Insecurity of coaching contracts remains a major concern

Thoughts today turn to the preservation of coaches.

Following a brief but poignant conversation with a local coach, I decided today might be as good a time as any to approach the subject of coaching preservation.

The state of Maine is unique in terms of interscholastic contractual guarantees to all the extracurricular people who have no guarantee that their contracts will be renewed come spring. In a nutshell, these contracts have a one-year shelf life.

This has always been a bone of contention for me. In the two years I spent lobbying for improvement in the coaching contractual wars, I found myself up against a roadblock or two relative to how Maine goes about hiring and firing extracurricular people in their public school systems statewide.

For the record, I was never fired. I never experienced the pain of having a contract not renewed. Oh, I had petitions circulated around a couple of districts, signed by a bunch of locals who thought the administrators could’ve done better than me in their hiring. Not much ever came of that – thankfully.

I even had to appear in front of one school board to explain a coaching style which, according to a school board chairman, was not what the people wanted.

None of the so-called “people” were present to repeat their accusations themselves, and my life as a coach continued.

Unfortunately, for a lot of extracurricular folks and coaches, the outcome from the aforementioned trials is not always positive.

A growing concern among coaches in Maine is the number of coaches who are criticized and rebuked from within their own ranks. Consider that, then consider that some of this rebuke and vilification occurs on Internet Web sites.

This confuses me. It really does. In Maine, especially, we all seek to promote the game we love. Basketball is, arguably, the most popular sport the state has.

High school hoops have advanced to include AAU and YBOA play, but the Maine Principals’ Association’s version of publicizing the sport does not include on its own Web site vilification of coaches, or programs, for that matter.

The insecurity of extracurricular coaching contracts in Maine, ones which offer a one-year contract only and no guarantee of a continuing, tenure-like contract, provide enough insecurity that far too many coaches fall by the wayside annually because of that arrangement.

Factor into that scenario the number of qualified coaches who lose their jobs because of in-house bashing from fellow coaches and we’re reaching the point where teachers are giving up their coaching jobs and remaining in the profession without coaching.

This creates dangerous territory for athletic administrators who are looking for qualified people to fill the vacancies which exist each spring and summer for coaching positions.

Since the Internet remains a largely ungoverned territory, I call on those who care to police such computer brow-beating and keep all interscholastic Internet offerings aboveboard.

30-Second Time Out

I think it’s time that major league teams institute a policy governing star players like the Sox’s own Manny Ramirez and fine them heavily for getting thrown out of a game as Ramirez did Sunday for arguing balls and strikes.

Why?

It’s simple really.

How many fans paid big bucks to come see Manny play and never got the chance? (He got tossed after his first at-bat.)

Food for thought.

bdnsports@bangordailynews.net