Monday Meditation: Assistant Coaches
November 10, 2007 – 10:01 am by: Cory PuuriI love my assistants. Frankly, I wouldn’t do this without them. The problem is that it is quite difficult in this state to find coaches that meet all of the following requirements:
a) Know and can coach debate
b) Love and are effective at working with students
c) Are old enough to drive rentals
d) Are close enough to the school to make a practice
e) Do not have schedule conflicts
Ok, I’ve basically eliminated 90% of the pool. Now, how do we match the remaining 10% up with schools in the state? Incidentally, if you are an assistant and don’t quite match up on the above list, don’t worry about it. We can’t all be perfect like Jon Voss.
I would propose that the New Coaches Committee (Dan Hansen) and PR Committee (Nick Bubb), with assistance and guidance from the President, work together on this problem to begin a campaign of finding and matching assistants (and head coaches for that matter) with programs that need them. Here are a few ideas that come to mind:
a) Work with Americorp through colleges and universities (Tim Scheffler’s idea) and Learn and Serve America to communicate the need and identify candidates. This could also be used for Judges.
b) Take a trip to local colleges and universities to post help wanted signs and establish a program for communicating the need.
c) Send press releases to newspapers around the state discussing the problem of finding coaches and announcing the new program.
d) Build a form for submission of applications to be distributed to WDCA members via e-mail like the Judge Listserv.
e) Establish new coach orientation training (i.e., legal issues of managing students, basics of coaching debate, etc.).
I wish to close this week’s Monday Meditation by saying thank you! Thank you to all the coaches and assistant coaches who are taken for granted and work for peanuts with little or no thanks from Districts, Parents or Students. You people really are amazing! Except for you Neil Young (the hardest working “pseudo-coach” in debate).
9 Responses to “Monday Meditation: Assistant Coaches”
I like the Learn and Serve idea; anything that could create incentives for new coaches would be of major assistance. How, exactly, would one go about creating this sub-program within Learn and Serve?
By Voss on Nov 10, 2007
One way LSA could work is that it has a Federal Work Study and Student Service requirement that requires higher ed institutions to use a portion of their work study for community service projects and education is one category of community service. You would need to approach the work study program at the university to ask for an LSA student to perform work study by assistant coaching your team. There is a similar requirement for Americorp.
By Cory Puuri on Nov 10, 2007
That would be incredibly helpful, especially for potential coaches who stay away from the activity because it trades off with their committment to school or similar obligations.
PS–I’m not perfect; if only…..
By Voss on Nov 10, 2007
Resolved: That the United States federal government should establish a policy substantially increasing the number of persons serving in Learn and Serve America in order to increase the number of judges and assistant coaches in Wisconsin debate programs. Learn and Serve America will enforce mandatory inclusion of WI debate coaches into its community service programs.
Advantage 1: We need judges and coaches
Advantage 2: Voss gets drafted into LSA and does community service- losing weight.
By Jules Winnfield on Nov 10, 2007
Jules–
While your sense of humor is genuinely hilarious, you would actually RECEIVE CREDIT for making jokes about my weight if you didn’t pretend to be a character from Pulp Fiction :)
–Jon
By Voss on Nov 10, 2007
Although I agree with several of Cory Puuri’s comments (hereinafter “Puuri”), I think that he leaves several important considerations without discussion. Understanding that he is likely not in a position to state the following, I shall do so.
After several years away from the activity, I find myself once again participating. There are four reasons why I, an otherwise busy law student, trek around the state to judge debate:
1) I enjoy seeing my friends.
2) I feel that I *owe* a debt of gratitude to the activity.
3) The money is nice (albeit not that great).
4) I like the activity.
Puuri’s ideas are interesting, and potentially helpful, but ultimately futile. There are real problems in Wisconsin policy debate which have gone unaddressed since I graduated from Appleton West in 2001.
I start from two premises:
A) Most assistant coaches are young (e.g. college, graduate school).
B) Most assistant coaches are busy.
Assuming that these premises are accurate, at least for several others, the question that must be answered is that of “opportunity costs.” I think that it is a forgone conclusion, particularly in a time of shrinking school budgets, that money for assistant coaches will not be increasing. Thus, the operative question must be: what will convince young, busy kids to spend their Friday night and Saturday at a debate tournament?
I think that Puuri’s ideas have some merit if the only variable being considered is money. However, I believe that there are additional ways to increase participation among individuals like myself.
Unfortunately, I think that the state of policy debate has declined markedly since my high school years. Fortunately, quality debate is not the most important variable for my renewed participation in the activity. However, the quality of the debate is certainly an important factor in determining my ultimate enjoyment of the weekend at a tournament. Good debate is like good beer. When you have it…it is enjoyable. Of course, bad debate has me asking myself “was it worth it?” For some people my age, I am sure that they ask themselves this precise question and answer “no, it’s not.”
For those individuals who are incentivized because of the social aspects of debate, even across generational lines, I know it is important to maximize the “social” factor. To this end, Wisconsin needs to finally do away with having multiple tournaments on the same weekend. If coaches want to host a debate tournament, then the season should be extended. Certainly, there are several schools that would be willing and able to host a policy debate tournament during their forensics festival.
In addition to improving the social setting, eliminating mutliple tournaments on the same weekend will hopefully mean that more teams will be in the same place - students will get to see more of their friends, hear different arguments (thus improving learning) and be exposed to a variety of other benefits. Debate will hopefully become better - for those who need quality debate as motivation to participate. Moreover, Wisconsin will finally be building a real debate community. If meaningful friendships are established during high school, Iassume that people would like to continue those friendships throughout college - if A and B are friends in high school, and A judges debate during college, B might also be inclined to judge at least *some* debate. I look at the people from my generation who I greatly enjoyed during high school and they are the main reason I participate now: Cory Puuri, Jim Sauer, Neil Young, Colin Hahn and Bill Batterman just to name a few.
I am sure that there are several other factors, including difficult head coaches, depressing the ability to find assistant coaches/judges. However, if the benefits of the current system are realistically evaluated and maximized perhaps suggestions like posting “help wanted” signs would never become suggestions in the first place.
I offer these words not as a panacea but from my perspective regarding why I continue to participate in policy debate despite several other demands on my time.
By Neal Krokosky on Nov 11, 2007
Not to be snarky - but I throughly enjoy people using WFD to call on me to do more work. :) (heavy on the sarcasm).
Cory I think misunderstands what Tim was telling him. Americorp made available off campus jobs to the same payment system that campus work study jobs have. That does not mean that Americorp funds participation in debate. Rather, it means that UW workstudy jobs fund participation in debate.
Like Neal, I agree in principle that these ideas would be good. But they are not likely to happen. We can’t just fiat these changes or even simply request that they occur.
I do think that Neal’s suggestion of a longer debate season would be beneficial to the participation of debate coaches. However, its not as simple as it seems. Many forensics tournaments are limited on space to the number of rooms that they can provide for a debate - much less the only debate tournament on that weekend which would in variably have a larger than normal participation.
By Nick Bubb on Nov 13, 2007
Why do we call it the Wisconsin Debate Coaches Association if the association doesn’t serve the needs of coaches. It just occurred to me that the only real action occurs on issues of debate rules to limit the activity as practiced. How about the association starts helping out its coaches? I digress.
Anyway, I don’t think my solutions are futile and while Bubb is partially right about the Americorp pay scheme as he used it, Tim’s real point was, “some people would prefer to use work study to judge/coach debate rather than work in the cafeteria.” Which does seem to answer back Krokosky and Bubb’s comments on this. Just because you two could afford to be doing something better with your time doesn’t mean financially needy former debaters wouldn’t gravitate to debate for the money if they knew about it.
The real point in all of this is to help the coaches (and ultimately students) find assistant coaches. There is no burden of rejoinder on these ideas–meaning, no idea necessitates negation and absent real alternatives, why discard an idea as futile, especially, when it is already being used on a small scale.
As to the one tournament per weekend, it’s a great idea. I think it allows us to centralize our tournament management resources so that every tournament can run as efficiently as Waupaca did (or as efficiently as Sheb North could have if Greendale hadn’t gotten lost and the tournament had a working printer on Friday ; - ))
I’m sure when someone makes the rounds to finalize the schedule for next year there will be a few coaches defending their weekend opposite someone else, so I really don’t need to make those arguments.
By Cory Puuri on Nov 14, 2007
Our split resources for tournament management definately didn’t cause problems at Janesville. The Parker and Craig folks ran an excellent event for a second year that ran closer to schedule than most, if not all, of the events Memorial attended earlier in the season.
By Tim Scheffler on Nov 14, 2007