The Social World of High School Athletic Coaches: Multiple Role Demands and Their Consequences

Abstract

A field study of high school teacher/coaches was undertaken, guided by the following general questions: What is it like being a high school teacher/coach? What are the main occupational contingencies for high school teacher/coaches? How do teacher/coaches think about themselves and their situations? The larger field study that provided the data base for this paper was conducted over a 5-month period in 1985 during which I observed teacher/coaches in six high schools. The data were drawn from naturally occurring observations and conversations with teacher/coaches, noncoaching teachers, and school administrators. Formal interviews were also conducted with 50 teacher/coaches. Data described in this paper are qualitative and focus on teacher/coaches’ feelings and attitudes about their profession and the meanings about the multiple role demands they are confronted with. The observations and interviews demonstrate quite dramatically the complexity and pervasiveness of role overload and interrole conflict in this occupation and the role strain that results. Coping and resolution strategies used by teacher/coaches are discussed.

The Impact of Role Conflict on Job Satisfaction of Independent School Athletic Directors

“…When faced with role conflict, people have to make choices. Feeling forced to choose among competing roles is not a new problem, seeing that among the teacher-coaches interviewed in Sage's (1987) field research nearly thirty years ago, there was consistent agreement among the participants that they gave priority to their coaching and that as a result, their classroom preparation got shortchanged. In Paul's (1974) (2005), when juggling too many demands, some employees may feel forced to stretch their attention, effort, and resources, which could impact even high performers' estimates of their self-efficacy, acceptance of challenging personal goals, and subsequent performance levels.…”

“…In Paul's (1974) (2005), when juggling too many demands, some employees may feel forced to stretch their attention, effort, and resources, which could impact even high performers' estimates of their self-efficacy, acceptance of challenging personal goals, and subsequent performance levels. For professionals working in the field of athletics, role conflict has been examined from many perspectives, including teachercoach (Figone, 1994;Richards & Templin, 2012;Richards, Templin, Levesque-Bristol, & Blankenship, 2014;Sage, 1987) physical education teacher-athletic directors (Ha et al, 2011), and certified athletic trainerclinical instructors (Henning & Weidner, 2008). Schmidt, Roesler, Kusserow and Rau (2014) reported that role conflict leads to a psychological conflict in which employees will not be capable of fulfilling every expected role at the same time.…”

Sources of knowledge acquisition: perspectives of the high school teacher/coach

“…Coaches at the high schoollevel have been identified as assurning at least thirteen different roles. These include, but are not lirnited to, teacher, instructor, trainer, leader, rnotivator, substitute parent, friend, social worker, adrninistrator, mentor, manager, disciplinarian, and provider of social support (Gurnmerson, 1992;Sage, 1987;Smoll & Smith, 1996). To fulfill these various roles, coaches should possess both sport-specifie and general coaching knowledge (Abraham & Literature Review 13 Collins, 1998;Cushion, Armour, & Jones, 2003;Potrac, Brewer, Jones, Armour, & Hoff, 2000;Saury & Durand, 1998).…”

“…According to the CM, the goal of the coach is to develop the athlete and the team (Côté, Salmela, Trudel et al,1995), although the authors never explicitly expanded on this idea. Recent research has shown that high school ( e.g., Gould, Collins, Lauer, & Chung, 2007) (Gummerson, 1992;Sage, 1987;Clark, 2001). For instance, Sage demonstrated that high school coaching responsibilities included assuming the role of the teacher, trainer, administrator, motivator, and disciplinarian.…”

“…For example, Sage (1987) conducted interviews with high school teacher/coaches in the United States to examine their role demands. Results revealed that in addition to teaching, these coaches would spend 30 to 40 hours per week planning practices, preparing for games, studying film, and arranging for the team's transportation to and from games.…”