Coaching is a role, whether we are paid or a volunteer, where we also negotiate our country’s mental health crisis, constant distractions of screens and social media and pressure – from parents or just the world – that we need to be better than those competing against us. “The expectations and cost of college has become astronomical,” says Samantha Bates, PhD, LISW-S, the director of research for Coach Beyond and LiFEsports at The Ohio State University. “So your child getting a scholarship could be the potential way that you pay to go to college. That stress is real. The ACT and SAT scores everywhere are going up. “And then we have a workforce of coaches who are not educators anymore. And so you're getting frustrated that maybe this coach is a parent and doesn't have this background to help your child go to college. There's all these mismatches happening across the system that I think are creating a boiling pot of just like unrealistic expectations and a changing workforce and a child who's surrounded by a lot of dysregulated adults.” Part II of USA TODAY’s deep dive into the Million Coaches Challenge (MCC) looks at the work of Coach Beyond, which began in 2021 with investment from the Susan Crown Exchange as part of the MCC, and has trained 77,000 coaches across the country to look beyond the field of play. We spoke with Bates and Justin White, a graduate assistant helping to administer the program through Ball State University, about the coach training and why it gives coaches confidence. The conversations offer insight that could help you manage your own athlete’s health and development: https://lnkd.in/enc3Rw8p
