Be A High School Sports Couch Part-Time And Enjoy It Seriously

High School Sports Coach

If you enjoy physical activity and your present job doesn't quite give you an outlet for it, becoming a high school sports coach as a second part-time career can be an excellent opportunity.

What Types of Coaches Are There?

If you're interested in becoming a coach, you're probably interested in coaching students in a specific sport. Depending on what school district or private schools are in your area, you may or may not be able to coach students in your ideal field. You might consider coaching a related sport--for example, a huge lacrosse fan might be able to provide students with some important guidance for hockey.

If you really don't see any option for working in a sport you like at your school district, you can always go in for a general coaching job. Much of the reward from coaching comes from the relationship built with the students rather than the actual information taught, anyway, so even if you're just teaching students about fitness or proper jogging technique you'll no doubt be satisfied with your job.

How Do I Become A Coach?

One first step you might want to take is to join the National High School Athletics Coaches Association (NHSACA, at hscoaches.org.) The organization not only provides special college-level training in coaching theory and practice, but also provides members with support when it comes to employment and potential legal issues.

The best entry point for a coaching career is to work as a teaching assistant first, focusing on PE or health classes and other sports-related jobs. Teaching assistant jobs don't require much in the way of a time commitment and get you used to the daily work of dealing with kids in the school sports programs.

After a while, you can fill in for the regular coaches in their off-seasons or help out at games and other events, slowly moving toward the prime position as soon as it's available. Teaching assistant jobs are easy to get right now, with a 10% growth in teaching assistant jobs expected by 2016. So there's no time like the present to start.

Employers tend to look for a high school degree and at least two years of college education when hiring any teaching assistants. The rules are a little bit more relaxed for coaches, as long as you have some history of leadership roles and outdoor activity.

One absolutely must-have skill for any prospective coach is first aid: there are plenty of injuries that might occur during a sporting event or even a regular PE class, after all, and it's vital to have a coach or assistant who knows how to take care of any wounds quickly and efficiently.

One Serious Point About Coaching

One of the major stress factors involved in becoming a high school sports coach is the need to be "the best of the best" when it comes to personal morality. This is more true with coaches than it is with standard high school teachers. That's mostly because of the nature of what coaching is versus what teaching is.

Teaching requires students to use their minds and focuses more on the products of a good education: high test scores, increased job skills, and other quantifiable rewards. Coaching, however, is the job of training students to lead a certain lifestyle. According to the National High School Athletics Coaches Association, a coach needs to encourage students to set personal goals, to behave with personal integrity, to eat healthy and keep fit, and to avoid dangerous habits like alcohol and tobacco.

It just doesn't make sense for a coach to have these duties without the coach also being a moral paragon: there'd be no reason for students to take such a coach seriously.

The bottom line is this: if you've had any kind of past with substance abuse or other breaches of conventional morality, it's best to make sure these are well behind you. Be up front about them and let your prospective employer know: they'll be glad you did, and it'll help both you and your school avoid potential scandals. (For the most part, of course, prospective coaches took the advice of good coaches in the past and lead fairly clean lives.)

Coaches are to students as military officers are to the enlisted men: the coach is what the student would like to be as a person some day. It's a responsibility that you have to take seriously, even if it is just a part-time job.

I remember my high school sports couch to be pretty tough, but once we listened to him and his instruction he was quite good at what he does.

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