Comparing Coaching Careers

Compare & Contrast In the real world, people search for jobs that will give them personal satisfaction, along with a good paycheck. Unfortunately, we all are not lucky enough to get the jobs that we want, so we have to settle for what is available at the time. I mean, how many people really dreamed of being like Calvin, and working at McDonalds, or who really had aspirations of laboring at the local Shell station? This is not always the case, a lot of people actually decide what they want to be, then actually accomplish their career goals. Most people, when searching for a career, usually pick something that they would enjoy, rather than something that they hate to do, but pays well. There are all types of fulfilling jobs such as doctors,
social workers, policeman, fireman, and teachers. Teachers are a very special group of people, how many people do you know that would take other people’s kids, and watch them for eight hours a day, five days a week, forty days a year. Another group of special people are coaches; these people basically work all year round to help the people that they are coaching reach their full potential. The purpose of this paper is to compare and contrast these two professions; in many ways they are similar, but can also be very different in other ways. Hopefully, by the end of this paper, I will have a clearer view on which profession is more valuable than the other. The first profession that I will be looking at is the job of being a teacher. Over the last fifteen years, the job of being a teacher has been looked on less and less. In the past, being a teacher was almost as well respected as being a doctor, now being a teacher is viewed in the same light as working at Target. (Well maybe not that low.) How did this happen, going from a top profession, to a job that people take because they didn’t achieve what they really wanted to do. The reason teaching has been such a bad rap is because of the teachers. Many have apathetic views when it comes to teaching the students, I have had countless teachers that given assignments without really explaining what the assignment was about. True, there are bad teachers, but there are also good teachers, and some teachers are even great. How many people would take you to your SAT test at six thirty in the morning, then after picking you up, take you out to eat; well my teacher did, really boosting my will to go to college. Coaching is also one of those professions that hasn’t been in the best of lights in recent years.
Coaches, like teachers, are responsible for the growth and well being of their players, so when things don’t go well with the team, the coaches come under fire. One big difference between a good teacher and a good coach is that a good coach can get fired just because of a team’s performance. I have seen many good coaches get fired just because they had the horrible task of coaching the “Clippers.” Good coaches can usually turn a bad team around after a couple of years, but must be given time to make the necessary changes to help the progress of the
team. Another similarity between teachers and coaches is in order to excel to the top of their profession, they need to love their jobs. You know the ones who do; they are the teacher who taught for 30 plus years, and the coach who the city loves. (I.e. Sparky Anderson, Lenny Wilkens, etc…) When a person truly loves their profession, then they basically can do their job as long as their body allows them to do it. Also when a person loves their job, they have an uncanny ability to pass on their wisdom; when a great coach or teacher tries to explain something, it’s definitely a lot easier to comprehend what they are trying to tell you. That is the reason why you generally feel that you liked that teacher/coach more rather than the one who wasn’t as good, or didn’t care as much. The only difference that I see between the two jobs is the pay scale.
The top teachers in this country can make about one-hundred thousand a year teaching college, while pro sports coaches can easily make millions when coaching ANY pro team from any sport. Now why is there such a big gap between these two jobs, why do we put such a big value on sports, and are scores and statistics really more important then homework and grades? The reason coaches are paid so much is because the sports industry is a multi billion dollar industry, while schools are stare funded. Does that mean that being a teacher is a lesser job that being a coach? NO!!! If we didn’t have teachers in this country, then the athletes and the coaches wouldn’t be able to make the amount of money that they presently make. “Why do you say this Darius?” you may ask, but if you didn’t have anyone to teach you path, then making ten percent of what you are supposed to get paid would sound fair to you. Hopefully one day, the people who educate us will get their true props in our money based, egocentric
society. Now that I have compared and debated being a teacher, and being a coach, I now see that one clearly has more value to our society. True, in one of these professions, you can make an exuberant amount of money, but is this job really necessary for the enlightenment of the masses? In an egalitarian society, more value would be placed on being a teacher rather that being a coach because everyone needs someone to teach them, only the few, athletically inclined, need coaches.