sportsfan08

Do you really think Henry Clay would rather play St. X instead of Lexington Catholic? I highly doubt that.

Anyone can request information about applicants for a coaching or, I believe, teaching job through the Freedom of Information Act. BGP could post the names of every coach that applied for every job in Kentucky if they wanted to.

This sounds like a 'we didn't want to create a position for someone else' hire.

If this guy is really just 28 let me wish him well, but also note this is a receipe for disaster if he doesn't win at an established program like Owensboro.

What issues does he have at Trinity? From the outside looking in it appears to be the most football committed school in Kentucky.

No, it just gave a list of the applicants. They were from several states. I clicked on the link last night and it worked. They could have restricted it since then.

We actually do know. It was published in the local paper in Arkansas.

This guy has a National Championship under his belt in the last 5 years. I can't believe he would even have to interview.

I hope most of these guys communicated with their administration or have a good explanation for their players.

I'm not disagreeing with you too. I'm just saying coaching pay is out of our control. There is a lot more low hanging fruit (learning how to better run our programs, take care of and train our players, be smart with what we do in the summer, etc.) that will make things better and are much easier to achieve. I agree the coaching turnover is high and a lot of that comes when districts don't care about football. But know that turnover also comes with raised expectations as well. At least 56 head coaching openings in GA (out of 437 schools, 13%) and 60 in AL (out of 378 schools, 16%). I know kentucky's numbers are higher percentage wise, but there is a lot of turnover no matter where you coach. I think Kentucky is around 19%.

That's the point. You don't make 20% more. I looked it up this morning and my assistant coaching pay in Kentucky is higher than the assistant coaching pay in Gwinett, Fulton, and Cobb counties (the 3 largest school systems in GA I believe). Is there teacher pay higher, yes. Does that trump everything, no. Realize that Georgia is a much bigger state and has more money to go around. Coaching pay isn't changing in Ky. The red book isn't going away. We actually paying the price with the red book because of what some districts were doing with their basketball state tournament tickets. Kentucky coaches can get bonuses from boosters if they want to write the check. Football is a higher priority in the south. That isn't changing. If the money issue is such a big deal for some of you then stop complaining and move! Let the rest of us poor folk work with our kids when we want and how we want instead of legislating and restricting our time. Stop focusing on issues that are controlled in Frankfort or at the district level that we have no control of. If you want to help young coaches, start a regional mentioning program so people have somewhere to go and get honest opinions of what the profession is like. Build relationships between young coaches and veteran coaches so the young guys can learn the ropes. Do something positive instead of whining and crying about how much better other people have it.

You might want to check on that retirement being one of the best in the nation. You get paid 10% less than Kentucky teachers for the same amount of time worked in retirement.

I don't disagree, but you need to understand it's boosters that are kicking in that extra money, not the school districts. Any school in Kentucky could do the same thing if they have someone willing to write the check. Any you can't raise pay for football coaches without doing it across the board for girls and boys basketball, and baseball in some districts. In the current economic times that's a losing fight. I understand your argument, but there isn't anything coaches can do about it.

Why do people still do 2 a days? If it's really about player safety why not just figure out how to get it done in one practice and let that be enough. I would venture a guess that most injuries in the summer come from kids trying to shut it down and re-start a few hours later with out being able to recover properly.

No one said coaches aren't entitled to make money. But to say a few thousand dollars in extra pay is the be all end all is incorrect. I know Jep and he does get paid handsomely in Georgia. But those jobs don't exist everywhere like everyone seems to think. And I do know a little bit about the retirement systems. Alabama and Georgia retirement starts off much cheaper than Kentucky for the same number of years worked. If you get to be a head coach it can balance out but not everyone falls in to those jobs so easily. If you extrapolate teaching pay over what everyone else works that doesn't teach, we teachers are paid fairly well. No one is complaining about that. If a coach wants to do something to make more money by all means. But teaching and coaching in Kentucky is not as bad as some people are trying to make it out to be. You have to find where you are going to be happy and that should matter most of all.

That's the point. They are only spending 16 hours a week max a football. Most programs are done by 11 or 12. What are kids really doing before 11 or 12 in the summer anyway?

No one should coach for the money. It's a nice perk, but not the be all end all. Some coaches stay in KY because that's where their families are. And an extra few thousand in GA is nice, but the cost of living is higher as well. A lot of those things don't always get factored in. Plus, KY retirement is pays better than GA and AL retirement. A lot of benefits to coaching here if you are willing to look at the big picture and take everything into account. Plus, do you know how much you need to save in and I are a to make $60,000 a year every year in retirement? It's a lot. So while teaching doesn't always pay off while you're working it definitely pays off in the end.

This whole take June off to help football is a bunch on nonsense. How much time do kids really need? If they have from Thursday at 12 until Monday morning off; that's half the week. They already have every afternoon free Monday - Wednesday. Plus, most good coaches excuse kids in June if they are going out of town or have family commitments. If people would learn how to communicate and run programs these would be non-issues. But please stop with all this longer dead period stuff. It's ridiculous.

Sorry, but I take issue with a lot of things Coach Prince mentioned. Just because some of us have it harder than others doesn't mean we need to legislate things across the state. I'm blessed to be somewhere that we have to keep our kids away, but I've also been places where our kids needed to be at football because it was WAY better than being at home. Issues are different at each school and in each community. Let us figure it out ourselves and don't tell us when we can work with our kids. The bold type below are my thoughts (I hope it shows up correctly). Please don't take it as a shot at Coach Prince, just my thoughts on some of the comments that were made. 4th The older I become the more I see that because WE didn’t always use good common sense, the more WE lost. Examples are as follows: A. 7 on7 in June. We would go to UofL and play all day. We started at 9 or 10 and finish at 7 pm. It wasn’t very smart. Our kids were worn down with blisters and aches. We were not in shape to do that and I put our kids at risk for injury. I saw Henderson lose an all-state LB due to a torn ACL another year. I like a little 7 on7, but after 2 games, I am done. I like teaching concepts but do we really have to play to win a trophy? Playing 4-7 games in one day, is it really worth it? Why were your kids out of shape? Why weren't they working out and conditioning in March, April, and May? I played high school ball in the mid 90's and we were doing this. This seems like poor planing. B. We have heat index charts now because we lost some KIDS due to death. WE needed the heat index. Not everyone has the capacity to make judgement calls like heat. It takes the call off of us and that is good. Just like lightening, I have seen where people keep playing or practicing when they see it “FAR AWAY”. I know someone that was knocked off his feet in practice by lightening. Ask him what he thinks about “far away” lightening. He runs for cover. Who argues about the heat index? That's why most programs, at least the ones I've had the privilege of being associated with, workout in the mornings to beat the heat. C. We give our players 1 month off in the summer. I just believe that kids need to have some time to be kids. When I grew up in Mayfield we did not see the coaches for summer workouts. It was understood we had to report in shape. Unfortunately, all of our kids aren't "Mayfield" kids. They need us to help keep them on track. Give your kids a month off if you want, but don't make me do the same. Our kids get two weeks off and, like Rambo said, they get Friday off as well. We don't see them from 12 on Thursday until Monday morning. That's plenty of time in my opinion. D. This past year was a lot of fun for me personally. I enjoyed every minute except losing in the final game. But the one thing that I look back on and came to realize is that in was long! We started conditioning July 15 and ended Dec. 7. That is 1 week from being 5 months. We play too long. I personally thing if we want to do what is right, we need to cut out the bye week AND have only 2 teams from each district make the playoffs. Start a week later, July 22 and end on Thanksgiving weekend. We lose in long seasons. I believe we could get more kids to play if we shortened our season. Would you want to encourage your players to play another sport if they might not report until you have already played some games? I know that basketball is also a long sport, but I will leave that up to them to do what is right by their players. So much wrong here. When our kids were crying as they walked off the field for the last time this season it wasn't because the season was too long. They would have given almost anything for 2 or 3 extra weeks! And how does cutting the bye week help? Give your kids a break during the season and have a few light practices and give them an extra day off that week. You can't talk about player safety when your putting your kids through 2 scrimmages (which are unnecessary in my opinion) and then 11 straight games. If you want to mandate something mandate a bye week! I've never heard any kid quit because a season is too long. If they don't want to commit to the offseason work you probably don't want to try and count on them in September and October. Football isn't for everyone. Shorting the season won't get numbers up. Quit tackling people in practice everyday and learn how to make practices fun. Incorporate music. Mix up the schedule. There are tons of ways to help the season not seem so long for the kids. Why do we continually want to cut teams out of the playoffs? I know that's a whole other can of worms, but I can't help but think of 3 seed Cooper making it to the finals a few years ago. Why should we take that opportunity away from them. Some teams have tough districts, some don't. You want to punish Manual, Male, or St. X because they are in the same district? Why eliminate a good team from the playoffs. It hurts no one. 5th I see some things that concern me about our sport’s health. I have never seen this many openings in head coaching positions. We need to address the sudden changes. It is getting scarce getting quality assistant coaches, much less head coaches. We need to start getting more prospective coaches into education. To do this, there needs to be pay increases, less time working on football in down time (ask how many coaches have been divorced due to football time), more assistants in programs, better facilities, etc. I have witnessed schools with 3 coaches on staff and none where in the building. Some schools facilities are terrible. I haven’t even mentioned fundraising. It is a necessary evil. I agree with a lot of this, but these are local issues. Pay increases will have to be given to other sports as well because of Title IX. It's not happening unless your boosters want to kick it in. We don't do it for the money anyway, so that seems like a non-issue to me. Your marriage should be more important than football. Take a year off or quit all together. If you've gotten a divorce because of football you either didn't marry the right person or you didn't manage your time and put your family first. Why do the rest of us need to be punished because some guys can't figure out how to balance out their personal lives? So much other stuff are local issues. Until local districts are willing to make commitments to fixing them nothing can be done. 6th Coaches need to coach! I haven’t had to do any field work since I have been at OHS, but I used too. I have mowed, fertilized, aerated, painted, and any anything else that needed to be done. This is not a coaches job. We are trained to do that and frankly don’t have the time to concentrate on our players and program to worry about those things. I wonder how many times Urban Meyer painted the fields this past year? I agree. It makes it easier when you don't have to do those things but that's not always an option for some people. It's also not the worst thing in the world for some young coaches to cut their teeth doing some of those things. Find parent volunteers. Be nice to your custodians and maintenance people. There are solutions if you're willing to work hard enough to find them.

Why should we limit activities for our kids? Open it up. If you want to give your players time off, do it. The only reason coaches don't is because other people are working. If some people are proponents of time off then let that be what your program does. Those that don't agree, let them work. Do what you think is best for your program and stop trying to push your regulations on the rest of us. We already have a 2+ week dead period that is longer than most states. Why do we need more time off? I don't get the nonsense about the bye week. I think everyone should have a bye. If you are truly concerned about player safety why aren't coaches giving them a week off to rest during the season instead of playing 11 or more games in a row. Some people are talking out of both sides of their mouth on the issue.

Their names were posted on the list serve today. I already deleted the email but someone else can post the list.

Isn't there another thread where people can talk about all the SK nonsense?

In the end, the coaches on the advisory board let us all down. They allowed yet another terrible decision be pushed down our throats with out us knowing. It's sad when supposed "football" people make bad football decisions.

Duke is horrible. They play 0 defense. 3 wins at best in the tourney.

(continued because of fat fingers) but not one of the fastest in history.