I have to admit that, while I put the same amount of effort into every story I write, I was not expecting a coaching update I did about the girls’ basketball team at Wilson High to be the most-read story I’ve written in 17 years as a sportswriter in Long Beach.
The story, however, touched a nerve–not just locally but nationwide. That was evidenced by the several hundred thousand pageviews it received, as well as thousands of shares and comments on The562.org’s social media channels. The story? It was about a CIF Southern Section championship-winning coach named Erin Carey, who decided to step down from her post with the Bruins in the middle of the season in the face of what she called “relentless” criticism and mistreatment from some parents within her program.
The story was unique, not because Carey stepped down but because she decided to talk about why. As she said in the story, she knew of dozens if not hundreds of coaches who’d left the high school coaching profession because of negative parent interactions, either because disgruntled parents organized and got them fired, or because personal abuse became too much to take.
Like coach Carey, I also know many coaches who’ve been in this situation. The other 562 writers and myself have almost become a default counseling service for coaches at every school in Long Beach over the last decade, and we’ve heard stories that shock and appal. Coaches have had guns pulled on them, been followed to parking lots, been physically threatened, had their families harassed.
It’s a mirror of what’s happened with youth and high school sports officiating, which has been in crisis for several years as officials’ associations struggle to recruit new refs and umps to replace retiring ones. The most common complaint that we hear from them isn’t money–it’s that they don’t want to deal with crazy parents chasing them after games or verbally abusing them.
The difference between Carey and most coaches is that she felt compelled to talk about what was happening, which is what struck a nerve. Many people who’d essentially been volunteering as high school coaches had faced similar issues, and suffered through them in silence. Her comments prompted hundreds of coaches to reach out to her, and we heard from a ton of coaches in Long Beach as well, thankful for the story.
The feedback on social media was interesting. There was a lot of support, some typical online nonsense, and also some principled debate on whether or not she should have waited until the end of the season to step down. All of that has its place, but one of the comments that spoke to me was this, from successful club baseball coach Patrick Murphy:
“I am not saying this hyperbolically, I genuinely do not believe high school sports will be available for my grandchildren. Coaches and officials are leaving in huge numbers and very soon school districts are going to tap out. They will be gone sooner than later.”
I happen to disagree with coach Murphy, but I do think that as a sports community we need to give some deep thought to what kind of a world we want to have. With an increasing number of coaches around Southern California designated as “walk ons,” meaning that they’re only being paid a coaching stipend and not compensated as an on-campus teacher, coaches have never been paid less for their efforts. Transferring schools if you don’t like a coach has also never been easier thanks to recent changes in eligibility rules.
Perhaps before firing off that nasty tweet or yelling something disparaging at a coach or ref, parents could take a pause and think–if this person wasn’t here, would things be better or worse? The worst high school ref in America is better than no high school ref, because without officials we can’t have games. I don’t think parents who verbally abused high school football refs understand that recently we’ve had a ton of Thursday night high school games in part because there aren’t enough refs to play all the games on Fridays–that’s a serious problem.
Involved parents are a true blessing, and I’m certainly not suggesting that every coach is perfect or that no coaches are deserving of criticism. But when people who volunteer their time to help our kids and schools speak this loudly about the challenges they’re facing, we should listen. And we shouldn’t just listen–we should follow coach Carey’s example in speaking out when we see something that isn’t right, too.
