehicle or furniture that you have wanted to sell. • Find a roommate. Private parties only • Expires with 2/27 issue • Up to 20 words