Should Professors Coach Too?
by Julie Walton, Ph.D.
Assistant Professor of Exercise Science, HPERDS, Calvin College
At Calvin College, we participate in NCAA Division III athletics, and have historically worked valiantly to stick to a professor-coach model in which the majority of varsity sport coaches are also faculty members with terminal degrees in their fields. Our coaches who are also professors are increasingly struggling with the natural and urgent time-demands associated with coaching. Despite what was once felt to be adequate teaching release-time, our professor-coaches are now stretched to the limit in their attempts to be excellent in the four areas of faculty expectations: teaching (and coaching), scholarship, advising and service. The demands of coaching- including significant recruiting of student-athletes that no other faculty is asked or expected to do - have been consistently ramping up over the past decade to the point of infringement upon every area of the professor-coach’s professional and personal life in ways that are all-consuming. A colleague of mine defines the professor-coach paradigm as omnivorous.
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