What should future coaches take in college?

[rainbowgirl28]

I had an athlete request that I post this question on here:

I love the pole vault, and I truly hope to make much more a name for myself some day as a coach than as an athlete. I am enjoying my athletic career, but I also want to make sure I am doing everything i can now to get the experiences necessary to be a successful coach.

When I asked my coaches here if there are certain experiences I should get/classes to take/places to go/things to do to help make me a better coach one day, he said "dont think about the future, just jump high. The best thing you can do is to have tunnel vision and not worry about it."

If you agree with this, let me know, but it sounds like bulls*** to me from a coach that cares more about me jumping high than having a future as a coach.

But, I would like to pose a question to the coaches on this forum about the best things to do to become a coach. Is there a major that is better for coaching? Certain classes to take? Opportunities to observe the best coaches in action? What things can I do now to help build a resume and a reputation as a coach that can be successful?

[KirkB]

... just jump high ...

Depending on your age and where you're at in your own PV career, that's pretty damn good advice. The higher you jump, the more people will pay attention to you when you're coaching. It's all about credibility.

Besides jumping high ... or at least TRYING to ... which will give you the experience that you need to coach others to jump high ... take every opportunity that you can to volunteer coach ... and build your resume and reputation that way.

Coaches have good eyes and good ears ... as well as good knowledge about their sport(s). Remember to LISTEN to anybody and everybody ... and OBSERVE how other coaches tactfully handle certain situations.

Also remember that you'll be judged as a good PV coach just as much by your attitude towards your peers as by your technical coaching abilities ... so make sure you don't burn any bridges. For example, if you're calling bull**** on your present coach ... and he knows you're posting on PVP ... then you might already be ruffling his feathers ... you could have made the same point without being the least bit confrontational ... by avoiding foul language.

Who knows ... he may be in a position to hire you or fire you some day ... or at least affect your reputation! The solution is not to keep your negative thoughts about others (like your coach) to yourself. Rather, the solution is to not even THINK about your coach in any way negative! Chew on that one for awhile ... it's heavier than you think.

As far as particular courses are concerned ... other than the obvious Phys Ed type courses ... I recommend Psychology and other Human Relations courses ... becuz a coach is in the HR business.

Kirk

[ashcraftpv]

My advice would be to become a student of the vault and try to learn as much about our sport as you can. Talk to as many coaches and vaulters as humanly possible. Like Kirk said, watch and listen to other coaches and ask questions when you see or hear something you don't understand. Don't become one of those "just do what I say" vaulters. I found it better developed my understanding of the vault (and my jumping) by having open conversations with my coach rather than just doing what I was told. Any coach worth his salt would be glad to explain his reasoning when asking you to do something.

If you're looking to be a coach as a career, then any movement/sports science or kinesiology concentration would server you well. Also, I'd recommend dropping a little money and getting USATF Level 1 certified. Its an excellent course in general coaching philosophy and periodization.

[bjvando]

Both of the previous replies are great!! Write down everything they say and remember it.

I only have one thing to add.

If you want to make it a full time career, LEARN OTHER EVENTS. There are a lot of good vault coaches out there that can coach against the best, but they were not able to stick it out by only coaching the vault. It is difficult for a school to hire a single event coach in limited full time positions. There are always some exceptions, but this is generally very true.

Most college vault coaches start out by volunteering a couple+ years, then getting paid a stipend, then, if their lucky, it could eventually become a full time position.

Look into some GA work ( Graduate Assistant) If you're good enough, you can get you graduate school paid for, and you can get great coaching experience...

[Barto]

Great advice in the previous posts.

My 2 cents....

Get a degree in a field that is desirable in the academic world. Through dumb luck I managed to get a MA in English Literature. By posing as an English Instructor, I was able to support myself in my early coaching career. Math, English, Biology, and Business instructors are often in demand by colleges. The academic side of campus often has money when the athletic dept. is broke. Keep this in mind when picking a major.

You have to be a TRACK COACH to make it in this world. I can't stress the importance of this enough. Learn the other events - especially the other jumping events. You will become a better pole vault coach as well as be much more marketable in the coaching world. I will never forget the pride I experienced as a coach the first time someone was suprised to find out I had been a pole vaulter. I knew then that I had achieved credibility as real track coach and not just some guy who hung out at the pole vault pit. We vaulters like to think that our event is special and unique, but in reality there is not any difference between what it takes to be successful in the vault versus the other jumping events.

Hope this helps.

[KirkB]

... You have to be a TRACK COACH to make it in this world. ... Learn the other events - especially the other jumping events. You will become a better pole vault coach as well as be much more marketable in the coaching world. ... We vaulters like to think that our event is special and unique, but in reality there is not any difference between what it takes to be successful in the vault versus the other jumping events. ...

What about sprints and hurdles? Lots of carry-over value there too, isn't there? Or does that make you too busy to focus on the jumps? Would you say that the sprint coach is usually the HEAD coach? Another question ... are there many PV coaches that are the HEAD coaches ... or is it almost always an assistant coaching role?

Obviously, if you want to be a PAID PV coach, your chances of landing a full time job are better as a head coach. But of all the college level vaulters that went into coaching, how many of them actually landed head coaching jobs at a major college?

Just asking ... I'm a little out of date on who usually does what in US college coaching ranks.

Another question ... dumber than my previous questions ... I'm wondering if a HS PV coach ... or even just a HEAD HS coach ... ever gets paid to coach, or is he always a volunteer coach, and paid only for teaching academic subjects? That's the way it is in Canada.

Kirk

[Andy_C]

I would have to say that I really disagree with your coach telling you to keep your head down.

As an athlete, yes, perhaps it's best sometimes to not worry about what's around you. You want to be a well-oiled machine, not worried about anything else except you.
As a coach, you need to start growing out of your own shell because your responsibilities just increased drastically. You have to stop thinking only about yourself as you now have the athletic careers of others in your hands - you don't become good at handling these things by shutting yourself into a little shell. The best way to learn is to be involved with others, not by closing yourself in.

There are also concerns such as your professional career. You need to look further down the road to see which path you're going to take (like what Barto, BJ and Kirk are discussing). If you're going to devote your precious time, part of your adult life, to this line of work then I think not looking at your options is very unwise. You can really miss a lot of opportunities and burn a lot of bridges doing this. In the worse case scenario, you can put yourself into a financial fix. With all careers, you need to educate yourself about the field BEFORE you invest your time and effort (and money!) into it.


In my opinion, the first thing a young and highly ambitious coach should do is pick up on the science of their craft. Biomechanics, human physiology, physical and mental development are the fields you want to be dabbling in. Basically you want to focus on how the pole vault (as well as other events and sports) work biomechanically and also how to teach these things to people. There is a huge amount of stuff you could be involved in theoretically and practically!

If you want to be a really good coach, you need to understand the science. If what you're teaching has no grounding in science, then you're just taking shots in the dark hoping to get lucky.

One of the best things that the science (especially biomechanics) will do for you is give you a very good "BS Detector"! You'll encounter a lot of different ideas in your life and you're going to need to be able to sort out the good stuff from the rubbish. All of these ideas need to be challenged by analytical methods in order to verify their merit, this is how you can make sure you adopt the very best ones.


With regards to "just jump high"

I guess that while a background in athletics will give you insight nobody else from with another background can, it's also important to note that the best athletes do not always make the best coaches. The abilities of a good athlete are fundamentally different from the abilities of a good coach (though they may share commonalities in personality traits). The best coaches will have many intangible qualities that are very difficult to gauge. You will have to undergo learning processes, both theoretical and practical, in order to attain the qualities of a good coach. The criteria for being a good coach therefore cannot be met simply by "jumping high". Jumping 17 feet makes you a good pole vaulter but if you don't work well with others, don't understand how other people learn, don't have the enthusiasm or patience to teach - would you consider yourself a good pole vault coach?

The very worse case scenario is when you have an athlete who jumps high not because they practice good technique, but because they're physically very talented! This athlete will then pass down their bad technique to others who do not have their physical gift! Herein lies the great difference between the athlete and the coach. The athlete can close off to the rest of the world and just jump high. He or she can jump high in any way that works for them. They could muscle their way to the top with bad technique if they want, they've got the physicality to do it. However, the coach does not have the luxury of possessing hordes of supermen and superwomen who will perform well regardless of what they are taught. A great coach needs to know how to get the very best out of the average person. This means that they really have to know their stuff technique wise and they need to be acutely aware of the world around them. The best coaches always make *GOOD* technique the priority in all approaches.

The best thing you can ever do for yourself is learn. Learn about the job field, learn about interpersonal skills, learn about teaching others, learn about pole vault technique! That's my advice. Nobody ever became a great coach by shutting themselves away from the rest of the world. - I think Kirk said that somewhere in another thread

Personally, I don't like the advice you're getting if you want to be a coach. Whether you listen to it is up to you or not. But here's a question you can ask yourself - Your coach may have trained many great athletes, it doesn't matter. But have they ever trained a great coach?

[rainbowgirl28]

There are quite a few different elements to the questions asked and several unasked questions that are extremely relevant.

First is how to BE a good coach. There are a number of elements to this.

1. A thorough understanding of the vault. Knowing the ins and outs of how everything works and how it ties in with physiology, physics, biomechanics, etc. You don't have to be an expert in any of those field, but having a basic understanding of the underlying principles that apply to the vault helps keep you grounded and on the right track. Taking basic level anatomy, physiology, and biomechanics classes is helpful. You don't need more than HS level physics, but if you never took it in HS, it may be helpful to do some research and teach yourself the basics.

2. A correct understanding of the vault. This isn't exactly the same thing as above. There are coaches who understand the event very thoroughly, but some of what they understand is wrong and they end up missing the boat. Taking the classes listed above helps, spending time with good coaches helps, reading quality materials like Beginner to Bubka helps, etc.

3. The knowledge of how to get people to progress from point A to point Z, and knowing what points they'll hit along the way. There are coaches who understand the vault well, but miss the boat on how to get their athletes there. This can best be improved by observing a wide variety of coaches in action, watching/reading a variety of materials on coaching pole vault, etc. Your university may have classes in the education department that could be helpful in this area.

4. The ability to communicate effectively your desires to your athletes. I think this is an area that is often overlooked, and yet makes all the difference in the world. A lot of it is related to personality. Many people who choose to get into coaching naturally do this well, but some have to work at it. If this is not a strong area for you, look into classes in the communication and education departments that could be helpful. Also observing coaches and paying attention to _how_ they communicate can be helpful. Try to see what works and what doesn't work, and notice how different athletes respond to different types of communication.


Tips for the college athlete on how to improve in these areas:
- Try to get coaching experience in the summer. Consider spending time helping at a club or at camps where you get hands on coaching experience, but you have someone mentoring you.
- If your school does any kind of clinics or camps, help out.
- Take advantage of opportunities to train with difference coaches and see how they do things.
- Study the event. Read Beginner to Bubka (but maybe during the summer, you don't want to overanalyze things mid-season). Give your coach a copy of the book.

[rainbowgirl28]

An unasked question, but a very important one, is how to fit coaching into your life.

1. You need to look big picture. What kind of career do you want? What kind of lifestyle do you want? Even if you're too young to admit it, most people want to get married and have kids someday. Do you want your wife to be able to stay home with the kids? Do you want to be able to have dinner with your family at night?

2. Consider what level you want to coach at, and if that is compatible with the rest of your goals.

Coaching at the high school level is generally restricted to in-season coaching only (though you can supplement this with club coaching). Your practices are almost always going to be between school and dinner, which is incompatible with 9-5 jobs. Once the season gets going, you could have 2-3 meets per week which will usually suck up your entire evening. If your school hosts a lot of home meets, you could have extra work preparing.
Some areas require HS coaches to be teachers. If you have any interest in teaching, this is definitely the most compatible job. Pole vault is such a specialized event that it is a lot easier for a non-teacher to get a job than other events. If you get paid, it won't be much, anywhere from a few hundred bucks to maybe $2,000 max, and that would generally be for someone coaching more than just the vault.
Every state has different requirements about how much contact you can have with your kids in the offseason. In most states you can start a club and at least work with kids from other schools in the offseason.

Pros of HS coaching:
- Improvements are made quickly
- Easy for the athletes to achieve a level of success
- Generally compatible with club coaching

Cons of HS coaching
- Really crappy pay, if any
- Could have a limited number of poles available
- Can be tough to find dedicated and/or talented kids



The experience of coaching at the college level varies widely depending on the level you are coaching at and the demographics of the school.
Many smaller colleges are not _that_ different from coaching high school, especially if they only sponsor outdoor track. It is possible to have a different job and coach college track, but it helps a lot if it's a flexible job. Practice times are usually more flexible in college, but you generally still need to have that "afterschool" time free. If you are using an indoor facility shared by 5 other sports, you may not get to vault until late at night or other weird hours.
Coaching as a paid job at a major school is a tough career. You work long hours for really crappy pay. Your duties will vary, but most of your time won't be spent coaching, it will be spent doing paperwork, recruiting, prepping for home meets, etc. To get a paid job at a smaller school you may have to pick up additional work in the admissions office or elsewhere on campus. If you are trying to work your way through the ranks and get to a high caliber program, you may have to pick up and move across the country every few years.

Pros of College Coaching
- You generally have talented and dedicated athletes
- Your athletes are training year round
- Generally have access to great facilities
- Access to athletic trainers and other medical care
- Generally have lots of poles to work with
- Your best shot at making a living in coaching
- Your best shot at potentially coaching elite athletes someday

Cons of College Coaching
- The pay still sucks
- You will most likely need to coach other events if you want to get a paying job
- You'll spend a lot of time doing administrative things.
- You might have to be willing to move anywhere in the country to get the job you want
- Big time suck during the season. You could have a lot of long bus rides and overnight trips.
- At the Division I level, there are a ton of restrictions on the contact you can have with high schoolers, which can significantly restrict your ability to run any kind of club.


If your goal is to coach club only, your best bet is to coach HS for a few years while you get the club started. You have to build your base of clients, and understand the local HS scene and rules.

3. Marry the right person. I know the divorce rate is pretty high in this country, but my experience tells me it's even higher than average for pole vault coaches. It's a demanding job that can be tough on marriages. You have to find someone that supports your goals, is willing to move to support them (if you want to be a career college coach), is willing to be understanding of the long hours you work, is willing to live in poverty (career college coaching), etc. You have to be willing to not let coaching consume your whole life, make time for your spouse, and have a life outside of track. Don't date people that are incompatible with this, casual things sometimes turn more serious, so you never know.

4. Prepare yourself for a non-coaching career. Even if you want to be a career coach, sometimes life works out in a way that makes it not possible. Learn some useful skills in college and either have a backup plan for being a career coach, or find a career that lends itself to job with flexible enough schedules for you to coach.

[rainbowgirl28]

The next area, that many are mixing in with BEing a good coach is how to GET a good coaching job.

1. Figure out what level you want to coach at. HS is pretty easy, just start asking around and figure out where the vacancies are. There is a big shortage of qualified HS coaches, so it's not rocket science. The rest of this advice is based on getting a job at the college level.

2. Vault in college. It is SO hard to get a college coaching job without having been a college athlete. Just ask Rick Baggett! This is the reason I left the University of Florida. I loved it there and was so happy, but I wasn't good enough to make the team and I was wasting all of my eligibility just by being in school. I didn't know if I wanted to coach college or not, but I knew that I didn't want that door closed to me forever. If you want to coach DI, it is best to be at a DI school, but it is probably even better to be at a school where you are good enough to travel and fit in well with the team. I gained so much more experience at an NAIA school where I had a chance to travel (a LOT), recruit (it's NAIA, there aren't that many rules), and be the SID for my team than I did at a DI school where I was barely good enough to walk on.

3. Get along with your coaches. You need them for references. Who you know is a huge part of the equation.

4. Get the right things on your resume. Go through a USATF level 1 school. It's not going to help you that much in the pole vault, but it makes you more well-rounded and better able to be a track and field coach, which most of us end up needing at some point. Look at job postings for the jobs you want and see what kinds of qualifications they are looking for.

5. Go to grad school, preferably as a GA. Almost every big position needs a masters degree for whatever reason. Being a grad assistant sets yup up nicely, but the number of positions are limited and competitive. Get good grades so you can get admitted.

6. Coach college. College coaches care very little about HS and club coaching experience, they want people who have coached at the college level. Your best bet is to get into it straight out of college. Don't think you can be a really good HS coach, or a really good coach period and get a college job. I know lots of HS coaches who are excellent coaches and I know lots of college coaches that are terrible. The sad thing is, most of those HS coaches would have a very tough time getting a college coaching job even if they tried.

If you are in that situation there is still hope. It is possible to get volunteer jobs at smaller colleges and begin building your resume that way. I got my first college coaching job when I was still competing in college. One of my teammates had been coaching at a nearby DIII school in the fall, but he quit because it was too much. I happened to know a girl on the team there who was from my hometown, so I called up the head coach and asked for the job. I got it and that girl had a big year. I jumped like crap, but in the end I was happy with how everything turned out. When I graduated and moved back home, I found out that an acquaintance of mine got the head coaching job at a local DII school that had never really had pole vault. I casually asked if they wanted a coach and she got on board. That DII school is now transitioning to DI, so had I been able to stay there I could have been a DI coach. It's tough to make the jump from small school to big, but if you are willing to be flexible and move around it is possible.

7. Females and minorities have an advantage over white males (which most of you are). Deal with it. It's not fair, but it's how life is, and whining about it won't get you anywhere.

8. As mentioned previously in this discussion, get experience coaching other events. Pole vault and jumps is the most common combination. I see pole vault and throws sometimes. 99% of colleges are not going to pay someone to coach one event.

9. Jumping high does help get your foot in the door. It only makes you a better coach if you're jumping higher because you are understanding the event better. If someone were to get juiced to the gills, they might vault a foot higher. They would not BE a better coach, but it might help them GET a better coaching job (provided they don't get busted, then they would have NO job). A well decorated vaulter-turned-coach might help with recruiting, because kids will believe that the coach who jumped higher must be the better coach.

[rainbowgirl28]

Here is a lot of other advice that doesn't fit neatly into the other categories

- Stay out of debt if you want to be a career coach, even student loans. College coaching pays horribly, you're not going to make enough money on that alone to support yourself and pay off a big loan, especially if marriage and kids are anywhere in the picture. If you're blessed enough to be able to avoid student loans, live frugally and whatever you do, do not get into credit card debt.

- Stay out of trouble! You need a clean background check to get just about any kind of coaching job, so obviously avoiding the major issues is a must. Your college coaches know if you are a partier, and they will remember that when you need a recommendation for a GA position. Guys, stay out of situations where a girl can accuse you of having done something wrong.

- Keep your Facebook/Myspace clean. Don't wait until you are applying for jobs to clean it up. Take down the pictures of you doing kegstands, of you running around in your underwear, of you doing anything that seems even vaguely potentially illegal or inappropriate.

- Keep a professional distance from your athletes. It's tough to coach your friends, but it's tough to not be friends if you are a young coach who is about the same age as their athletes. Have a life outside of track and your own friends. If you're Facebook friends, don't be overly involved in their business.

- Don't ever get romantically involved with your athletes. When does this end well? Almost never, and it usually violates either the law or school policies.

[rainbowgirl28]

Depending on your age and where you're at in your own PV career, that's pretty damn good advice. The higher you jump, the more people will pay attention to you when you're coaching. It's all about credibility.

Besides jumping high ... or at least TRYING to ... which will give you the experience that you need to coach others to jump high

It can be helpful, but there are plenty of excellent coaches who did not jump that high themselves. Alan Launder? Jumping high is more helpful for getting a good coaching job than it is for being a good coach. Plenty of elite vaulters are terrible coaches. But maximizing your own potential is a good thing and will be beneficial as you try to teach others to do the same.

Like Kirk said, watch and listen to other coaches and ask questions when you see or hear something you don't understand. Don't become one of those "just do what I say" vaulters. I found it better developed my understanding of the vault (and my jumping) by having open conversations with my coach rather than just doing what I was told. Any coach worth his salt would be glad to explain his reasoning when asking you to do something.

Yup, just be careful about your attitude when doing so. You have to figure out the best way to discuss twitch your coach without them getting defensive or thinking you are doubting them.

The very worse case scenario is when you have an athlete who jumps high not because they practice good technique, but because they're physically very talented! This athlete will then pass down their bad technique to others who do not have their physical gift! Herein lies the great difference between the athlete and the coach. The athlete can close off to the rest of the world and just jump high. He or she can jump high in any way that works for them. They could muscle their way to the top with bad technique if they want, they've got the physicality to do it. However, the coach does not have the luxury of possessing hordes of supermen and superwomen who will perform well regardless of what they are taught. A great coach needs to know how to get the very best out of the average person. This means that they really have to know their stuff technique wise and they need to be acutely aware of the world around them. The best coaches always make *GOOD* technique the priority in all approaches.

This is so true. Some of our elite vaulters have turned into fantastic coaches… Jan Johnson, Earl Bell, Anthony Curran, Scott Slover, Jeff Hartwig, Daniel Ryland, etc etc. But, especially at the college level, many vaulters are able to achieve a high level of success without understanding how to teach someone else how to get there, or how to communicate their knowledge. A less talented vaulter who is working twice as hard to keep up will often end up with a better understanding of how things work and a better ability to communicate that to others.