A Metric for Determining Great Coaches

Because of how amateur sports evolved in the United States, most sports do not revolve around the club-system you see in Europe and the rest of the world; instead, the most passionate fans are almost always those of high schools and colleges.  In the United States, sports are impossibly intertwined with the education system.

There are some problems with this.

So, given all of this, I started thinking…that’s always dangerous and I wrote another article related to this one on what constitutes success recently.  In any event, I started thinking about high school volleyball here in the state of Illinois.  In the 40-50 years Illinois has had volleyball, the best coaches are probably Peg Kopec, Rich Meyer, Teri Paul, and Fred Rakers.  Between them, they’ve racked up (two are still active) 4,000+ wins.  Yeah, not a typo.  4 coaches, over 4,000 wins, and all four ran/run classy programs which makes that success all the better.

So what’s the catch?

In the case of Kopec and Rakers, they got to coach at private schools, large ones, and both in areas where travel sports quickly took off, providing an immense boost.  Meyer and Paul coached primarily at small schools where they could control the program from 6th grade on up and in areas where early success created a tradition where everyone wanted to grow up to be part of the program.  4,000 wins–obvious success.  And again, they should be lauded for this, since they did it the right way.  That has to be clear.  They developed kids who were successful on the court, in the classroom, and then adulthood.  Win-Win-Win.

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But, should we be judging greatness by the number of wins a coach has?  If that’s the case, that means if you win enough, it justifies any/all bad behavior by a coach–bullying, cheating, etc.  It also potentially misses one of the big keys to youth sports in the U.S. and why we keep its symbiotic relationship with school–done right, sports is another way to teach and learn.  Done right, sports keeps the body healthy, it promotes mental, social, and physical development.  The lessons athletics offer are wide, varied, and immense.

So I got to thinking about a couple coaches out there I know.  They’re going to stay anonymous because you may know them and that’s awkward.  Thus, they are going to be “Coach H” and “Coach K” (I’ll also be using the masculine pronoun since that’s the proper one for mixed/unknown genders–English pro tip).

Coach H and Coach K, those guys haven’t ever been to State.  Coach H hasn’t ever had a winning season.  Coach K is maybe .500 for his career.  Here’s the catch with H+K.  Neither one is at a big school and neither one has kids wealthy enough to play club–but they wind up having to play teams in their region/conference where a majority of the kids play club.  As you can guess, neither H or K have won their conference either or advanced past the second round of the post-season.

And yet here I am mentioning these two as successful coaches, even as I detail a complete and utter failure to win conferences, regionals, or making it to state.  How’s that possible?  Well, in the case of Coach H, he’s at a school with an enrollment under 100.  There are 40 girls in the school.  He’s got 20+ playing in the VB program.  Coach K’s at a school of 150.  His school isn’t blessed with a lot of kids interested in athletics, so he only has 15 kids on his team (still 20% of the girls in the school).  The catch is Coach K’s worked it out with the other sport coaches, so those 15 athletes are all multi-sporters.  100% are playing two sports at a minimum.

Aren’t these better metrics for judging success in youth/school athletics?  Part of the goal of school-sports should be participation.  Coach H has 20ish in his program.   He’s reaching more than 50% of the female students–giving them opportunities to learn teamwork, providing leadership opportunities.

Coach K has fewer kids (no fault of his) but all of the coaches at his school have worked out schedules which permit those kids to play for their school teams (VB, basketball, softball or track or BOTH) throughout the school year with no conflicts over summer vacation.  Those kids are getting a variety of exposure to sports, able to avoid ‘burnout’ because they play so many different ones.  In some cases, the coaches have cooperated so that an athlete can do MULTIPLE SPORTS in the same season (cross-country/VB, cheer/basketball, softball/track…yes, I said cheer even though it isn’t a real sport).

These coaches deserve thanks.  They deserve appreciation.  You know coaches just like H+K.  Let them know that you appreciate the work they put in for little direct reward (coaches all know the benefits and thanks can appear years down the road).

And don’t think these sorts of coaches are limited to being “only” school coaches.  How many coaches are out there running low-cost clubs so parents aren’t bankrupted trying to help their children?  Starlings, anyone?  Consider the number of coaches at college which have no chance of winning titles–do you really think CalTech or M.I.T have titles as a priority?  NCAA D-3 is an entire division of schools which are supposed to provide a balanced life between sports and academics, one where competition enhances the learning experience.

So while coaches like Kopec, Meyer, Paul, and Rakers deserve kudos for winning, their success–and no doubt, they deserve all of the recognition they’ve received–remember the coaches in programs where that sort of success on the scoreboard is near-impossible.

Coaches who work to keep kids involved academically–to pick up diplomas and degrees, to make kids better even when the kid resists, you are amazing, you are wonderful.  On the days where I get discouraged (we all have them), thinking of people like H+K keeps me going.  None of us will change the world in massive ways with our coaching–what we do, if we do it right, is create a dozen ripples each year..and then wait to watch the effects as those kids take what we teach, incorporate the lessons into their own dreams, and go on to do amazing things.

Keep doing it, keep coaching the way you do.  It’s noticed by people, even if you don’t get told by others (like me, guilty as charged) often enough.