How Burnout Causes Coaches to Quit Debate

Coaches are more often than not the unsung heroes of the debate community. They spend countless hours teaching students the art of speech and debate down to the nuances, they organize practices, and provide a foundation for their competitor’s to build their own success upon. However, more often than not, these can be some of the only factors coaches receive recognition for and the larger impact of their presence must be enumerated for debaters to truly understand the outsized impact an individual(s) have on ensuring that speech and debate remains a viable experience for their students. Specifically, coaches are expected to manage team dynamics, review student cases and pieces, organize tournament transportation, secure tournament accommodations, enter NSDA points, fundraise for their team, register competitors for tournaments, organize team practices, locate resources for competitors, frequently communicate with local and national officials, and all of the aforementioned responsibilities listed earlier on. The catch here being that most of this work is expected to be done beyond contracted hours, and while also balancing full-time positions as teachers or in other professional capacities. It is simply not hyperbole to declare that coaches are the heroes of our community and take on a herculean-like workload to ensure that teams can run smoothly. 

Yet herein lies the issue that most coaches face routinely: coaching speech and debate at a high level can be a difficult task that is tacked on with a plethora of other commitments, thus coaches are faced with a proposition of keeping up a hefty workload to keep their team afloat at the expense of their own physical and mental health.

While profound commentary exists on balancing speech and debate alongside other life events, there is currently very little dialogue discussing the dynamic balance, or lack thereof, within the lives of coaches. 

To better illustrate this dangerous dynamic, examine renowned coach Iian Lampert’s study on burnout for speech and debate coaches entitled, “Mental Health for Mentors: A Study of Burnout in Speech and Debate Coaches for the California High School Speech Association”. In this study, the California High School Speech Association is utilized as a model to survey the rates of burnout of the association’s coaches, coming to the conclusion that coaches are severely overworked but feel pressure to continue coaching to provide students with competitive opportunities. Uniquely, this study gives the community a much needed perspective using both qualitative and quantitative data to demonstrate just how prevalent burnout is amongst coaches. In fact, Lampert’s study quantifies that nearly half, 46.43% of coaches, will spend at least 21 hours weekly dedicated to coaching. Moreover, the same survey of coaches showed that 33% of coaches dedicated 10+ hours a week to service their team during the summer. 

The reality of our activity is that the herculean hours that coaches put into supporting the students on their team is an irreplaceable part to success. In most instances, the more time a coach can put into teaching various events, reviewing scripts, hosting practice rounds, among other things will lead to more successful outcomes for their team as a whole. Most coaches know this, with a common thought process being, “If I’m not there for the students, who will be?” With this statement being the daunting articulation of coaches’ dynamic of success over health, we have arrived at what can only be deemed as a present day ‘coaching catastrophe’ where coaches are pressured by

themselves and others to the point of burnout or quitting altogether. Thus, the purpose of this article will seek to plead a case to the competitors, faculty, and leadership officials of the speech and debate community on how (and why) we can support the true cornerstones of our community: our coaches. 

The high stakes balancing act that coaches endure shouldn’t be a surprise to many, as coaches are oftentimes teachers, many of the same causes and responses to burnout are similar in both the realms of education and competitive debate. Among other reasons, teachers are citing low compensation, conflict with their administration, and a shortage of support from their peers as a reason to quit. In the realm of education, teachers are often forced to work hours beyond their contracted schedule to meet their goals, and don’t always receive support from their community to lessen their workload. Similarly, coaches within the debate community cite many of the same reasons for quitting the activity. The terms may change from ‘administration’ to NSDA or from ‘other teachers’ to other coaches, yet just as many are calling for educators in general to receive support, we must also ensure that debate coaches, educators or not, are not left behind in our push. 

Here’s the plea for why supporting our coaches is so crucial to the success of the debate community as a whole: the ability to retain the brilliant mentors of our events and put them in a position to keep imprinting onto future generations is crucial to the goal of equity in debate. While there are multiple ongoing efforts within the speech and debate community to improve equality in competitions and voice our opinions on global injustices, the presence of a steady mentor and organizer is the reason why many of us even have the chance to reach this activity’s highest stages or have the chance to present our messages in the strongest fashion. This isn’t to take away from student achievement, however it is meant to put into perspective the realities of how influential coaches, even those who may just serve as a club advisor, can truly be in the organization of our community and how big of a hole their absence could leave for future generations if burnout pushes them out of the activity. 

There are also serious implications for student equity in terms of opportunity that stems from supporting the coaches in our community. A massive inequity that exists right now between well-funded teams and many lower-funded teams is that the former typically has two or more coaches on their staff, and thus can divide the responsibilities of coaching in order to lower rates of burnout. While this isn’t an exact science by any means as all coaches can be subject to burnout, the fact that many low-funded schools typically have only one coach shouldering this workload can create a chance for that singular coach to quit or feel the effects of burnout frequently. Having more coaches on a team is certainly a benefit to the schools that can afford it and yields a competitive advantage, yet we may see this discrepancy in size of staff only widen as single-coach teams may struggle to balance the tasks necessary to be successful, or lose their coaches altogether. 

We would also be doing a disservice to this conversation without being transparent about what resources are currently offered to coaches and explaining why they ultimately miss the mark. In all fairness, the NSDA does make an attempt at guiding new coaches through guides and a FAQ message board. However a quick examination of the organization’s speech guides and debate guides will show that many of these helpful tools are hidden behind paywalls. Like many resource databases, the NSDA understands there is an opportunity to monetize these guides, however even a paywall that can only be bypassed with an annual coaching membership fee can be a large hurdle for teams with limited financial capital. This is especially harmful when we recognize that many coaches turn to the NSDA as a way to learn events and team management, but the barriers to access these tools pushes coaches to spend even more time searching through pages of search results to find remnants of wisdom they can apply to their own programs. While there is certainly work to be done to make the foundational resources necessary to be an effective coach more readily available, it is worth noting that resources tailored towards new coaches beyond the NSDA face similar, if not more exorbitant, issues regarding paywalls to access tools and information that makes the lives of coaches easier. Once more, the impact of paywalls on coaches is the same as it is to competitors, it robs brilliant minds of the opportunity to better themselves and others within the debate community. 

With all of this in mind, it is easy for the speech and debate community to recognize the heavy workload of coaches and how little is being done to ease that workload in terms of information and resources. Yet, it isn’t in the spirit of speech and debate members to watch idly by as this issue persists, rather we need to begin a serious dialogue of how we can support our coaches. 

Let’s begin turning advocacy into action by first taking steps to lessen the workload of coaches by pushing administrations to hire assistant coaches to offset the previously discussed tasks of a coach. Of course, this is a financial decision that some programs cannot make but making local decision makers aware of the burdens of coaches is integral to potentially lessening that strain. 

After we accomplish that, we can then focus on outreach to respective state-level debate associations. Typically, these governing bodies are responsible for forming the rules and schedules that can have massive impacts on the coaches within those leagues. Specifically, in the aforementioned report on coach burnout Lampert makes the crucial suggestion that these committees or new committees should hold meetings to adjust the way that specific tournaments and the calendar debate year is implemented. As such, this could be done in such a manner that fits the lifestyles of coaches by spacing out local tournaments more or adjusting the running time of tournaments in a coach-friendly manner. 

However, all of these solutions should be the beginning. Each district is different and has coaches with unique circumstances, meaning that the overall purpose of these previous solutions is to begin sparking a discussion on what can be done to help coaches.

As competitors, seeing the struggles and herculean efforts of our own coaches are oftentimes hard to notice or even seem difficult to influence as a student, but we must all make an effort. While coaches have spent years asking what they can do for us in the midst of their own personal stress and burnout, it is finally time for debaters to genuinely ask what we can do to support our coaches.