POLL~About Travel Coach Pay

[jsoftballcoach]

DD has had non parent head coaches since 14u and while I do not think they were paid, their travel expenses were taken care of for sure (airfare/rental car/food).

Assistant coaches have mostly been a parent, and I have no idea how that works.


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[ang2bmd]

Yep absolutely should at the least get their travel expenses reimbursed especially if they are a non parent. It takes a tremendous amount of time and a little bit of crazy to coach any sport.


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[prsboogie]

Our organization does not charge the head coach / parent fees for their daughter to play, there is a reduced cost for the assistant coach as well. That is a pretty decent comp as far as I am concerned. They put in a ton of effort and hours planning and organizing our weekly schedules.

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[Vertigo]

The last team I helped coach (as a parent) at the 18U level covered my hotel stays. Up until that point, I was never paid, received reduced fees, nor had free travel costs. When I was the head coach of my own team I still paid full fees and all of my own travel. Never asked the team to pay more to cover any of my expenses. I actually paid more out of my pocket to help subsidize other players.

I guess I just never expected that it was a thing? I was shocked when our 18U director told me my hotel stays were covered. In a way it felt weird to me - but was definitely a very nice perk.

 

[FP26]

It's an interesting discussion. We all know that there are a lot of people that are not happy with parent coaches. How often does the topic of "daddy ball" come up inside these forums? But there are also few parents that are willing to pay for coaching as the cost of travel ball is already high because of other team and personal expenses. That results in the expectation of someone not related to any of the players volunteering their time to coach the team. And pay their own costs as well. Seems like a big ask to me, and one that will likely have fewer and fewer available candidates moving forward.

 

[radness]

It's an interesting discussion. We all know that there are a lot of people that are not happy with parent coaches. How often does the topic of "daddy ball" come up inside these forums? But there are also few parents that are willing to pay for coaching as the cost of travel ball is already high because of other team and personal expenses. That results in the expectation of someone not related to any of the players volunteering their time to coach the team. And pay their own costs as well.

Seems like a big ask to me,

Yes!

and one that will likely have fewer and fewer available candidates moving forward.

!
Cost of living and price of gas.

Averaging out driving to people's practices to volunteer,
Offer a guest experience, conversation of softball, and teach some mechanics,

Teams that I would go volunteer with closest drive now $16 for gas. 1 trip.
Other teams easily drive 50 miles one way. $30 now. 1 trip
( and 50 miles one way here and back could be an hour and a half each way)

About 10 years ago a friend of mine who coaches at a junior college called me and said they needed a coach, they're short-handed. so I stepped in and volunteered. in one semester spent $800 on gas. Thinking about that now think it would be $1,600. For one semester helping coach at a college. My cost. Not including time.

This is going to be very difficult to do in today's cost.

 

[Cannonball]

I coached TB for some time. I didn't get paid. I didn't mind but would note that the out-of-town expenses were troubling. Still, my dd was playing so I would have been there anyway. I am now coaching HS and am not paid. Some people do it for the love of the game. I do it to help kids. I also have a lot of college connections when it comes to trying to get them into college to play. I don't mind that others get paid but I would say this, just because some of these coaches get paid, it doesn't make them experts.

 

[radness]

I coached TB for some time. I didn't get paid. I didn't mind but would note that the out-of-town expenses were troubling. Still, my dd was playing so I would have been there anyway. I am now coaching HS and am not paid. Some people do it for the love of the game. I do it to help kids. I also have a lot of college connections when it comes to trying to get them into college to play. I don't mind that others get paid but I would say this, just because some of these coaches get paid, it doesn't make them experts.

Agree pay does not make someone an expert. And that is true with many things!
Do you think you should get paid especially at a high school?

Some people do It For the Love of the Game
... or rather some people who love the game are able to do it without getting paid or compensated.
ADD every coach I know in softball loves the game.


Quite possibly people who are volunteering their time
Could be a greater value if they were appreciated more!!!

Unfortunately some of those who are volunteering don't even get paid in appreciation!

 

[Vertigo]

And yes, this is baseball-related, but it seems to me that the teams that are affiliated with a brick and mortar facility actually have the paid coaches. It is pretty common in my area here for a lot of the training facilities to field teams, usually coached by college players or ex-college players.

Our experience with it with my DS (15U to 17U now) has not been overly good. Our paid coach (older guy) just left the team mid-season in the fall after being with the team for two years. He was actually an ex-college coach. He would show up late to games and practices were a complete joke. He also did very little with the recruiting piece (no flyers, no talking to college coaches, etc). Glad he has moved on. The new coach (no player on our team) has a ds who graduated college last year and now is playing minor league ball, so much more familiar with the current recruiting process. He also coaches one of the top HS baseball programs in our state.
Should hopefully be a much better experience.

 

[radness]

And yes, this is baseball-related, but it seems to me that the teams that are affiliated with a brick and mortar facility actually have the paid coaches. It is pretty common in my area here for a lot of the training facilities to field teams, usually coached by college players or ex-college players.

Notice this in so cal softball.

There are some organizations that have established pay compensation.
Not all.

Then there are the outlying teams of some of those organizations that have no compensation provided for them.

Leaving that Arrangement up to individual coaches.
If they even consider doing that or not.

Seeing people think they can step up and Coach a team and 6 months into it recognizing the enormity of the task they volunteered for and its cost.
Collecting player family fees for the team which all that money going out to pay for a schedule and practice fields all while they don't get any compensation.
The coaches are a business manager along with coaching.