Norwich bulletin., 1918-01-19
THE PROFESSIONAL
 ATHLETIC COACH
By Sol Metzser

ics is taking a crack at the salary of the professional cosch. They seem to have the idea that the coach has soft sinecure, especially the football coach, They say he works two or three hours a day with fine assort- repeats this dose daily for something i like three months and at the end of | that time gets a check for more | money than the Proxy of the colleg0 . Of course the supposition is that | the coach spends the other nine | months in idle luxury and that at tLe | age of fifty or sixty he retires with | nothing to do but exercise his mus cles the first of each month clipping l coupons. One may picture life of l dreamy outdoor existence for the | coach and most everybody does Ac- corfing to many of the academic men | getting too much out of it and he isn't doing his bit'' as others are.
 That is just about the way the National Collegiate Athletic Associa- ton thinks of coach. At it's recent holiday meeting is spent much time lampooning this. product of inter- collegiate athletics and it devoted as much as one line to him in it's recem mendations anet the guidance of intercollegiate sport But that line was full of pep. It said that coaches were overpaid, and it really had back of it a hope that the professional coach shoud get it in the neck. He's considered had form. has never been worthy. of his hire and is responsible for all the ills in college athletics.
 As recent member of the coacA- ing fraternity, which is not a union for self preservation. though it should bel rlse to the occasion and ask for space in which to defend the coach. Upon several occasions I nave probably been guilty of drawing down more cold cash than some emi- nent professors and at other times have not. Upon occasions l have had | jobs of three months duration that netted me more than these same self made college profs got in one year But 1 have never been paid an ade- I quate salary A football coach-the worst of the breed-rarely is.
 The Coaching Proposition.
 l Looking back - as I now may upon the coaching proposition I un- l hesitatingly state that the game is not worth the candle: that it is the and that after his years of useful
 
 nothing but the scrap heap. I have never known a coach who advised others to coach. My old college ! chum, Pop Warner, perhaps the most
 successful of coaches, tells me it is no fit job for a man and that other ] fields in education are more lucrative
 in the long run.
 | Coaching, at its best, is the most
 competitive of jobs in all creation
 excepting possibly leading armies
 But being general has it's fine points If you win. Then one may run fol and be elected President, or join g
 Wall Street firm and be milked. Al
 of which occupations serve to. con-
 tinue the excitement of life. But .
 coach who is successful eventually gets to the scrap heap-and there he
 staps. Politics has nothing on coach ing, 'e
 T A Turn in The Road
 The. trouble with coaching at its
 best, even when you are winning, ant
 getting top salaries and all that, 1:
 that there is a turn in the road jus 1 ahead. In order to be popular the
 coach must win and in order to wir there must be material of the ultra, ! physical type. have heard ceache. deny this. In fact one of my ow1 college mates went so far as to state he could develop teams without ma.
 terial. He was in another line O.
 work right afterward. From a lons
 experience and study I may say with.
 out chance of challenge that coacl
 cannot win without material. Neither
 can he win with it if he is not wist to the game-a problem equal to run ming college at that
 Now one of the points of attacl upon the coach is just this: In ordel
 to win he must have the goods anC he sees that he gets these goods. II
 consequence, pfoselyting, professiona and otherwise, is attributed to tn, coach. In fact, if you think of an.
 evil of which college sport is guilt, 2 you can immediately and withou
 much research attribute it to tn hired coach. That brings us dow to the greatest evil of all-losin, z football games. The coach is alway to be blamed for that. If he puts tn { burden of defeat on a failing of an,
 member or members of the team =
 he is a poor sport and an alibiest
 unworthy of retention. Once nor
 the scrap heap is brought into actior $ As a matter of fact the coaches 0 { the country would like to see coach 2 ing and all the evils pertaining there
 to reformed. This business of havin
 a short-time job of lucrative salar { at the mercy of that most tickle c Z goddesses, Victory, is unsettling, t ( say the least. I have known men t $ lose twenty-five pounds in a montl u owing to such strain. I have neve Z known a college prof to feel that wa z about his work.
 s Seeing Ahead
 r Furthermore, coach sees into tn < future and it is as dark as that ( E William Hohlenzollern's. Aroun about the time. he is getting fit fc z making things howl in any other lin < except professional baseball tn
 coach is nearing the age limit and .
 unfit for any other vocation. All tn L. makes like unpleasant for the coacl
 My guess is that the average coac
 sticks to the work because he love # sport. and when. one loves sport | af will take big chances. The. averas < exathlete who coaches never lost
 his love for sport, ideal sport at tha < and he hates to think of ever gettir out of it. He fools himself into sticl
 ing to it until it is too late. Knowir 4 all this, is it any wonder coac