When it comes to the Freedom athletic department, there seems to be a misconception on why coaches are being replaced as frequently as they are. Many members of our community feel that a three-year coaching career is an unadaquant amount of time to truly show what the program and coaches have to offer. This is where there seems to be the most confusion, a preconceived idea about why coaches are being replaced, being that the team is not obtaining a reasonable amount of wins over losses. Moreover, the real reasoning behind the replacement of the coaches is for the athletes themselves.

“We don’t just keep a coach because the team is good. We look at the potential of the team and what we are doing, and those are sometimes the decisions that are tough decisions because we have someone who is a popular coach and is doing a good job, but can we get better? We are always looking for ways to get better,” Athletic Director John Rosa explained.

Rosa further explained how the coaching contract works along with the evaluation of the coaches. He expressed that the athletic department is trying to get rid of their three-year contracts by having an ongoing contract. This would mean that the coach would continue to be a coach at Freedom as long as the athletic department thought they were a good fit, thus showing continuous improvement, or until that individual feels that they no longer want to continue coaching.

Due to this change, coaches would now be evaluated in great depths at the end of every season, and not at the end of their three-year contract. The reasoning behind this is to zoom in on just how well our programs here at Freedom are improving and looking past the stats.

Some may think that this claim on why coaches are replaced is made up, but there is proof to back this up. The boys’ soccer team was considerably good last year, but they have shown great improvement in just a single season under their new coach Colin Williams.this is also the case for the girls’ soccer team.The girls’ previous soccer coach, John Mohrbacher, gave the girls a winning season, but wasn’t able to bring out the full potential of the team.. In the following year after Mohrbacher was replaced, the girls’ team went to states under the coaching of Williams. Then, in 2015, the girls didn’t go to states, but made mass improvement individually and won their section. Now, in the 2016 season, they are undefeated as they hold the title of section champs for the second consecutive year.

Most, if not all, athletic programs will face obstacles over the years. The coaches are not fired because of a struggling program,but they are fired for lack of improvement within their given years. Rosa stressed upon the fact that a coach will not be replaced before three years unless a serious issue comes up. There is an understanding that if a program is weak, it will take time to rebuild it. Golf took a hard hit this 2016 season, but the program will be given the opportunity to rebuild itself over the next couple of years. On the flip side, is a three-year time period a fair amount of time to show the improvement that is needed?

To put this in perspective, take a freshman athlete and a brand new coach. If they both start the same season and continue to both play and coach for four years, the once freshman, now a senior, will be a product solely of that one coach. The underclassmen will continue on the same route that the senior is on. Is that path a good one? Has the team shown improvement?

Rosa stated that a coach will most likely never be let go before three years, but does a coach need more than three years to improve? An athlete is given the opportunity to play their sports for four seasons. They have four years to improve and maximize their potential. The question still remains as to why the coaches will not be let go before three years but are not given four or five years to improve.

There should be improvement made throughout the years, but the relationship between time and a sports program go hand in hand. The athletes in the program needs time to get used to their coach and adapt to that coach’s style.
“I told him [Rosa] this [softball program] would take time to fix. For the current varsity, it was harder to try and ‘fix’ the status of the program because I had to see what knowledge and skills they had and have them buy into my coaching, and that is where new coaching staffs have the hardest time. You know the saying, ‘it’s hard to teach an old dog new tricks.’ Well, that’s the task most new coaches have to face in a new environment,” Coach Bill Boggs commented when talking about the three year rebuilding of programs.

Many changes in the athletic department have happened over the past few years. Why not give a coach at least another year to prove themselves? The new, ongoing contract now allows the coaches to continue, as long as they fit the criteria for the team or until they no longer want to coach. The idea that a coach will most likely not be replaced before three years is what many believe needs to change.

All in all, not replacing a coach before four years would give them an extra season to help guide the team in the direction that they feel is needed. The last question remaining is, will the authorities be open to changing the three-year outlook on how much a team has improved and give the coaches more time to show improvement?