Eric Sorenson
“I’m tired. I’m just tired of it all.”
It was early August of 2022 when a high-profile Arizona high school football coach muttered those two short, yet powerful, sentences to me moments before our scheduled chat.
To say I was a bit taken back a bit by his glacier-sized ice breaker doesn’t do the moment justice. He wasn’t necessarily looking for sympathy, maybe just a little empathy. He simply wanted someone to listen.
I asked him to expand on why, just days before his season started, he looked as though he hadn’t slept in days. That long eye-opening, mostly off-the-record, conversation pulled back the curtain on what it’s like to be a varsity head football coach in Arizona.
Soon the discussion began shifting from the ever-shrinking summer “off-season,” to player burnout, to how the job has, at times, established an unsettling dynamic within his family, and how he sometimes wonders if “the juice is worth the squeeze.”
“The noise never stops,” he said, shaking his head in-between sips of his iced tea. “It’s always something.”
Don’t get me wrong, coaches understand what they’re signing up for, but this job requires many hats. Some may be too big, others too small. Regardless, they have to make them fit. Frankly, there is no other option.
From the outside, we’re privy to little of what happens inside the walls of a coaches’ office.
Some days can be a grab bag, more tricks than treats – players skipping class, various personal conduct issues, family life impacting football life, scheduling conflicts, and seemingly endless others. Through it all, the majority of coaches in our state take great pride in setting the right examples, being role models, even second (or primary) fathers, for their players. Their phones buzz at all hours of the day, nights, weekends, even holidays.
As the visibility of prep football increases in our state, so too does the drama which comes with the brighter lights. When many of us are sleeping, most coaches are still working. If a game runs late on a Friday, it’s not uncommon for them to watch, and edit, the film that night, drive home to sleep for a few hours, and then do it all over again Saturday morning as the players matriculate in for meetings and treatment.
It’s truly a labor of love.
Their daily to-do’s read more like a grocery list for a family of nine.
Even in the “off-season,” there is work to be done – like scheduling buses, coordinating staff calendars, scheme installs, fundraisers, coaching conferences, and double checking everything then in hopes the grab bag may be a little less full of surprises in-season.
As we’ve passed the halfway point of the high school football schedule here in early October, love it or hate it, your record is what it says it is. There are no do overs. Warts have been exposed, feelings have been hurt, egos likely bruised.
Tempers tend to grow a little shorter, and moods a little, well, moodier – considering teams have essentially, in one form or another, spent the last 10 months together. The coming weeks will bring increased chatter of player defections (some may have already left) and even “win or else” threats from administrators, many of which have little to no clue what it takes to lead a football program and the above mentioned frying pan pressures which go with it.
I know this often gets caught in the thick weeds of wins, losses, and chasing gold balls this winter, but let’s please not allow that low-hanging fruit overshadow all coaches do for their players and their school.
You may not always believe this, but most have your best intentions in mind.
Nothing in life is perfect, so please don’t expect that from your high school football coach.
