Football: Increased demands causing increased coaching turnover

Dave Hudak hit the links, playing golf more than he has since his high school days.

Hudak, 51 , had to find something to do with all his free time.

For years in summers past, Hudak fussed over football camps and passing league teams, and fretted about another new season. Not this summer. Hudak walked away from the sidelines after coaching Granby High School’s football team for 22 seasons.

This summer “was nice and long,” Hudak said. “Sometimes I didn’t know what day of the week it was; I’d have to ask. Every day seemed like a weekend.”

When Hudak resigned in May, Granby joined a growing list of schools searching for a new head coach.

Ten of South Hampton Roads’ 29 Group AAA teams kicked off this season with new head coaches — certainly the most this decade and most likely more than ever before.

Often in years past, only a handful of schools were poring over resumes, and this decade no more than six South Hampton Roads teams were looking during any offseason.

Nine teams had new head coaches last season, although two of those were created when Grassfield High opened in Chesapeake because Martin Asprey left Churchland to coach the Grizzlies.

The spinning coaching carousel isn’t limited to South Hampton Roads. Eleven teams in the Central Region, which comprises schools in and around Richmond, have new coaches this season.

“It’s too early to call it a trend,” said Lew Johnston , who resigned after 22 years as Western Branch’s coach before last season. “But it certainly is troubling.”

Current and former coaches and school administrators offer a variety of reasons for the recent spike in vacancies. Pesky parents, pedestrian pay, long hours and the stresses of coaching in an ultra-competitive area such as Hampton Roads all take a toll.

“To be really successful requires an enormous amount of time and effort and energy,” said Richard Morgan , who in six-plus seasons at Oscar Smith has won 62 games, four Southeastern District championships and one Eastern Region Division 6 title. “If you’re going to be good, the amount of time goes beyond what you think and what anybody thinks. It does literally burn people out.”

The vast majority of coaches who leave the sideline remain in their full-time jobs as schoolteachers. But many decide the stipend they earn as a football coach just isn’t worth it.

Football coaches in each South Hampton Roads city are paid a flat rate per season, usually about $6,000 to $7,000 depending on the school system. There is no extra pay for victories, district championships or postseason success, although longer-tenured coaches earn a few hundred dollars more each year.

In Virginia Beach, for example, football coaches are paid $6,500 and can make an extra $300 for five to nine consecutive years and $600 more per season by staying on for 10 or more. 

 “We might get 10 cents an hour if you factor in all the time,” Morgan said. “Really, we’re doing it for free. It does not equate to what you’re paid. We’re not complaining because we don’t do it for the money.”

There’s little argument that coaches are paid a pittance for their duties, which include conducting practices, game-planning and film sessions, meeting with college recruiters and holding offseason workouts. Some head coaches and assistants also serve as their own grounds crew, painting the field before home games.

Plus, there is more required training — first-aid sessions, rules and coaching clinics — now than ever before.

“There are a lot more things being asked of us now,” said Kellam’s Chris DeWitt , 40 , whose 10 years at the school make him one of South Hampton Roads’ elder statesmen. “I started coaching when I was 18 or 19 years old. I came in and signed a contract, and I was coaching. Now, there’s a lot of things that go along with being a coach.”

Often, those other tasks come after a full day as a schoolteacher, making it a daunting undertaking, especially for a newcomer.

“A lot of younger people are just not willing to commit the time that they were 15 to 20 years ago,” said Brian Baxter, Landstown’s principal , who has conducted three coaching searches in the past three years. “We’re at a time now with high school football that it’s a big commitment.”

At Deep Creek, David Waddell took over as head coach after 11 as a Hornets assistant under David Cox. Waddell and six other newcomers in South Hampton Roads are in their first season as a high school head coach.

“There’s no limit to the time you can put in,” Waddell said. “As a head coach you get things thrown on your lap, and it may be out of the clear blue. Every day is something different. There’s always something to be done.”

Then there is the matter of balancing family and football.

Family vacation time, even during the summer, is scarce for most coaches. And often during the season they work late into the night.

Johnston, who with his wife Nancy raised two children while coaching at Western Branch, converted a bedroom into a football office so “if the kids wanted to say good night dad was right upstairs.”

“Giving to those 40 or 50 young men, they become your priority,” Johnston said. “And your own kids take a backseat.”

Deep Creek’s Cox and his wife Karen don’t have children. But that didn’t make it any easier at home.

“He’d leave at 7 in the morning, and if I was lucky he’d be home at 10, 11 or 12 at night,” Karen Cox said. “Saturday, it was trading films and watching film. It’s stressful because all the responsibilities of home — the yard and everything — were left to me.”

So what keeps coaches coaching? What keeps resumes coming in each time a coach exits?

Two reasons that top the list are “love of the game” and “love of the kids.”

A supportive administration and assistant coaches who stay put also are keys. At Kellam and Oscar Smith — two of South Hampton Roads’ most successful programs — three assistant coaches have been on each staff since DeWitt and Morgan started.

“It’s not as cumbersome and tedious if you have all that support,” Morgan said. “That helps alleviate some of that stress. I don’t know if everybody gets that everywhere.”

There’s no evidence that vacancies are any tougher to fill. And not all coaches who left before this season exited coaching altogether. Five of the 10 coaches who resigned took coaching jobs, two of them advancing to college positions.

Still, there’s much less continuity these days in South Hampton Roads. Twenty-one of South Hampton Roads’ Group AAA head coaches — nearly 75 percent — have been at the same school for three seasons or less, and six teams have had two or more head coaches during that span.

In the fall of 2006 , Granby’s Hudak, Western Branch’s Johnston, Deep Creek’s Cox, Ocean Lakes’ Jim Prince and Booker T. Washington’s Larry Stepney — all veterans of 12 -plus seasons at the time — were patrolling the sidelines. Now, no coach has stayed put for more than 10 seasons. Kellam’s DeWitt and Lake Taylor’s Hank Sawyer both are in their 10th seasons.

Hudak and Johnston took the helm at a time when assistant coaches stayed on for years waiting to become head coach.

“When Lew and I got into the game, staying around was the norm,” Hudak said. “You knew who was going to be the head coach. They were there, and they had an identity with the school.”

Added Johnston, “Coaches pretty much settled in and built their program.”

Hudak, citing a desire to spend more time with his wife Danielle and two young children, stepped down in May and took a teaching job at Patrick Henry High School in Ashland.

Between golf rounds, Hudak was quizzed this summer by Patrick Henry’s coaching staff on his football philosophies, and he occasionally offered advice after watching game film.

Hudak’s summer was fun and carefree, and he said right now he’s just “Joe Fan.”

But fall is in the air. It’s football season.

“It’s hard to say I’ll never coach again,” Hudak said. “It’s hard to break away completely.”

Jami Frankenberry, (757) 446-2295, jami.frankenberry@pilotonline.com