Thursday, August 14, 2008
How do you pay your soccer coach?
There has been some discussion on our community boards recently about coaches’ pay and what is reasonable. Rather than take up space here trying to paraphrase, you can check out the thread here for some background if needed (and to add your opinion as well of course).
As a little background, in addition to HummerSport and the PSW, I coach for FC Virginia and Potomac Falls High School, have a USSF B license, and have been earning income as a coach for three years. Of course, as the Founder and Editor of PSW, I’m also neck-deep in coaching issues, and have heard a lot of discussion from all sides on coaching topics.
In my opinion, there is no single answer for questions about what is too much or too little to pay a coach, because almost every situation is different. Just like lawyers, financial planners, handymen, and babysitters each charge different rates within their own sphere, so do comparable coaches/clubs. In the end, whoever is stroking the checks needs to decide on the value they are getting and what is fair compensation in exchange. So, it’s not a valid discussion point when someone on one team tells someone on another that they are paying too much or too little.
The only exceptions would be if it was the SAME coach charging different amounts for two teams of similar quality, age, and schedule. Or, if there is some sort of subsidizing going on, where a benefactor with too much money to burn pays some crazy fee to bring in a world class coach when the rest of the team would never support those fees. And finally, if the actual money going to the coach is not the full amount the parents were led to believe in a situation where, without the parents’ knowledge, there are other club personnel taking their “cut” from a coach’s fees despite having no direct interaction.
With all this in mind, the one thing I think everyone needs to do when evaluating for THEMSELVES or THEIR team whether a coach is paid appropriately, is to look at the actual time spent. Then divide the total pay by those hours, and ask, “Is my child getting X dollars per hour worth of benefit?” Only then can you really answer the PAY question.
So, let’s break down the total hours a good coach spends with their team. Then you can each adjust for your own situation by plugging your own values into the equations.
Assumptions for this “time spent” model: An elite level coach commanding these higher fees is coaching a year-round team, maybe taking 6-weeks off per year max from practices, but never really getting a break. For mathematical simplicity, we'll go with 50-week year.
A- Practices
50 weeks of 2-3 training sessions: 2-hours per session + 30 minutes of drive time each way, or 3-hours total time on the actual practice. Plus, any good coach spends at least 30-minutes thinking/drafting/finalizing a practice plan before each session, as well as hanging around post practice 15-30 minutes for parents and player conversations/motivations/injury discussions.
Practice Time Equation: 2.5 sessions per week x 46 weeks x 4 hours per session = 460 hours per year
B- League Game Driving Time
Let's include State Cup here, and assume the team plays at least 3 rounds;.9 games in fall, 9 games in spring, 7 winter indoor, and 3 State Cup games. League games average 1 hour of drive time each way when balancing home and away schedules with big city traffic. Depending on where the coach lives relative to the indoor facility, that drive time can vary a lot from one game to the next, but let's just say 30 minutes each way. State Cup, 1 hour each way for same reasons as league games.
Game Drive Time Equation: (21 league and State Cup x 2 hours round trip each) + (7 indoor games x 1 hour round trip each) = 49 hours per year
C- Game Time (non drive time)
League and State Cup take more prep work than indoor, but good coaches spend at least an hour planning for a typical game (not including all the "administrative" time spent on player/parent management surrounding "what position, play time" issues.). That hour is used to think through all the scenarios, research an opponent, and evaluate player performance in training. Again, all for league/state cup only. Indoor is more "see who shows up, run fast, kick hard, have fun." Actual game time for league/state cup is at least 45 minutes of warm up, but the coach should be there an hour before the game starts. Game time itself, 90 minutes when including half time, hand shakes, managing the player's cool downs. As they get older, this gets even longer, and could easily be 2-hours for U16 and up. Indoor game time is simpler, get there 20 minutes early, play for 50 minutes, cool down/converse with families/players for 20 minutes for a total of 90 minutes per game.
Game Time Equation: (3.5 hours per outdoor game x 21 games) + (2 hours per indoor game x 7) = 87.5 hours
D- Tournaments
Wow, this one really varies. I’m going to assume 6 tournaments per year with 3 sleep-aways. I’m not going to count every hour from the time a coach leaves home Friday until they get home on Sunday night for a sleep-away event, but some will argue that should be the case. We all have to sleep though, and evenings can be fun, or spent doing work from a laptop in your hotel, so for sleep-away tournaments I’m going to use 6 hours on Fridays for packing, driving, and organization once arriving. Then we’ll go with 10 hours on Saturday from meeting to leave for the first game until things are switched off at the end of the day. For Sundays, assuming you make the finals or are in a 4-game minimum tournament, we’ll go with 13 hours because you have to include the drive home time as well.
Local tournaments are a bit different, and can depend on the game schedule. But even with a four or five hour gap between games, there really isn’t much a coach can do between to reclaim time. We’ll remove the Friday time (assuming a Manager checks the team in), and go with 8 hours each on Saturday and Sunday.
Tournament Time Equation: (3 sleep-away tournaments x 29 hours each) + (3 local tournaments x 16 hours each) = 135 hours
E - Player/Parent Management
Probably the area with the biggest variance per team/coach. I’ve heard of coaches that won’t even talk to parents (yikes), and of course others who spend hours and hours per week in constant communication (how do they keep it all straight?). There must be some sort of acceptable median out there we can use for this though. So let’s take a stab at it..
Any coach who is focused on player development should be spending time thinking about, drafting evaluations, holding player conferences, making extra time for players and parents before/after practices, and of course communicating via email as needed. There should at least be some sort of process where a coach is methodically keeping track of each players’ progress against a personal player development plan that has been clearly communicated to the player and their family. Some players run with this on their own and quickly accomplish all their goals, then ask for more. Other players (and families) need constant reinforcement of exactly what the coach is looking for. Neither one is right or wrong, it’s just human nature that different people learn different ways and have different levels of self-confidence. Oddly enough, when looking at all the time spent in the other areas of this equation, this is really the area that is supposed to matter the most. And, if the coach is paid well enough, this is the area every family MUST insist is a major part of their time spent. If this area is ignored, you have a coach who is more worried about their own win-loss record than in developing players.
Personally, I try to do as much of this as possible while we’re already together, before/during/after practices, after games, and especially tournament weekends. The “player development” switch is always on in that respect, and is a major part of all the time spent. But even if you’re good at overlapping those times, there is always additional time required.
Let’s blend all the players’ varying time requirements and round this to 2-hours per week spent on the phone, emailing, and holding private conferences with players. Some weeks this is actually 10 hours, some weeks it’s none.
Player Development Equation: 50 weeks x 2 hours = 100 hours per year
F-Tryout Season
Wow, almost forgot this one. We could just lump it into the “practice time” equation at the top of this whole study, but it’s such a major time commitment that it really deserves to be laid out separately.
Tryout season is simply a bear. It starts with the early planning stages of coordinating field space, then advertising, and of course all the politics and conversations. Let’s just assign this one lump of 30 hours and call it even.
Tryout Season Equation: 30 hours
G-Administrative
Some teams have much more active Team Managers than others, which can usually be the case for higher level teams with a coach that might have more than one team. But even with someone else taking care of the actual player passes and attending club meetings, the coach is still directly responsible and spends time behind the scenes coordinating, decision-making, and sometimes doing the actual tasks such as applying for tournaments, collecting signatures, planning / conducting parent meetings, choosing and ordering uniforms, arranging scrimmages, and even dealing with collections for payments. Then there’s always all the emails the coach is cc’d on even if they’re not actually involved. The easiest way I can think of to apply hours to these tasks is to take an average per week, and then let each team adjust from there. For me, it easily averages 1 hour per week, some weeks with a few minutes, other with several hours.
Administrative Equation: 50 weeks x 1 hours = 50 hours per year
H – Education
Can you count this? Certainly some if it, but it’s debatable. A professional coach spends a lot of time self-educating, attending conferences, and earning coaching licenses. In my view, this is a sunk cost the coach has to “cover” themselves. Not so much the fees to attend, as most clubs will pay for a lot of those, but more the time spent. Educated coaches have more success, and thus are able to get jobs with higher level teams (i.e. justify higher hourly rates). For my equation, here, I’m going to ignore time spent, and just throw in the team’s share of attending the events/courses.
Education Equation: $2,400 per year paid by coach, with team reimbursing 1/3 = $800.
I – Opportunity Cost
This doesn’t have a measurable hours or dollars role in this equation, but it is important to remember and, depending on the coach’s “day job” could be used in the calculation when measuring the hourly pay they could be making instead of spending their time coaching. Just keep this in mind somewhat. If your coach is a $400 per hour lawyer on K Street, but is spending even half their time outlined in this equation, they are sacrificing A LOT of income opportunity.
Opportunity Cost Equation: The more lost opportunity = higher chance the motivation for coaching has nothing to do with money
Total Equation:
A- Practice Time Equation: 2.5 sessions per week x 46 weeks x 4 hours per session = 460 hours
B- Game Drive Time Equation: 42 hours for 18 league games and 3 State Cup + 7 hours for indoor = 49 hours
C- Game Time Equation: (3.5 hours per outdoor game x 21 games) + (2 hours per indoor game x 7) = 87.5 hours
D- Tournament Time Equation: (3 sleep-away tournaments x 29 hours each) + (3 local tournaments x 16 hours each) = 135 hours
E - Player Development Equation: 50 weeks x 2 hours = 100 hours per year
F- Tryout Season Equation: 30 hours
G- Administrative Equation: 50 weeks x 1 hour = 50 hours per year
H – Education Equation: $2,400 per year paid by coach, with team reimbursing 1/3 = $800.
I – Opportunity Cost Equation: The more lost opportunity = higher chance the motivation for coaching has nothing to do with money.
A+B+C+D+E+F+G = 911.5 hours (but let’s round for simplicity to 900 hours)
Plus, don’t forget the extra $800 for coaching education.
Coaching Pay per Hour = (Total annual pay + $800 for “H”)/900 hours
Even from the “high” pay level cited in the beginning of the discussion board topic, this equation comes to $20 per hour – or the equivalent of $40,000 per year if you had a 40 hour-a-week job at that pay rate with two weeks of vacation.
After looking at things this way, what do you think? Is your coach over or under paid? Comment below with your own equation. If we get enough feedback of real-world examples, maybe we’ll compile them in a nice little chart and publish a “guide to youth soccer coaches pay in the greater Washington, DC region.”
P.S. I would have had this article done sooner, but had two phone calls and three emails from our team since I began writing this 2 hours ago ☺Labels: coaching
As a little background, in addition to HummerSport and the PSW, I coach for FC Virginia and Potomac Falls High School, have a USSF B license, and have been earning income as a coach for three years. Of course, as the Founder and Editor of PSW, I’m also neck-deep in coaching issues, and have heard a lot of discussion from all sides on coaching topics.
In my opinion, there is no single answer for questions about what is too much or too little to pay a coach, because almost every situation is different. Just like lawyers, financial planners, handymen, and babysitters each charge different rates within their own sphere, so do comparable coaches/clubs. In the end, whoever is stroking the checks needs to decide on the value they are getting and what is fair compensation in exchange. So, it’s not a valid discussion point when someone on one team tells someone on another that they are paying too much or too little.
The only exceptions would be if it was the SAME coach charging different amounts for two teams of similar quality, age, and schedule. Or, if there is some sort of subsidizing going on, where a benefactor with too much money to burn pays some crazy fee to bring in a world class coach when the rest of the team would never support those fees. And finally, if the actual money going to the coach is not the full amount the parents were led to believe in a situation where, without the parents’ knowledge, there are other club personnel taking their “cut” from a coach’s fees despite having no direct interaction.
With all this in mind, the one thing I think everyone needs to do when evaluating for THEMSELVES or THEIR team whether a coach is paid appropriately, is to look at the actual time spent. Then divide the total pay by those hours, and ask, “Is my child getting X dollars per hour worth of benefit?” Only then can you really answer the PAY question.
So, let’s break down the total hours a good coach spends with their team. Then you can each adjust for your own situation by plugging your own values into the equations.
Assumptions for this “time spent” model: An elite level coach commanding these higher fees is coaching a year-round team, maybe taking 6-weeks off per year max from practices, but never really getting a break. For mathematical simplicity, we'll go with 50-week year.
A- Practices
50 weeks of 2-3 training sessions: 2-hours per session + 30 minutes of drive time each way, or 3-hours total time on the actual practice. Plus, any good coach spends at least 30-minutes thinking/drafting/finalizing a practice plan before each session, as well as hanging around post practice 15-30 minutes for parents and player conversations/motivations/injury discussions.
Practice Time Equation: 2.5 sessions per week x 46 weeks x 4 hours per session = 460 hours per year
B- League Game Driving Time
Let's include State Cup here, and assume the team plays at least 3 rounds;.9 games in fall, 9 games in spring, 7 winter indoor, and 3 State Cup games. League games average 1 hour of drive time each way when balancing home and away schedules with big city traffic. Depending on where the coach lives relative to the indoor facility, that drive time can vary a lot from one game to the next, but let's just say 30 minutes each way. State Cup, 1 hour each way for same reasons as league games.
Game Drive Time Equation: (21 league and State Cup x 2 hours round trip each) + (7 indoor games x 1 hour round trip each) = 49 hours per year
C- Game Time (non drive time)
League and State Cup take more prep work than indoor, but good coaches spend at least an hour planning for a typical game (not including all the "administrative" time spent on player/parent management surrounding "what position, play time" issues.). That hour is used to think through all the scenarios, research an opponent, and evaluate player performance in training. Again, all for league/state cup only. Indoor is more "see who shows up, run fast, kick hard, have fun." Actual game time for league/state cup is at least 45 minutes of warm up, but the coach should be there an hour before the game starts. Game time itself, 90 minutes when including half time, hand shakes, managing the player's cool downs. As they get older, this gets even longer, and could easily be 2-hours for U16 and up. Indoor game time is simpler, get there 20 minutes early, play for 50 minutes, cool down/converse with families/players for 20 minutes for a total of 90 minutes per game.
Game Time Equation: (3.5 hours per outdoor game x 21 games) + (2 hours per indoor game x 7) = 87.5 hours
D- Tournaments
Wow, this one really varies. I’m going to assume 6 tournaments per year with 3 sleep-aways. I’m not going to count every hour from the time a coach leaves home Friday until they get home on Sunday night for a sleep-away event, but some will argue that should be the case. We all have to sleep though, and evenings can be fun, or spent doing work from a laptop in your hotel, so for sleep-away tournaments I’m going to use 6 hours on Fridays for packing, driving, and organization once arriving. Then we’ll go with 10 hours on Saturday from meeting to leave for the first game until things are switched off at the end of the day. For Sundays, assuming you make the finals or are in a 4-game minimum tournament, we’ll go with 13 hours because you have to include the drive home time as well.
Local tournaments are a bit different, and can depend on the game schedule. But even with a four or five hour gap between games, there really isn’t much a coach can do between to reclaim time. We’ll remove the Friday time (assuming a Manager checks the team in), and go with 8 hours each on Saturday and Sunday.
Tournament Time Equation: (3 sleep-away tournaments x 29 hours each) + (3 local tournaments x 16 hours each) = 135 hours
E - Player/Parent Management
Probably the area with the biggest variance per team/coach. I’ve heard of coaches that won’t even talk to parents (yikes), and of course others who spend hours and hours per week in constant communication (how do they keep it all straight?). There must be some sort of acceptable median out there we can use for this though. So let’s take a stab at it..
Any coach who is focused on player development should be spending time thinking about, drafting evaluations, holding player conferences, making extra time for players and parents before/after practices, and of course communicating via email as needed. There should at least be some sort of process where a coach is methodically keeping track of each players’ progress against a personal player development plan that has been clearly communicated to the player and their family. Some players run with this on their own and quickly accomplish all their goals, then ask for more. Other players (and families) need constant reinforcement of exactly what the coach is looking for. Neither one is right or wrong, it’s just human nature that different people learn different ways and have different levels of self-confidence. Oddly enough, when looking at all the time spent in the other areas of this equation, this is really the area that is supposed to matter the most. And, if the coach is paid well enough, this is the area every family MUST insist is a major part of their time spent. If this area is ignored, you have a coach who is more worried about their own win-loss record than in developing players.
Personally, I try to do as much of this as possible while we’re already together, before/during/after practices, after games, and especially tournament weekends. The “player development” switch is always on in that respect, and is a major part of all the time spent. But even if you’re good at overlapping those times, there is always additional time required.
Let’s blend all the players’ varying time requirements and round this to 2-hours per week spent on the phone, emailing, and holding private conferences with players. Some weeks this is actually 10 hours, some weeks it’s none.
Player Development Equation: 50 weeks x 2 hours = 100 hours per year
F-Tryout Season
Wow, almost forgot this one. We could just lump it into the “practice time” equation at the top of this whole study, but it’s such a major time commitment that it really deserves to be laid out separately.
Tryout season is simply a bear. It starts with the early planning stages of coordinating field space, then advertising, and of course all the politics and conversations. Let’s just assign this one lump of 30 hours and call it even.
Tryout Season Equation: 30 hours
G-Administrative
Some teams have much more active Team Managers than others, which can usually be the case for higher level teams with a coach that might have more than one team. But even with someone else taking care of the actual player passes and attending club meetings, the coach is still directly responsible and spends time behind the scenes coordinating, decision-making, and sometimes doing the actual tasks such as applying for tournaments, collecting signatures, planning / conducting parent meetings, choosing and ordering uniforms, arranging scrimmages, and even dealing with collections for payments. Then there’s always all the emails the coach is cc’d on even if they’re not actually involved. The easiest way I can think of to apply hours to these tasks is to take an average per week, and then let each team adjust from there. For me, it easily averages 1 hour per week, some weeks with a few minutes, other with several hours.
Administrative Equation: 50 weeks x 1 hours = 50 hours per year
H – Education
Can you count this? Certainly some if it, but it’s debatable. A professional coach spends a lot of time self-educating, attending conferences, and earning coaching licenses. In my view, this is a sunk cost the coach has to “cover” themselves. Not so much the fees to attend, as most clubs will pay for a lot of those, but more the time spent. Educated coaches have more success, and thus are able to get jobs with higher level teams (i.e. justify higher hourly rates). For my equation, here, I’m going to ignore time spent, and just throw in the team’s share of attending the events/courses.
Education Equation: $2,400 per year paid by coach, with team reimbursing 1/3 = $800.
I – Opportunity Cost
This doesn’t have a measurable hours or dollars role in this equation, but it is important to remember and, depending on the coach’s “day job” could be used in the calculation when measuring the hourly pay they could be making instead of spending their time coaching. Just keep this in mind somewhat. If your coach is a $400 per hour lawyer on K Street, but is spending even half their time outlined in this equation, they are sacrificing A LOT of income opportunity.
Opportunity Cost Equation: The more lost opportunity = higher chance the motivation for coaching has nothing to do with money
Total Equation:
A- Practice Time Equation: 2.5 sessions per week x 46 weeks x 4 hours per session = 460 hours
B- Game Drive Time Equation: 42 hours for 18 league games and 3 State Cup + 7 hours for indoor = 49 hours
C- Game Time Equation: (3.5 hours per outdoor game x 21 games) + (2 hours per indoor game x 7) = 87.5 hours
D- Tournament Time Equation: (3 sleep-away tournaments x 29 hours each) + (3 local tournaments x 16 hours each) = 135 hours
E - Player Development Equation: 50 weeks x 2 hours = 100 hours per year
F- Tryout Season Equation: 30 hours
G- Administrative Equation: 50 weeks x 1 hour = 50 hours per year
H – Education Equation: $2,400 per year paid by coach, with team reimbursing 1/3 = $800.
I – Opportunity Cost Equation: The more lost opportunity = higher chance the motivation for coaching has nothing to do with money.
A+B+C+D+E+F+G = 911.5 hours (but let’s round for simplicity to 900 hours)
Plus, don’t forget the extra $800 for coaching education.
Coaching Pay per Hour = (Total annual pay + $800 for “H”)/900 hours
Even from the “high” pay level cited in the beginning of the discussion board topic, this equation comes to $20 per hour – or the equivalent of $40,000 per year if you had a 40 hour-a-week job at that pay rate with two weeks of vacation.
After looking at things this way, what do you think? Is your coach over or under paid? Comment below with your own equation. If we get enough feedback of real-world examples, maybe we’ll compile them in a nice little chart and publish a “guide to youth soccer coaches pay in the greater Washington, DC region.”
P.S. I would have had this article done sooner, but had two phone calls and three emails from our team since I began writing this 2 hours ago ☺
Labels: coaching
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