News Article on Private Coaches for Track

[MikeLoBue]

North County Times (San Diego) article about private coaches for track.

CIF San Diego Section assistant commissioner Bill McLaughlin said that officials recognized that with sports such as diving and pole vault, exceptions could be made to allow athletes to access the type of coaching that would not always be available through a school. Safety was certainly one of the factors in singling out diving and pole vaulting.

Read full story here: http://www.nctimes.com/sports/high-scho ... 9636d.html

[PV-ATL]

Hey... let's be honest, the days of jumping over hay bails in the back yard are over. If you want to be good (...or great...) at a field event in the US, you may have to find some expert instruction. No worries here. Welcome to the "real world".

Cheers,

PV-ATL

[kev44000]

Hey... let's be honest, the days of jumping over hay bails in the back yard are over. If you want to be good (...or great...) at a field event in the US, you may have to find some expert instruction. No worries here. Welcome to the "real world".

Cheers,

PV-ATL

Agree all the way. If my sons high school coach wanted to call the shots for him I would have made him quit school track. You have to have quality coaching to be great. Tim McMichael and Joe Dial does not get much better for a high school kid, and it paid off. Just saying.

[Branko720]

It's funny that this was posted today. I am a club coach and went to a county relay meet today and was told I could not stay on the infield because I was not a school board approved coach. I have coached the girl's county record and have coached many of the best vaulters in the county over the last three years. Today I was coaching four girls at the meet from two different schools. What I thought was hysterical was that I wasn't told to leave but I could coach from outside the track. So I don't understand how the new rule was effective, and I know that the problem some people have has little to do with liability as they claim and more to do with jealousy. I cannot tell you how often people do not care if their athlete is going for extra practice when they have a low personal record, but as soon as the athlete is good the school coach wants to take over again. Also the other issue is that some school coaches get upset because they used to coach the best kids in the area until the club scene got started and are now upset. I've had coaches tell me that my kids shouldn't be practicing with me, even if their school doesn't have a pole vault coach or equipment. Why? Is it because you don't like competition?

Yes I am one of the lucky (hardworking) few that has a club and attracts enough athletes that I can pay the bills, (meaning I am not getting rich by any means, I do mean pay the bills). And I love my line of work. I love working with kids and helping make them better pole vaulters and most importantly better people, but I don't understand the backlash. I tell you when I first started coaching everyone was my friend, and as soon as started winning, I lost many friends. And now that my club is full time, I know I have upset even more people. Athletes from schools that never had pole vaulters now do have pole vaulters, and good ones at that. And some of the good old boys can't cut it any more. Well lets face it how can people expect a school to have the amount of poles a club has or a coach with the same amount of knowledge. I am not speaking for all high school coaches but many are not competent, never-mind good. Most are teachers who do coaching for supplemental income and spend little time with their craft, how can they compare to a club coach? If an athlete chooses to go work with a club, that is the athlete's choice, and as long as they aren't skipping their high school practice and the club coach doesn't overstep their boundaries ( example: try to coach an athlete at their hs's meet when they have a vault coach, without permission) than the athlete can do as they wish. A hs team does not have total control over a kid. You can't tell a kid what to do in their spare time.

[VaultPurple]

I know several athletes that were told by their high school coaches that they could not receive private coaching or they would be kicked off the team. And you know the really cool thing about pole vaulters? They like jumping high! So everyone I know that this has happened to has quit their high school team, competed unattached, and ended up improving.

Some coaches make the good point, that club coaches are necessary if your school does not have a coach, but that their kids can not have club coaches because they have a coach. But this makes it unfair for the kids stuck with a 'coach' because half the time you get a guy that calls himself the high school's vault coach and he probably threw shot put in high school and teaches the Texas Pole Vault Manifesto.

But I do have to agree with one thing, and it may just be because of how my club was ran in high school. Club coaches belong at their own facility (and if they coach at a high school that works) or at a school on the weekend. They do not need to roll up to duel meets at the kids high school every week and try to get on the infield. If it is a big club they should have kids at a bunch of different schools so it would be hard to go to all of their meets anyway. But I agree with high school coaches in that if you are not a high school coach, you should not be on the field during regular season meets during the week. Invitationals are different because the kid is not always associated completely with their high school and you are hardly ever competing for your team for points or anything so your head coach has little to do with you.

But maybe thats just me.. my club coach never came to our home meets and I think it would be really weird for 3 or 4 vault coaches down on the track when there are only two teams competing.

[Branko720]

First off I don't go to duel meets and I wasn't mentioning a duel meet. Also unless a kid rents a pole they usually don't even have the correct pole to jump on at a meet unless I am in attendance and brought poles. I have actually had head coaches express interest in me attending duel meets, but as you mention I don't have the time to attend duel meets during the week. As far as me being on the infield it's not a huge issue, I can coach from outside the track. I do think it is silly that I have to use hand signals and yell to coach. However, for safety reasons I think I should be able to stand wherever other coaches can stand. Is the infield some kind of holy ground in which only school coaches can tread? (fyi I did start out as a high school coach)Why should I have to make calls from off the track or even worse, today I had to watch from an angle which wasn't the best due to some obstructions.

[Pogo Stick]

Little bit off topic, but just a little...
Coming from Old World I had hard time to understand way of organizing sports in USA (and partially in Canada). Everything is in schools/colleges, private clubs and coaches are like something dirty or unethical things.
In Europe sport in school is like math or art - just one of the subjects in curriculum. Everyone participates regardless of talent and gets the chance to try and learn basic things. If you want more, you have to go to club. They have equipment, facilities, coaches, organization, etc. Some coaches are full-time professionals, some also work in school as gym teachers (coaches). Most have some formal sports education or combination of courses/certifications and hands-on experience. Clubs are financed by local/federal government (budget) and/or by sponsors. Instead of 10 school's T&F teams you have 1 or 2 T&F clubs. Instead of 10 pole vault programs with lack of equipment and coaches you have fewer clubs with bigger concentration of resources. If you don't like T&F, go to swimming club or basketball club - they are organized on same principle. You like T&F and want to practice but you are not so good? Membership fees are not high thanks to subsidies and bigger number of people in pool. You have no money - if club got some funding from budget, they want to keep you and get funding. There are also subsidized programs for people who cannot afford it and other incentives like tax breaks. You graduated from the college but not yet world class? No problem - you still have your club, your coach and team colleagues. Clubs usually have no such pressure to get results quickly as schools and can concentrate more on developing. Clubs don't need to deal with neither school boards nor fight with football team about practice times and resources. They can be very efficient and well organized. Does such system create some kind of elitism and keep less talented kids off the sport? Maybe yes, maybe not, we can discuss, but it is the same as with other things in the life. You are not questioning that your kid will never go to Ivy League University if he is not so gifted to get scholarship (unless you are super rich). Subsequently, he may never get the opportunity to develop his full potential and become Nobel Prize winner or next president.

[Branko720]

Great post pogo stick. I remember at Reno one year bringing up the idea that regions should pool their efforts. In the county that I mentioned previously we have over 50 high schools. As you might imagine there are not 50 pole vault coaches nor 50 sets of poles. After I mentioned this, the room went silent and they moved on to another topic. I often think about the European system. I think it is much more conducive to producing results. I am sure that there are many coaches on this board that see vaulters, some who even produce above average, not great, results and could be doing so much better with proper coaching. And at the end of the day that is why I became a coach. I jumped in high school and had no coaching. I jumped 10'6". I knew I could have done better. My high school had 4 poles, all of them 14' 150's. Not sure why. And here's the thing, I love my high school coaches, the were awesome, they just weren't pole vault coaches. At the time there were no clubs in the area. However, I am sure my coaches would have loved the idea of their athletes getting help in an event that they couldn't coach. When I first started out as a high school coach I always helped the kids from other schools. I remember some of my athletes getting upset at first. I always told them, hey you get to work with me every day, they only see me at meets, if they beat you they are just better. I became a coach to make sure kids could reach their potential. I hate seeing a kid go through what I had to go through in high school.

Honestly more often than not the coaches of the kids that I work with want me at the meets, love the idea that I work with their kids. It is usually the coaches from schools that my kids compete against that don't want me there. Why? I am not bothering them. I don't try and coach kids who have a coach. As I alluded to earlier, its about wins and losses. Those coaches don't want me there because they don't want to lose to my kids. And if I didn't coach those kids, they wouldn't be a factor. That is selfish. Again I coach to help kids, period. What's on their agenda?

[vcpvcoach]

As a high school coach who encourages his vaulter to go to clinics and clubs, I think you are getting a couple of things wrong.

First, if you are a club coach, you are not covered by that schools insurance. You have not gone through background checks for that school like all of the coaches on the field. You are probably an upstanding person but the schools don't know that. If you are hurt during the meet or practice and need medical attention, the school is liable. You could sue the school to recover your medical expenses. And, before you say I won't get hurt, I got ran into be an athlete warming up and got hurt. Stuff happens. As for the background check, you could be a sex offender or a felon. (Not saying you are) Think about the legal nightmare that would cause the school if a parent found out that you were allowed to be near their kids.

Second, what if you tall your club vaulter to move to a bigger pole and he has a bad run, bad plant, bad takeoff and doesn't bail out safely. God forbid, he comes down head first into the box. Since you are not covered by the school's insurance, you could be named in the lawsuit for instructing the kid. Yes, I know you have insurance through your club but I don't know if you are covered at that high school. Do you? In our lawsuit happy world is it worth to the school to take that chance?

As for the other coaches, we had a couple of vaulter in our conference that vaulter for a school that had no pit. They went to a local club to practice. They were both State champions and conference winners. It was frustrating for us coaches because they earned point that helped there schools win the conference meet. I got over it quickly because their club coach is a great guy whom I have sent my vaulters to for instruction. I just needed to find better athletes and get more poles to be able to compete. It helped that they were great kids with no attitude.

Each school that has the vault shells out thousands of dollar for the equipment and to have a vault come in and steal points is a slap in the face to the schools that invest in their kids. That is human nature to see it that way as a coach.

With all that being said, I think club coaches do the pole vaulting community a great service. If they are instructing their vaulter to be safe and learn about more about the vault, then we all benefit. One thing, I wish that my kids club coaches would video tape all practices with audio so I could continue the clubs instruction at my practices. I ask the kids want they learned and how it was taught and they usually respond, "I don't know." Most of the time, the club coach and I are saying the same thing but in different ways.

In the fall, I'm starting a club so I will see what it's like to be on the other side of this discussion. I maybe dead wrong? I guess I'll be finding out.

[superpipe]

Very interesting topic. I run my club in Vermont so I'm pretty sheltered from most of this stuff, but it is always on my mind with schools and other coaches. I personally tell all of my club vaulters I'm hands off at meets unless their coach comes to me and says it's OK for me to coach them at a meet.

Funny, I got into coaching the vault for the same exact reason as Branko720. Absolutely loved the event and had no coach in high school. Last week of outdoor season my senior year I got to go to another high school who had a very good vault coach since I qualified for Districts. WOW! It was unreal how much better I got in a few practices with a coach who knew the event. Made the Penn State track team and it all died there since Penn State didn't have a vault coach. Believe that one? No vault coach or jumps coach that knew something about the vault at Penn State. I roomed with their top vault recruit and he never jumped a centimeter higher his whole career there. Full ride though. Anyway, just as Branko720, I never want to see a vaulter have to go through what I did. That experience still drives me today to be the best coach I can be from all angles.

Each school that has the vault shells out thousands of dollar for the equipment and to have a vault come in and steal points is a slap in the face to the schools that invest in their kids. That is human nature to see it that way as a coach.

That school isn't investing very much then. Equipment doesn't do much without a quality coach. You don't necessarily have to find that already "quality" coach. You have to find coaches that really love what they coach and want to educate themselves to be better all the time. That's the real problem, not the equipment cost.

[VaultPurple]

When it comes down to it, 99.9% of schools are not going to look for a track coach, yet alone a pole vault coach. The only sports they interview for are football, basketball, and baseball. All the other coaches are fill ins that usually never even played the sport, or are people that went and asked for the job and were more than welcome to take it.

I do think a good substitute for counties that will help with budgeting is if smaller counties only had one team and they paid a quality coach instead of having 2-5 crappy teams where only one has all the equipment. I know this will not work in some towns that have 15 high schools but where I am from there are two high schools and only one has a pole vault pit, and recently the school board has been debating cutting all sports to save money.

[vcpvcoach]

That school isn't investing very much then. Equipment doesn't do much without a quality coach. You don't necessarily have to find that already "quality" coach. You have to find coaches that really love what they coach and want to educate themselves to be better all the time. That's the real problem, not the equipment cost.

Good point. Here in Illinois, we run separate boys and girls programs in track. Think about how many less coaches would need if we were coed. Oh, my team is a throwback. The whole staff coaches boys and girls. Some weeks I go to four meets which make training and technique difficult.