Thoughts on the GCS Athletics Policies‏

Thoughts are coming in on the Guilford County Schools new Athletics Policies. Do you have any ideas about modifications for the implementation of these policies?

Here is some of what is being said already about GCS Athletics Policies:

The main reason for the implementation of these policies is to stop the perceived recruiting that is occurring on the high school level. While I do believe that greater oversight of athletics is warranted at this time, I believe that these policies are unfair to both the student athlete and coaches.

We are currently in a Public Comment Period regarding these policies. If you believe that any of the policies would have a negative impact on your child then you may address your concerns to the following address: policies@gcsnc.com. You can also write to your Board of Education member that represents your area. I do not believe that any of us should approach these comments with any sense of belligerence. I recommend the following modification to the policies:

The modified proposal would 1. require all coaches, including those on a school faculty, to disclose any potential conflict of interest and 2. seek a waiver from the Interscholastic Athletics Committee by demonstrating that the potential conflict is not affecting the coach’s compliance with GCS policies.

For more information on all of the Athletics Policies you may go to gcsnc.com

10 thoughts on “Thoughts on the GCS Athletics Policies‏

  1. Very few teachers can coach. Even fewer coaches can teach. Saw that somewhere and I believe it completely. Seems to me smaller schools will be even at a greater disadvantage. Just a bad idea to have all faculty coaching staff.

    Is there anything to prevent a activist academic type from saying “Hey, I’ll coach the swim team” just so the school cannot hire an outside coach? Are there provisions to stop Principles/Administrators from pressuring faculty to coach or not coach?

    Unintended consequences abound

  2. what great timing with the ecomony and county cutbacks, eliminate all high school sports but football and basketball, let the club teams take over all the other sports, county can save tons of money – fire all the ad’s, make the football coaches and bball coaches report to one of the useless asst principles. Makes financial sense and these other sports – there is no way there are qualified faculty to coach all the different sports. Let all the club sports take over, then you can balance budget and make everyone happy, of course except for the parents of kids that are not good enough to make club and travel teams, but those parents can never be happy, but they can always start their own team in club ball – hard to start your own high school – but at least you can always get your coach fired.

  3. What is the use of having more rules that will make Guilford County schools sports teams less competitive?

    Just enforce the ones on the books. The Northern situation is a prime example of the process being allowed to go forward – whether the people doing the investigating are proceeding correctly is the question.

    One of the complaints teachers have is that they have to put in so much time outside the classroom to do a good job. So, the classroom will suffer if only teachers can coach and the sports teams will suffer because the teacher can’t put in the hours needed for the team to be successful.

    A school should have high academics and competitive sports programs. Let’s be honest, every kid is not Einstein and maybe the only way for him or her to get to college is a sports scholarship . This only gives the kids MORE opportunities to succeed.

  4. Whether you like athletics or not it does provide an outlet and some motivation for some kids just like music, band etc. Putting controls on coaches and not letting them coach in the summer is not the answer. Most recruiting of high school athletics is done through friends, parents and other players. A lot of coaches supplement their incomes coaching teams in the summer. These rules and stipulations will not do anything but make Guilford County High School athletics weaker than the rest of the state and will make it more difficult to advance in post season play. I respect the school board for what they have to do but I’ll bet that very few if any of our board members ever played high school sports or have any clue what good high school sports do for some kids. It seems to me that they are punishing the majority of the coaches for what a few do. Guilford County is a great place to live but our overall governing bodies are a disaster. We as citizens need to take back control of our own destiny.

  5. I know several kids, including may partner’s son, that will attend colleges and universities better than the colleges and unversities they were looking at if they applied as a regular student. Some of these kids would not have gone to college without sports. Ragsdale has a kid that I have gotten to know that will be the first to go to college in his family. No chance it happens without sports. And I feel pretty good he’s not the only one.

  6. I am going to take a slightly different viewpoint than some. I think schools with all faculty HEAD coaches can still compete. We only have one nonfaculty head coach at our school. I have no problem with assistants in any sport coming from the community.These people would still have to follow the guidelines of the head coach. The head coach would do all of the eligibility paperwork. Mick saying that very few teachers can coach is just not completely true or especially saying that few coaches can teach. TEACHING is COACHING and the other way around. A baseball coach teaches his middle infielders the proper way to avoid being unable to complete the double play by the hard running incoming runner at 2nd base is an example. we have had in the last couple of years coaches win TEACHER OF THE YEAR(one math,one history). these 2 guys teach AP classes with good scores on the AP exam.
    Also I very much disagree with get a clueGCS. Of course I think that post was sarcasm(Ihope so anyway). We do not need to eliminate everything but football and basketball. There are many teachers that played a given sport in high school or college that do actually enter the teaching field so they can coach their sports.
    Also GCS is trying to stop recruiting and it is WRONG for parents to SHOP THEIR KIDS.
    I wish they would take it one step further and require any student/athletes attending a college prep academy to RETURN TO THEIR BASE SCHOOLS FOR ATHLETICS. That way the academies would not become athletic recruitng tools. Wes is right in that athletics are very important to many kids. Even the kids that do not participate often like to watch their friends on teams. I wish everyone on this site would go to NCHSAA.org and read about the Overton Study and the Whitley Study from ECU School of Education. These studies really explain the value of high school athletics.
    One final thing everybody go to the new-record site whenever they print a story about high school or college sports and comment positively about the value of athletics.There are tons of naysayers on that site that trash what we all love.

  7. True enough. Now go down to Denton or some other 1A/2A sized school and field a full slate of teams with Faculty coaches. And you didnt address any of my concerns in the second paragraph. I hear teachers all the time complain about their work load and hours. Where is the time for coaching. I didnt say it was impossible. I do believe it will cause other, differant problems.

  8. I get some of your concern Mick about the small 1A size schools. Most of them will not field all of the sports teams so they usually won’t need as many coaches. In the fall for example football might be the only sport with a JV team. Volleyball might get enough girls for 2 teams. Boys soccer probably no JV. Girls tennis less than 10 players are needed. Cross country can get by nicely with 12-15 boys and 12-15 girls that want to run. All of those sports together would have only about 130 kids or so at small 1A schools. So that is only 5 HEAD coaches. My point is Mick with a smaller student body the number of athletic teams is smaller as well. I can see where at those size schools the various head coaches might have to really work hard and not be able to delegate as much to assistants that might only coach until they gain tenure and the head coach then starts all over training a new assistant.

  9. Rules are rules and they must be followed but the problem with these rules are NON ATHLETIC PEOPLE ARE MAKING ATHLETIC DECISIONS. I’m sure that most of the people who made up these rules were never good at sports and probably resented those that were. It’s just like the teachers that always get upset when a student has to leave class early because of a game or match. Athletics could be a way for some to help pay for college. It might even be the only way to college for some. For that reason alone, why should athletes trying to go to a better school for athletics be treated different then a student trying to go to a different school for band or ROTC, or a hebrew class or an AP program?
    Baseball was my only way to college. My family didn’t have the money to send me to college so my baseball scholarship got me to NY Tech. Without that baseball scholarship, I would have never learned what it takes to excel in the classroom or the confidence to excel on the ball field. I would have never gotten the chance to play professional baseball or learned how to run my business which has been succesful for almost 23 years. In my whole life as an athlete, I recieved numerous awards, placques and trophies but the one placque that I am most proud of hangs above my desk in my office… MY COLLEGE DEGREE!
    Think twice about these rules because parents will do what’s best for their kids and if they are going to make a move and can’t do it in GCS, they’ll do it elsewhere. Another county or even private schools. I always heard from administration when I coached at Grimsley, “We do what is best for the kids”. PROVE IT!!

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