Question for Rip re: coaching

[reactiontm]

I've been volunteer training HS athletes at a small Div 7 school for about 3 years now.

SS, PP have been the foundation of my programs.

Since I've been there, we've seen our teams grow progressively stronger, attendance has improved noticeably, and compliance is dramatically improved.

[Maybe more importantly, they're not doing BFS anymore. AND, we got rid of those blue manta rays, with your support.]

Previously, due to time constraints, I'd work in with the strongest kids while I'm monitoring and coaching as many as 20-25 kids.

Not only did my workouts suffer, but I just felt like I could coach a hell of a lot better if I wasn't doing so in between 5x5 squats, etc.

So I decided to get in there at 1:45pm, get my workout done before the students get done. I get a better workout, and they get better coaching.

Recently, I'm in there by myself, about to reach up for a third set of weighted chins, and the AD sticks his nose in the door, and shouts, "Hey! You're supposed to have a spotter in here with you!" I say, "You've GOT to be kidding me." He says, "No. You're no different than anyone else."

Now setting aside the fact that I've been lifting for 29 years, most of them WITHOUT a spotter, I happen to believe that it's hardly too much to ask for me to get in there a little early so I can get done what I need to, and I can coach more effectively.

I immediately told my HC that I'd sign a waiver. AD's response, "That's not the point."

Now I'm self-employed and in my work life, I don't put up with BS like this, and I recognize that you can't lift a fucking finger in a public school without considering risk management first.

Nevertheless, I want to fight this. Otherwise, I have to seriously consider whether I'm willing to invest the 7 hours during the OFF season, more during the pre-season, plus football practices on top of the training for the 10-14 weeks of the season.

I'll be using the injury rate statistics in your book (SS or PP, can't remember which one).

I'm also curious how having a spotter would help during rack pulls, haltings, power cleans, pullups, dips, amongst others.

What's your position on this?

Do you train alone? Ever? Do you have one prosthetic leg because of it?

Any other ideas?

Thanks for your help.

[Mark Rippetoe]

Go talk to the stupid fucker and explain the logistics of the situation and the actual risks involved, if you want to keep doing the workout and training the kids. But he is an education bureaucrat first, and a human male second. Keep this in mind. It probably will not turn out well, because he lacks the gumption to value your contribution and the willingness to participate in the actual reality of the situation.

[James]

I sympathize with the OP. I teach community college, and administrators regularly make me furious by committing an error and then defending it without regard to the damage it does to students, teachers, or the school in general. I advise the OP to proceed delicately.

One thing which does not work--and has nearly gotten me fired twice--is acquiring proof that administrators are in error and forcing them to confront that proof. In the original post, when the AD said "that's not the point," I knew the OP was dealing with the same mentality--it sounds like he's getting ready to dig in and take a death grip on his thoughtless citation of the rules. If so, it doesn't matter that the AD is wrong. As a volunteer, Reaction is low-man on the totem pole. By human logic, he should be respected more because he is so dedicated to helping young people, but by administrator logic, the opinion of someone so far down the ladder must be faulty--and admitting a mistake to such a person would be cataclysmic to the administrator's authority.

(I'm using the term "administrator" here because I don't really know what an AD is).

I truly don't know what the solution is. I don't know how to deal with fools that are getting in my way, like this fool is getting in yours. But I wish you luck, and I hope that venting on this forum has helped a bit--I myself feel just a little better right now.

[mlentzner]

Does he really mean a spotter, or just somebody to call 911 when you blow a gasket? Finding a *lifting partner* would be well worth your time. You only need a spotter for benching and some gymnastic moves - pullups not being one of them.

[Sean Berry]

Get the AD to be your lifting partner.

sb

[Mark Rippetoe]

Yeah, that'd be a pleasant solution.

[reactiontm]

Get the AD to be your lifting partner.

sb

Funny, I suggested to my HC that the AD could "babysit" me.

"He won't want to do that."

Update:

I was all prepared for our meeting, which was scheduled for Thursday at 1:30PM.

But we had a little snowstorm and 4 days off school.

Nevertheless, I drove up to the school at the appointed time, because I keep my commitiments.

And while he has my contact info (I don't have his number), the AD never cancelled.

Of course, he didn't show up.

I wrote a new program for the next 4 weeks for the off-season athletes over the weekend,
and showed up on Monday (early) to get my workout and get some mini-bands set up for the kids.

He shows up and asks for my weight room key, tells me if I want to change the policy, that's one thing, but in the meantime,
I'm expected to follow the rules (mind you, there is no written policy- sign on the front door says, "No lifting without a coach present."

Of course, never mind that I'm a coach. I told him I showed up for the meeting last week and he didn't. I said, "Let's meet now."

After the speech about changing the policy that he'd JUST given me, it then became clear in his office that he had no intention of changing the policy,
and told me that he didn't care who I talked to, and that the principal would back him up.

He said that waivers of liability were unenforceable (yet couldn't answer why they're still used for ALL sports, as well as for field trips and events).

He told me that when he's done, you won't be able to shoot baskets in the gym without someone there with you.

"If you want to use the facilities, you'll have to have an emergency plan, you'll have to tell us who will greet people at the door, who and how you'll tell them not to wander the halls, who will be responsible for turning off the lights and locking the doors."

He said that it was his job to make sure that there were no incidents on his watch.

I asked him if we had ever had a weight room incident to this point.

His answer: "No."

My reply, "And that was without your policy in place."

"Correct."

The irony didn't seem to register.

He then had the balls to tell me that the USC running back has a multi-milliion $ lawsuit against the university.

"And he had a spotter."

"Yes."

"So what you're telling me is, that even though USC was following your policy, possibly exceeding your standards, they're still facing a lawsuit."

"So how would your policy have avoided that incident?"

He remained undissuaded.

"And you're also forgetting the countless thousands of athletes who've worked out at USC's facility without incident."

His face was set like flint.

I mentioned the injury rates [hat tip, Rip] and that weightlifting almost doesn't register.

He was unmoved.

He had checked with 3 other high schools in our league to see if they had a weightroom policy.

All 3 said, "No lifting without a coach present."

"But do they forbid coaches from working out alone, even though they are coaches themselves?"

"Yes."

"Did you actually ask that question specifically?"

He hadn't.

During the course of our conversation, I mentioned the catches on the benches, the pins on the weight racks, the fact that most exercises are either unspottable, or a spotter would not prevent injury, that I'd been lifting for over 28 years, most without a spotter.

Did not matter.

He asked, "How would you change the policy?"

I replied, "Under what circumstances, what standards or credentials would you have to have to lift alone?"

"That's not an option."

I mentioned a webpage devoted specifically to minimizing weight room injuries, where having a spotter was number 9 of 13, I think.

I was wasting my time.

Then, the object moved to, "What if you were to have a heart attack in there?" [To which I wanted to reply, "Why don't YOU go have a heart attack in there? How about NOW!"]

He talked about the "first 15 minutes" of an emergency situation.

It was pointless to mention, but what if you had one on the can? Or in the hallway? Or in the locker room on the way to the can? Or in the coach's office? Or the storage room?

After the conversation, I turned my remaining keys in to the HC and said, "I think I'm done."

Someone else can figure out who should use what color bands, how to choke them up, what the proper form for a kettlebell swing is, how to use jump rope training to best build conditioning for sport, what's the best method to test jumping ability, how to quickly improve flexibility, get the right kids to foam roll the right way to relieve pain and increase mobility, why Chris' knees "always hurt when I squat" but didn't after I worked with him, and a thousand other things.

Or not.

Could I have handled the situation differently/better? Sure.

But at the end of the day, the question for me was, give up an ADDITIONAL 3-4 hours/week over and above the 6-10 I was already giving the off-season or use it to make more money, spend more time with my kids, or whack off if that's what I choose?

I chose the latter.

I've lost 15 pounds in the last 28 days, and it's inspired me to get rid of as much of the bullshit I've been tolerating in my life as possible.

For the moment, this topped the list.

If I invest that much of myself again, I'm damned well gonna work out alone if necessary, and I'll sign the fucking waiver.

Or, I'm going to get paid. I've got a box full of results that I helped to achieve. I'm no magician, I'm by no means an authority, but I just actually took the time to learn.

And I will send a note to the school board members, etc., so they understand how decisions are being made. If they agree with this process and the conclusions reached by the AD, then I'll have learned something valuable.

If this is the kind of one-size-fits-none, "nobody here gets treated like an adult" policy and decision-making process we have in this school district, all 3 of my kids will be going to a private high school.

Nothing's wrong with the system- this is just a reflection of how things work in America: "Risk management above all else, including common sense."

Thanks for reading, thanks for the suggestions and thank you Rip for helping me to learn so much along the way.

[Mark Rippetoe]

And I will send a note to the school board members, etc., so they understand how decisions are being made. If they agree with this process and the conclusions reached by the AD, then I'll have learned something valuable.

If this is the kind of one-size-fits-none, "nobody here gets treated like an adult" policy and decision-making process we have in this school district, all 3 of my kids will be going to a private high school.

Thanks for the update. I'm afraid you're about to learn something valuable about public education in America. This man is an Education Bureaucrat, which is to say that he was incapable of getting an honest job. He lacks the integrity and the balls necessary to be a proper adult male. You are a proper adult male. Thanks for being here.

[DirtyD]

I think this is the plot to, well ... all of the Kafka novels.

[Ello]

Thank you for taking the time to post this. Having coached myself, this is all too familiar to me. Do keep us posted on whether the letter to the school board gets a response.