Pulling Double Duty Is Hard
July 28, 2016 at 4:25 p.m.
By Roger Grossman, Lake City Radio-
• I am not a coach, nor am I an administrator.
• I broadcast Warsaw sports on the radio, but I cover Wawasee and I appreciate the athletes, coaches and administration there.
• I get along great with Wawasee Athletic Director Steve Wiktorowski, and have a lot of respect for him as a person and as an athletic director. This article is not a shot at him whatsoever.
Wiktorowski stepped down as boys basketball coach at Wawasee a couple of weeks ago. The Warriors had a miserable season – 2-21 to be exact. In his three seasons as head coach, the Warriors were 19-50.
It’s been tough.
So no one was really surprised when the man known as “Wik” sent out a press release on March 15 saying he was taking the “boys basketball coach” plaque off the door to his office.
But the reality is, the winning and losing has very little to do with it.
The truth is three-fold: 1) coaching is hard; 2) being an athletic director is hard; 3) trying to do both well is impossible.
Think about it, when you are the athletic director of a school the size and makeup of Wawasee, you are responsible for all 20 teams. ALL of them.
Their coaches. Their players. Their managers. Their schedules. Their game officials. Their facilities.
ALL of it.
Sure, you have your athletic secretary, who is the heartbeat of every athletic department. And if your school is blessed you have an assistant athletic director and an athletic secretary. But the buck stops with you.
Being the AD means late nights, eating a lot of meals in the office or in the car – you get it.
And then put yourself in the position of being a head coach.
Summer camps. Preseason conditioning. Planning practices, and running practices. Fundraisers. Media obligations. Game planning. Scouting opponents – you get that too, right?
But do both at the same time and your duties don’t add up, they multiply.
It is impossible to be a coach and athletic director at the high school level and do it right.
If you were single with no children and 30 years old, it would be a 100 hour-a-week deal that would age a person pretty quickly.
There are currently 30 athletic directors who are also coaches in the state of Indiana. One of them won a boys basketball state championship Saturday (Jimmy Howell in class 2A at Lapel). He is the exception. Chris Benedict just lost a bid to become the AD/coach at Columbia City. I think in the end he will come out the winner.
Consider these questions: When you are the AD and the coach, and you run into a tough spot with your team, who do you use as a resource? Whose ear do you bend? Whose office do you plop yourself down into to vent?
The athletic secretary? Probably not, since she’s busy doing a lot of the jobs the AD is supposed to do.
The principal? Maybe, occasionally, but they have their own problems.
The superintendent? Not likely.
Oh, and what happens when seasons go sour? What happens when your girls coach of almost 20 years resigns, you are looking for a new volleyball coach and you are coaching a boys team that’s won two games all season.
That is exactly what Wiktorowski has been dealing with.
The stress level must be off the charts.
A lot of people were really concerned about the state of Wawasee basketball and Wawasee athletics when Wiktorowski essentially named himself the boys coach three summers ago, and fairly so. For all of the reasons I mentioned above, and the fact that Wawasee is not blessed with a large athletic department staff, it seemed like a bad idea at the time.
And it didn’t work out.
So now “Wik” has gone back to just being an athletic director. He said at the time of his resignation that he did it in the best interest of everyone involved, and I think he is exactly right in that. Wawasee High School sports teams have the ability to compete in the Northern Lakes Conference and against the schedules their teams play against, but they also have challenges – some that all schools face and others that are unique to their communities (like the fact that a large percentage of the population of their school district disappears when the leaves start to fall).
Sure, there are schools that have ADs who are also coaches. But where are there priorities? Most of the time they will fall on their team. That’s pretty normal.
And it’s not healthy for the entirety of their athletics program.
Again, this is not me saying “Wik is bad” or that somehow he and the people in that athletic office (including Leslie Jackson who is great to work with) have not done their jobs during these three years. Actually, the opposite is true. They have done an outstanding job trying to make sure that every team, every athlete has everything they need to succeed and get the publicity they deserve when they do succeed.
But now, they will be able to focus on their primary tasks and it will make Wawasee sports a better product overall.[[In-content Ad]]
• I am not a coach, nor am I an administrator.
• I broadcast Warsaw sports on the radio, but I cover Wawasee and I appreciate the athletes, coaches and administration there.
• I get along great with Wawasee Athletic Director Steve Wiktorowski, and have a lot of respect for him as a person and as an athletic director. This article is not a shot at him whatsoever.
Wiktorowski stepped down as boys basketball coach at Wawasee a couple of weeks ago. The Warriors had a miserable season – 2-21 to be exact. In his three seasons as head coach, the Warriors were 19-50.
It’s been tough.
So no one was really surprised when the man known as “Wik” sent out a press release on March 15 saying he was taking the “boys basketball coach” plaque off the door to his office.
But the reality is, the winning and losing has very little to do with it.
The truth is three-fold: 1) coaching is hard; 2) being an athletic director is hard; 3) trying to do both well is impossible.
Think about it, when you are the athletic director of a school the size and makeup of Wawasee, you are responsible for all 20 teams. ALL of them.
Their coaches. Their players. Their managers. Their schedules. Their game officials. Their facilities.
ALL of it.
Sure, you have your athletic secretary, who is the heartbeat of every athletic department. And if your school is blessed you have an assistant athletic director and an athletic secretary. But the buck stops with you.
Being the AD means late nights, eating a lot of meals in the office or in the car – you get it.
And then put yourself in the position of being a head coach.
Summer camps. Preseason conditioning. Planning practices, and running practices. Fundraisers. Media obligations. Game planning. Scouting opponents – you get that too, right?
But do both at the same time and your duties don’t add up, they multiply.
It is impossible to be a coach and athletic director at the high school level and do it right.
If you were single with no children and 30 years old, it would be a 100 hour-a-week deal that would age a person pretty quickly.
There are currently 30 athletic directors who are also coaches in the state of Indiana. One of them won a boys basketball state championship Saturday (Jimmy Howell in class 2A at Lapel). He is the exception. Chris Benedict just lost a bid to become the AD/coach at Columbia City. I think in the end he will come out the winner.
Consider these questions: When you are the AD and the coach, and you run into a tough spot with your team, who do you use as a resource? Whose ear do you bend? Whose office do you plop yourself down into to vent?
The athletic secretary? Probably not, since she’s busy doing a lot of the jobs the AD is supposed to do.
The principal? Maybe, occasionally, but they have their own problems.
The superintendent? Not likely.
Oh, and what happens when seasons go sour? What happens when your girls coach of almost 20 years resigns, you are looking for a new volleyball coach and you are coaching a boys team that’s won two games all season.
That is exactly what Wiktorowski has been dealing with.
The stress level must be off the charts.
A lot of people were really concerned about the state of Wawasee basketball and Wawasee athletics when Wiktorowski essentially named himself the boys coach three summers ago, and fairly so. For all of the reasons I mentioned above, and the fact that Wawasee is not blessed with a large athletic department staff, it seemed like a bad idea at the time.
And it didn’t work out.
So now “Wik” has gone back to just being an athletic director. He said at the time of his resignation that he did it in the best interest of everyone involved, and I think he is exactly right in that. Wawasee High School sports teams have the ability to compete in the Northern Lakes Conference and against the schedules their teams play against, but they also have challenges – some that all schools face and others that are unique to their communities (like the fact that a large percentage of the population of their school district disappears when the leaves start to fall).
Sure, there are schools that have ADs who are also coaches. But where are there priorities? Most of the time they will fall on their team. That’s pretty normal.
And it’s not healthy for the entirety of their athletics program.
Again, this is not me saying “Wik is bad” or that somehow he and the people in that athletic office (including Leslie Jackson who is great to work with) have not done their jobs during these three years. Actually, the opposite is true. They have done an outstanding job trying to make sure that every team, every athlete has everything they need to succeed and get the publicity they deserve when they do succeed.
But now, they will be able to focus on their primary tasks and it will make Wawasee sports a better product overall.[[In-content Ad]]
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