Coaches Handling Multiple Sports Is Not Viable Option As Cost-Saving Measure For School District
Coach Doug Robbins
By Jack Gurner
Reporter
WATER VALLEY – The possibility of coaches handling more than one sport as a cost-saving measure reemerged at the Water Valley District School Board meeting last week.
The issue first came up last year when former Board President Ray Hawkins suggested coaches double-up and coach a second sport during their main sport’s off time.
The Board was looking for ways to save the volleyball, 7th and 8th grade baseball, and 7th and 8th grade track programs which were on the chopping block because of budget cuts.
“My suggestion is to cut out those five coaches (in the junior high program), reduce it to two coaches, and those two coaches coach all three sports,” Hawkins said at a January 2009 Board meeting.
At this year’s Feb. 1 meeting, Board Member Cayce Washington brought up multi-sport coaching as a way to save the junior high programs that are again on Superintendent Sammy Higdon’s budget cut suggestions.
“We haven’t talked about this so I am just throwing something out there and I wanted to get your opinion on it as a coach in this school district,” Washington said to Robbins.
“It seems like at one point in time some of the coaches that coached baseball and some of the spring sports assisted the head coach in the football program.”
Washington continued that it might be a situation where the District has to cut back on the number of coaches and ask more from those who remain on staff.
“Is that something you think our coaching staff could digest?” Washington asked. “If we said, ‘Coach Robbins we’re going to see what we can do, but what if we need you on the football field next fall.’”
“This would be my response,” Robbins said. “And, I have been approached with that one time before.”
“In the springtime I can’t tell you how many nights I get home after 9:00 or 10:00. My kid plays baseball now. I won’t see a third of his games this spring. The fall is the time I go fishing or ride horses or whatever it is that we do. For me to miss that time can’t be for free.”
“I’m in the same position Embry is in,” Robbins continued. “We’re just in different times of the year. So, now I’m away from my family all year long for a $750 supplement. Not a chance.”
Superintendent Higdon said that it has taken the School District a few years to get away from having coaches handle multiple sports. “All year long they were away from their families. They get real burned out. It just takes away from their family, period.”
“Three years ago or four years ago I recommended that extra ten days for those coaches,” Higdon explained. “You can take the hours these coaches spend and it isn’t going to work out to fifty cents an hour. Before those ten days it didn’t work out to a quarter an hour.”
“That just burns them out and it takes away from their program, too. We did it before. But, that wasn’t a good solution.”
Robbins commented, “Coach Embry doesn’t want me coaching his linebackers because I am not a football coach. And, I don’t want Coach Embry calling pitches.”
