Becoming a High School Coach: From Playing Sports to Coaching

Abstract

This paper focuses on the processes by which people become high school coaches. Occupational choice, professional socialization, and organizational socialization are examined, using qualitative data drawn from naturally occurring observations of coaches and informal discussions and in-depth interviews with them. Over 50% of the coaches had decided that they wanted to become a coach before entrance into college. The decision to become a coach was subjectively warranted by personal characteristics and experiences in sports, a devotion to sport, and a desire to work with young people. Youth sport coaching and student teaching which involved coaching constituted the only formal professional socialization that most of the coaches received. However, because almost all of the coaches participated in organized youth and/or high school athletics, they had a first-hand opportunity to observe their own coaches and acquire some informal images and impressions about the coaching occupation from them. Regardless of whether a neophyte began as an assistant or a head coach, technical aspects of the job and the occupation's culture were acquired by observing and listening to more experienced coaches. Through these experiences, collective understandings began to form, and the shared meanings about the occupational culture took shape. Reality shock for most novice coaches came in the form of understanding the importance the coaching culture assigns to long hours and hard work and to the realization that coaching does take an enormous amount of time. By the end of the first season, a symbolic transformation takes place and internalization of institutional expectations occurs as the neophyte begins to understand what coaching is all about.