Reply to grad school / coaching a sport you played

Forum Index » College and University Discussion

Reply to "grad school / coaching a sport you played"

Subject:

Emoticons





More smilies

Text Color: Font: Close Marks

[quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous]DS plays a sport at a D3 college. He’s going into his senior year, and has a daytime internship in policy work and he hates it, and he coaches for a club in the evening a couple of nights and loves it.

He now says that post-college he’d like to coach at the collegiate level and simultaneously get a master’s (in what? he says maybe IR, maybe business- he has no clue) at whatever college that is- I think one of the guys he is coaching with in evenings is doing this and bc DS is enjoying coaching so much, the idea appeals.

[b]DS says it can help him get into a higher level grad school than he might otherwise, and he’ll get grad school at least partly paid for.

This sounds like a pipe dream to me[/b] - plus he is now entering senior year of college, isn’t it too late to put this all together to be lined up by graduation?

Is this a “thing”? DS is obviously good at his sport but he isn’t a star on the college team (I do suspect he’d make a better coach than player). If your child did this, can you explain how it works to me? I’m concerned that DS is going to focus on this, taking time away from a real job search, and it isn’t realistic or useful. [/quote]

Former college athletics administrator here. This is not at all a pipe dream. Depending on his sport, schools all over the country hire young, just-out-of-school former players as GA assistants. Many take grad classes that are at least partially paid for by the university.

He should talk to his current coach now. If the coach appreciates him and sees coaching potential, he or she can definitely talk to the network and see what options might be available. It will also take effort and initiative on the student’s part.

The coaching ranks are filled with people who were not the best at their sport as players. In some ways that might make them better coaches, because it didn’t always come easy for them.

Know that there’s a good chance he will make little to no money other than a small stipend and, if he’s lucky, maybe some deal on graduate housing.

But there is always a camaraderie among young GAs in an athletic department. And a campus is a fun place to be.

It’s clear he has a passion for the sport. The best time to pursue this is now, when he is young and can afford to be poor, if you know what I mean. [/quote]

PP here. One big caveat: The college athletics landscape is changing by the day and no one really has a good grasp of it. The House settlement means athletics departments that have opted in will be paying their athletes, and resources in other areas could be affected. Oklahoma has cut some athletics staff and others will probably do the same. Meaning there probably won’t be as many GA opportunities as there have been nationwide.

The Trump administration attack on higher ed also is affecting schools’ hiring, in and out of athletics.

Having said that, if it were my son I would encourage him to go for it at age 22. If he wants to try to break into this field, this is the best age to do it  [/quote]

Options

	Disable HTML in this message
	Disable BB Code in this message
	Disable smilies in this message

Review message

Search Recent Topics Hottest Topics