Manatee County coaches talk high turnover rate

There's a natural air of change to high school sports.

Players leave after four years or decide to pursue other interests. What used to be more constant, though, was the head coaches. It's no longer a given that players will end up playing for the same coach they started with, and the percentage of change is likely higher than most people realize.

Twenty-five athletic programs at The Out-of-Door Academy, Braden River High and Lakewood Ranch High have changed head coaches since the 2015-2016 season.

It’s not just a Manatee County issue (32 programs at Sarasota, Riverview, Cardinal Mooney and Booker high schools in Sarasota County have changed coaches in the same time frame), but it is one that has left coaches and administrators in the area saddened and concerned about the future.

Maggie Sharrer is one of the coaches who left her position. The former Lakewood Ranch softball coach stepped down from her position before the 2017-2018 season to spend time with her family. Sharrer and her husband, Brady Sharrer, have a daughter, Lila Sharrer, who will turn 1 in July.

“I realized that these are precious times you can’t get back,” Maggie Sharrer said. “When you have a child, you think about what your real priorities are. I knew that the time it takes to run a program would be time I needed to spend with her (Lila). It just didn’t make any sense for me to keep coaching.”

Sharrer, a health teacher at the school, still helped with the program’s administrative needs, like filling out order forms, and kept in contact with her former players. That was nice, Sharrer said, and helped her feel part of the program without devoting 30 hours a week to practices. She didn’t miss the extra work.

The man who replaced Sharrer, T.J. Goelz, was stunned when he heard the rate of turnover in high school coaching, calling it “alarming,” but he also could understand reasons why some people leave the profession.

“It might not be as rewarding as some people want it to be,” Goelz said. “It takes lots of pieces to put a program together. Without the necessary support, it can be a lot to deal with.”

Goelz just finished his first year on the high school scene, but has coached travel ball for 12 years. A financial advisor with Raymond James, Goelz admitted there were times during the Mustangs season that managing his work, family and team became stressful. The team’s run to the state semifinal in Vero Beach, which was delayed three times by rainouts over the course of five days, was “the toughest time period of my last 15 to 20 years,” Goelz said, because of the softball uncertainty and transitions within his career occurring simultaneously.

Goelz isn’t concerned with the financial aspects of coaching (he put his high school supplement back into the program, he said), but realizes that Florida as a whole lags behind states like Texas and Georgia in terms of paying coaches, and said that increasing payments could encourage coaches feeling stress from family or other outside pressures to stick around longer.

There’s also the parental factor. Goelz said that while he didn’t experienced it in his first season, he’s heard from other coaches who are forced to deal with overbearing parents of players, and that can be a major turnoff.

“It’s a big issue (for coaches),” Goelz said. “Parents have to understand they can’t run the team.”

Goelz’s youngest daughter, Avery Goelz, will be a junior on the Mustangs next season, and his other daughter, Kinsey Goelz, will be a sophomore playing for Mississippi State University. Asked whether he plans to keep coaching once Avery graduates, TJ said he’s “not sure, to be honest.”

“It would have to be under my terms,” he said. “I feel connected to this crop of players. I want the opportunity to watch them play (in college). If I stop, it will be because of time constraints. I want to be able to watch my daughters and the others.”

Braden River athletic director Matt Nesser understands what coaches are feeling. It’s a year-round profession now, he said, and that’s too large a commitment for some people, even if they think they can handle it when they take the job. Other coaches use high school “as a stepping stone” to a spot on a college or professional staff, he said. Even new Pirates girls basketball coach Stephanie Smith coached at three high schools in Illinois before earning a spot at Northern Illinois University, then decided she preferred high school. 

When hiring coaches, Nesser said, he tries to avoid as many risk factors as possible. Non-faculty coaches, for example, tend to require more flexibility than faculty ones, and coaches with families are more likely to need time at home than single coaches. That doesn’t mean Braden River only hires single coaches on faculty, Nesser said, but they are things to consider. Ultimately, he said, it comes down to a gut feeling you have when talking to a candidate, because even when taking risk factors into consideration, the hiring process is still hit-or-miss.

Nesser was the Pirates boys basketball coach when the school opened in 2005, and stayed in the position until 2014, when he was promoted to athletics director. Nesser said if he was still allowed to coach, he would, despite the time commitment and the lack of pay, because he felt the rewards of working with young athletes and shaping their careers was worth it.

It seems as though people with Nesser’s perspective are fewer and fewer.

Sharrer didn't rule out a return to coaching in some form, some day, but it would have to make sense not just for her, but for her family.

“Other states put a priority on coaches,” she said. “When there’s more money involved, it says ‘Hey, we mean business.’ It gets serious. The general idea is go big or go home.”

Like Goelz and others, though, it’s not all about money for Sharrer. It’s about where she is in her life, and whether she wants to sacrifice family time for a job that may or may not reciprocate the respect she gives it.

“Something is going to have to change,” Sharrer said.