Exploring the Professional Disconnect between Coaching and Education

By Zach Prescott

The competitive high-performance distance running I instruct every day down at Reeves Field is every bit as complex as the biology labs in the Hall of Science that looms on high. I teach in a 3-hour-block modality, every day, from 7:15 a.m. to 10:15 a.m., even on Saturdays. My students learn about biomechanics, how their bodies develop and change day to day, and how to respond to the meticulously planned stimuli of the day. They learn about the psychological ramifications of a positive mindset before a challenging maximal effort. They break down a loaded schedule to become the best time managers that this institution produces. And they do it all, 20 hours a week for 4 years, instructed by a 26-year-old with an undergraduate degree.  

There is a professional disconnect between the expected level of formalized training and the expertise of professors and coaches at the college level.

Don’t get me wrong, this is not imposter syndrome. I am an expert in the field of creating high-performance distance. I eat training theory for breakfast, I spend my free time researching motivation tactics that are routed in growth mindset development. I can list the names of every athlete in the country that has a legitimate chance of making All-American in Cross Country off the top of my head. And yet, to be able to spend a tenth of the time as my colleagues do with students in a formalized classroom, I would need at least 4-5 years of additional education.  

This leads me to believe that as a country we are underutilizing the time coaches have with athletes by making the bar to entry so low that a 26-year-old with an accounting degree has the gall to call himself an expert in a field in which he does not hold a single formal accreditation.  

This gap is even more apparent at the high school level. Coaches who often spend 20 hours a week with influenceable teenagers need not much more than a background check and CPR certification. Compare this to an English teacher who spends 3 to 4 hours a week with the same students and in many states need a Master’s degree and continuing education.  

To change the professional narrative around coaches, one of two things needs to happen. Coaches need to become professional themselves, or their environment needs to become professionalized.  

Coaches currently have no formal incentive to take the professional lead in the college system by continuing their own education or professional development. Despite spending a substantial portion of our work week heralding the value of undergraduate education to high school recruits, we are praised professionally for the natural “soft skills” that make us successful: the ability to motivate, the ability to form culture, or the ability to know what an athlete needs biomechanically on the fly.  

These same topics are being studied often in buildings next door in the psychology, business, and biology departments and yet coaches are heralded for having only a “knack.” While the natural ability to notice patterns of an athlete is all well and good, having more formalized training could help fill in the holes that exist because of the expectation for coaches to make decisions based on gut instinct. 

On the other side of things, academic departments are often resistant to the idea that a student’s athletic endeavor is as important as their academic studies. This resistance also aids in keeping the collegiate athletic environment from becoming professional and keeps athletics and academics at odds despite their identical goals of developing intelligent, successful, and capable young people.  

There have been calls to make sports participation a college major in the same way someone could study theater, piano or mathematics. A phenomenal article in the Washington Post (listed below) outlines the potential benefits, and massive potential resistance, to this proposed idea. The need for faculty to go the extra mile they often do in providing class time, extra tutors, and extra hours for athletes drastically decreases when the competitions and practices become a learning modality. 

The dissonance between the formal training of coaches and the time spent molding some of our most successful students requires further research in order to identify where we are missing out. That dissonance has led me to apply to our school’s cognitive psychology program (taking my first step in an unprompted professionalized journey) in order to better understand the impact sport has on undergraduate education and how we as both coaches and educators can better harness that impact. I look forward to engaging with my colleagues on the other side of the academic curtain! 

Author Profile

Zach Prescott is an Assistant Coach of Cross Country and Track in AU’s Athletic department. An alumnus of Boston University he is interested in exploring education and psychology through sports performance. More info in Coach Prescott’s Athletic Bio here!   

Suggestions for Further Reading 

Camire, M. (2015, May). Examining high school teacher-coaches’ perspective on relationship … Retrieved October 27, 2022, from https://www.researchgate.net/profile/Martin-Camire/publication/276346528 

Jenkins, S. (2011, October 5). NCAA colleges should consider offering sports as an academic major. The Washington Post. Retrieved October 27, 2022, from https://www.washingtonpost.com/sports/  

Jones, R. L. (2013). An introduction to sports coaching. Taylor & Francis.