Why are High School Coaches Resigning in Droves?

A few days ago, a friend of mine sent me an article about a high school softball coach in Virginia who resigned as coach because the parents of her players were working to get her removed as coach.  The coach epically resigned on Facebook and clearly stated her reasoning as to why she resigned, placing the blame at the feet of the parents who were doing everything in their power to get her fired.  This got me thinking about two articles that I read earlier this spring about coaches in New Jersey resigning for the same reason…overbearing parents working to undermine the coach because they, the parents, are not happy with the coach.  Now I usually write about youth sports, children between 5 and 13 years old; however, these articles bring up the same issues at the high school level that are affecting the youth sports world, parents who think that their children are in line for college scholarships/pro contracts and not happy with how the coach is coaching their child(ren).

            A quick google search shows a large number of  articles about high school coaches resigning and they are citing the following reasons for these resignations:

·       Toxic work environments in the athletic department

·       Parental pressure including, but not limited to parents confronting coaches after games and practices, calling and emailing coaches at home on nights and weekends to complain about their child’s playing time and one incident in California, parents walking past “in game” huddles yelling at the players telling them not to listen to the coach

·       School administrators (Board of Education members, Principals and Athletic Directors) who support the parents over the coaches when issues arise

·       Politics, with a small “p.”

If this continues, we will have the same problems at the high school level that we have in youth sports, a lack of coaches to ensure that children have a place to play.  In most cases the coaches have no problem with the children they are coaching but it is the parents who are driving the coaches out of the coaching profession.

            As I stated earlier this spring, I read two articles about high coaches in New Jersey having the same issues regarding overbearing parents causing the coaches to resign.  In an April 12, 2024 article written by Bill Evans for NJ.com entitled “Coach of NJ’s Number 1 softball team resigns over “Parents Agenda”  he states that Chris Jackson “resigned as the coach of Notre Dame’s softball team, a team that was ranked number 1 in the state - effective immediately on Thursday.”, and goes on further to state that Jackson said parents had an “agenda they were pushing that contradicted with how I wanted to run the program.”  Jackson was in his second year with the program. The Irish were 4-0 this year and last year went 22-3 while winning the Colonial Valley Conference and the Mercer County Tournament and reaching the non-public semifinals before losing.  Jackson goes on to say, (added comma) “It’s unfortunate because I had a lot of fun with the group that was there, a large portion of the players there,” Jackson goes on further to state, “the way I wanted to teach, there was pushback from some. I had the support of the administration. I didn’t  want to be a distraction to the girls who wanted to be there, and I didn’t want to take away from what they want to accomplish these last couple weeks.”  So, a good coach, who cares for his players and has a coaching philosophy is run out of his coaching by parents who were pushing back against what he was trying to do.  In fairness the article does not state what the parental pushback was, but we can all imagine it had to do with playing time, what position the girls were playing and or his general philosophy on how the game should be played.

In an article written by Darren Cooper on April 17, 2024 entitled “Coaching high school sports keeps getting more complicated, and less worth it” Mr. Cooper states that an ad for a high school coach could look something like this, "come work long hours for pennies on the dollar, get criticized by parents with personal agendas and random vendettas, watch out for boards of education that don’t know your value and won’t hesitate to fire you without ever having to explain why, and get ready to be vilified on social media and perhaps the local press. Oh, and you'd better win.”  Mr. Cooper goes on to say “coaches have to deal with players posting highlights for likes on social media even though their team got shellacked. How do you get a player to buy in to a team concept that way? And One AD showed him a text message from an extremely angry parent insisting that the school, conference, and state athletic association do something after their child was roughed up in a recent game, even though every video seemed to show that her kid was the instigator and, well, probably had it coming.”  And finally, he stated that he had another coach tell him  a story about a parent suing the school for not creating the position in the offense his son was best-suited to play, and saying they would drop all charges if the school would pay for the tuition at the school the kid was transferring to.

This is the lunacy that high school coaches must deal with on a daily basis.  According to Zip Recruiter as of Jun 1, 2024, the average hourly pay for a High School Coach in New Jersey is $19.26 an hour.  While ZipRecruiter is seeing salaries as high as $41.11 and as low as $7.52, the majority of High School Coach salaries currently range between $13.15 (25th percentile) to $23.49 (75th percentile) in New Jersey.  The average pay range for a High School Coach varies greatly (as much as $10.34), which suggests there may be many opportunities for advancement and increased pay based on skill level, location, and years of experience.  Based on recent job posting activity on ZipRecruiter, the High School Coach job market in New Jersey is not very active as few companies are currently hiring.  New Jersey ranks number 20 out of 50 states nationwide for High School Coach salaries.  So, for a whopping $19.26 per hour, a little more than the $15.13 minimum wage in New Jersey, you can coach a high school sports team and all for the honor of being abused by parents, be vilified on social media and the press, possibly have little to no support within your own administration (most likely because they are trying to save their own job), be cornered after games by angary parents and have parents call and email you at home to abuse you.  My question is who would want to have all that fun for $19.26 an hour? 

In my opinion high school sports are going to go the way of youth sports as more and more coaches step away from coaching with less and less people wanting step in to take these jobs and in the end, the only people getting hurt are the youngsters who will not have any coaches to teach them the joys of playing a sport….