Coaches and Professors Are Like Oil and Water

My last year at Gettysburg working as both the lacrosse team’s defensive coordinator and Dean of the Intercultural Advancement Center was not easy. It was my experience that there so much contempt and mistrust between most college coaches who are competing for the time of students and both the coach and most professors want the student’s undivided loyalty. It’s the rare coach who clearly understands that academics should always come first because sports are his or her passion. And few academics have had successful athletic experiences or relationships with athletes during their high school and college days. The problem is generally contempt—athletes belittle academics in a society that values athletics and serious scholars belittle athletes for their over emphasis on what they consider trivial pursuits. This I learned at G-burg as I moved between these two ethnic groups enjoying the best of both worlds.