Non-renewals by BOE and sports success; correlation? Causation?

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formerfcfan
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Non-renewals by BOE and sports success; correlation? Causation?

Post by formerfcfan »

Lazy Friday for me, so I decided to scroll through the basketball and football forums. A common theme I've noticed not just on this board, but other sports forums over the years, is how school boards (or in some cases, the administration of a school) often make the decision to place 'non-renewal' on sports coaches' contracts for the next school year; many times these decisions seem to make "no sense." No sense in that often times, a moderately successful coach can find his contract not renewed for the next school year or a district repeatedly finding itself going through multiple basketball coaches in the span of a couple years because of repeated non-renewals.

I, most likely, have some 'blind spots' to this topic as I'm not as familiar with the hiring of school employees in the public sector as I am when it comes to privates. However, some times I will read about how a district's BOE (or the administration) chose not to renew a coach. I understand some times you're going to have coaches that aren't a good 'fit', or coaches that have good reason to not be brought back the next school year. But I'm led to believe that only a small percentage of coaches who aren't renewed actually fit in that category, with many others being good coaches with good character finding themselves out of a job for apparently no reason. Conjecture, but my observation is sometimes we see the same school districts having a hard time holding onto a coach for one reason or another but often times non-renewals in the past or present have shaped that predicament for the school.

Do non-renewals of coaches, for seemingly no 'good' reason, end up hurting certain districts? It's tough to build a winner when a school is going through coaches like toilet paper. What are peoples thoughts? Could it be the case that BOE's in some places and their decisions act more in the detriment, rather than the benefit, of their schools' athletic success and against the interests of their student-athletes?


trojandave
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Location: Portsmouth HS--15 State Appearances in Boys Basketball--4th All Time in Ohio

Re: Non-renewals by BOE and sports success; correlation? Causation?

Post by trojandave »

Stability is one of the most important factors in building a winning program. If a coaching staff (primarily the head coach) is allowed several years to put his system in place, chances are that program has a good chance of success if that coach maximizes all the resources available to him. I know there are some school systems that won't allow an administrator to be a coach, even though that individual may be the most qualified for the position. In some instances, a coach that doesn't have much tenure seems more susceptible to outside influences because those influences feel like they can control the coach. The coaches who have built consistent winning programs seem the most immune to negative outside influences. Coach Collins at Portsmouth, Persin at Oak Hill, Lafon at Ironton, Barrick at Eastern (and Wheelersburg), Stiverson at Logan Elm, Davis at Chesapeake, Hoops at Unioto, etc. have built programs that win year in and year out and for the most part are allowed to do their jobs without interference from the outside.


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