Teaching The Teachers

As football coach at Palm Springs High in 1963, Jim Brownfield invited a college basketball coach from Los Angeles to speak at his team’s postseason awards banquet.

UCLA’s John Wooden, who had yet to win any of his record 10 NCAA titles, drove to the desert, delivered an eloquent speech and visited with players and coaches.

“Coach Wooden talked with me about teaching life skills in addition to coaching,” Brownfield said. “If you do that, he said, everything else falls into place. He was right.”

Brownfield stayed in occasional contact with Wooden throughout the years and regarded him as a mentor in much the same way he viewed the coaches he played for at Hollywood High. The relationships with those coaches, both during and after his high school years, inspired Brownfield and helped him forge a 45-year teaching and coaching career, the final 20 at Pasadena Muir.

Brownfield, 71, retired in 1996. But as president of the California Coaches Assn. and the National Federation Coaches Assn., his goal is to make current coaches mentors for the next generation.

To that end, a free seminar for high school and college students who aspire to become coaches, and receive professional guidance along the way, is tentatively scheduled for July 26 at the Amateur Athletic Foundation headquarters in Los Angeles.

“There is a major crisis in our profession,” Brownfield said. “We need our current coaches to mentor the people coming up, to help show them the way. Inspire them to become teachers. Some coaches are doing it already on their own, but we need a concentrated effort to get everyone involved.”

Of the estimated 75,000 high school coaches in California, 25,000 leave their positions each year, according to Jack Hayes, executive director of the California Interscholastic Federation.

Brownfield said most of the turnover involves walk-on coaches, men and women who are not credentialed teachers.

“We’ve lost continuity--it’s a swinging door,” Brownfield said. “The average [coaching] life span of a walk-on coach is a year and a half. The average for a coach who is also a teacher is 15 years. It just makes sense. If you’re a teacher, you stay in it longer.”

Among those working with Brownfield are Paul Knox, the football and girls’ track coach at Dorsey; Ralph Tilley, the boys’ track coach at Dorsey, and Armando Gonzalez, Franklin football coach.

Others have expressed interest in the concept, especially with regard to developing more full-time teachers.

“When you are a teacher, I think you are definitely more committed to the school,” Manual Arts basketball Coach Randolph Simpson said. “You’re a father figure and role model for the kids, and a colleague of other people that work at the school. I think you have a greater commitment to the program. It’s not just a job. It’s a profession.”

That’s the message Robert Garrett has tried to deliver since he became football coach at Crenshaw in 1987.

Seven of nine assistants on Garrett’s staff last season were former Crenshaw players. Two are working in the education field.

“I charge my kids with a commission that they have a duty to give back to the community in some shape or fashion,” Garrett said. “Becoming an educator is the ultimate way to do that.”

The teacher-coach talent pool has dwindled over the years for several reasons, Brownfield said.

Many colleges and universities have eliminated physical education as a major or minor. And many school districts throughout the nation have de-emphasized physical education in terms of core curriculum.

At the same time, the number of coaching positions has increased to coincide with participation in girls’ sports. The need to fill boys’ and girls’ coaching positions at the varsity and lower levels has led many administrators to hire personnel regardless of educational background.

Without a teaching credential, or even classes in teaching and coaching philosophy and theory, many walk-on coaches are overwhelmed and walk away after a few years.

Financial compensation also plays a role.

The average annual teacher salary in California for 1997-98 was $44,585, according to an American Federation of Teachers survey released last year.

“Unfortunately, as educators, there is no money when you compare it to other professions,” said Lisa Baker, who has coached softball at Irvine High for 13 years. “Kids are not going in that direction.”

Bruce Rollinson, football coach at Santa Ana Mater Dei, said he encourages students to become teachers and coaches. But he does not sugarcoat his advice.

“I have boys that say, ‘I want to be a football coach,’ and I say, ‘That’s great,’ ” Rollinson said. “This is something you have done all your life and you enjoy. Why not make it your profession? But understand, you’re not going to be living in Beverly Hills.”

Rollinson, Baker and other longtime coaches say the payoff from being a teacher and coach cannot be measured in dollars. Or wins and losses. Or in the number of former players that become professional athletes.

“Let’s be honest, if I’m fortunate, I might coach one or two or maybe three guys that are going to make a living playing major league baseball,” Chatsworth baseball coach Tom Meusborn said. “What about the other two, three or four hundred that I’m going to come into contact with?

“Being an educator and coach has a major impact on our approach. You try to develop the whole person. A guy that’s coming in from off campus is there for only a couple of hours a day and maybe his whole self-worth is tied to his won-loss record.

“That’s never been my top goal. I want to be able to look at myself at the end of the year and say, ‘How did I develop these young people? Did I get through to them, not only in terms of baseball but in being a solid productive citizen that can help the community?’ ”

One of Meusborn’s former players, Matt LaCour, is now a teacher at Chatsworth and an assistant baseball coach. LaCour, 25, is regarded as one of the brightest young head coaching prospects in the Southland.

He got there with help.

“I’ve seen young coaches thrown out there with the attitude of, ‘Just go do it,’ ” LaCour said. “Luckily, I found an experienced coach that took the time to work with me.

“There’s no doubt that if a lot of young coaches had someone to look up to and teach them, it could do nothing but help.”

That’s the message Brownfield hopes to get across in the next few years.

“If we can get 1,000 coaches to say, ‘In my career, I will mentor three people in the profession,’ that’s 3,000 we didn’t have before,” Brownfield said. “It’s going to be a slow turnaround, but it’s a beginning.”

For More Information

High school and college students interested in attending the Future Coaches Assn. seminar in July should call (626) 441-3986 or e-mail

calcoaches@aol.com.