By Mike
McGraw
Executive Director
It will
forever be known as â??The Damon Bailey Rule.â? That, in and of itself, will be
enough for those who love to indict the IHSAA to howl about favoritism.
As usual,
they will be wrong.
At its
summer meeting earlier this month, the IHSAA altered its rule concerning people
who do not teach holding head football or basketball coaching positions. The
revisions make it easier for so-called â??layâ? coaches to hold these positions
for an extended period of time.
There has
long been a provision that allowed for a one-year waiver of the must-be-a-teacher
rule in emergency cases. The revisions now allow for as much as a 10-year
extension if certain training or educational standards are met.
The issue
was brought to the forefront when Indiana
legend Damon Bailey agreed to a last-minute coaching appointment as Bedford North
Lawrence boys basketball coach this past season. There had been rampant
speculation whether he would be allowed to continue past the single-year waiver
period; the change in the rule will allow him to do so.
However,
to concentrate on that particular case is to miss the point of its overall
effect.
This
change will make it vastly easier for small schools with limited teaching
positions to hire quality coaches in their basketball and football programs. It
will also, justifiably, give quality individuals who did not discover their
passion for coaching until after their primary career path had already been
chosen an opportunity to apply their talents at the highest level.
It is a
great decision, and long overdue.
Nobody
argues that the best of all scenarios is to have a quality coach who is on
staff at a school full time and thereby in the building every day. It allows
for the activity of athletes off the floor to be more closely monitored, and it
also makes it easier to keep sports in perspective in relation to the overall
educational experience. Nor is anyone going to argue that it is more difficult
for schools to monitor the performance of non-teaching coaches.
The simple
fact, however, is that for too long, those factors have been given far too much
weight in relation to the many arguments in favor of qualified lay coaches.
Nobody
ever got rich coaching high school sports. Therefore, anyone willing to devote
the time to coach on a lay basis is bound to have a passion for the sport
involved. If we expect our athletes to have passion, there is something to be
said for supplying them with coaches who have that passion. In many cases, as
with Bailey, the qualification and knowledge of non-teaching coaches can far
exceed anything that the school could supply to athletes from the teaching
rolls. Letâ??s not forget that the first job of a coach is to teach athletes
about playing the game. Finally, the rule change eliminates the feeling of
second-class citizen status that has been endured by countless long-time,
dedicated lay coaches in these sports.
I know
this because I am one of them. I never intended to be a coach, but it may be
what I do best.
I applaud
the IHSAA for recognizing that the ability to positively influence young lives
through sports is not limited to those who decided at age 19 to major in
education. As usual, the stateâ??s high school governing body members eventually
got it right, and as usual they are unlikely to get the credit they deserve for
doing so.
So what do you
think? Share your thoughts in our Boys Basketball forum.
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