Paying the price for prep football

By Michael Ko
Seattle Times staff reporter

Steve Valach, the football coach at Liberty High School of Issaquah, spent about five hours on a recent Sunday afternoon preparing for his team's next game: breaking down film, strategizing with assistants and devising a game plan.

After saying goodbye to a friend who had come over for dinner, and then goodnight to his wife and 4-year-old son, Valach devoured three more hours of football that night, until 11:30 p.m.

Monday morning brought more of the same.

"Got up at 5, more film. Got done with that at 6, showered, then went to school," recalls Valach, 40, who teaches six English classes during the day. "I remember thinking, 'Man, I don't have a minute to breathe.' "

High-school head football coaches say the demands of their job have become more and more intense in the past 10 to 15 years. They have to work more nights and weekends, handle bigger expectations from parents and media and oversee an increasing number of offseason activities that has made a seasonal job practically year-round.

And they have to do all that while winning on Friday nights.

Most say they're not coaching for the money. Coaches in Washington make between $3,000 and $8,000, with an average of $4,000 to $5,000, according to Terry Ennis, of the Washington State Football Coaches Association. But the growing disparity between the pay and the workload adds up to a compelling question:

How much is a high-school head football coach worth?

Big value for Bellevue

In Bellevue it's at least $55,000.

The booster club for the most successful football program in Washington pays that much annually to head coach Butch Goncharoff, who has led Bellevue High School to four of the last five Class 3A state championships.

According to booster club president Greg Bennett, the salary, which is on top of Goncharoff's $5,600 school-district stipend, is related to the coach's extensive commitment to the program and the kids, and to "keep him here rather than going elsewhere."

Goncharoff, who is not a teacher, owns a small printing business in downtown Bellevue.

Several longtime coaches in King County say they know of booster clubs supplementing the salaries of assistant coaches or subsidizing team functions and offseason expenses such as football camps and clinics, but they have not heard of any paying salaries directly to head coaches.

Valach, with 19 years of classroom experience and a master's degree, makes about $55,000 a year as a teacher at Liberty, which is in the same KingCo 3A Conference as Bellevue.

He makes a $5,120 school-district stipend for football and no extra salary from his school's booster club. The coach says team parents have thanked him in the past with a $100 gift certificate to a nice restaurant and a voucher for a night at a bed and breakfast.

"I think Butch is an excellent coach," Valach says. "The thing I know for sure, they get their kids to play harder than anyone else we play against. ... But he makes 10 times more than I do. I really can't believe they put in 10 times more work."

Symptom of a bigger issue

Terri McMahan, the director of athletics for the Edmonds School District, is one of many administrators who believe football coaches aren't paid enough for what they do. But she believes it's a symptom of an ailing educational system that has a hard time compensating teachers.

McMahan considers high-school athletics supplemental to academics. "We should not be the tail wagging the dog," she says. "If it gets to the point where they're rewarding teachers for merit pay, then maybe it trickles down to coaches."

Generally, football coaches are at the top of the coaching pay scale in most school districts, along with basketball coaches. Coaches of other team sports such as baseball, fastpitch and volleyball are next, followed by individual sports such as golf, cross country and tennis.

Many administrators determine the scale by weighing factors such as media coverage, crowd size, the number of assistants, risks posed by the sport and the number of participants.

But should booster clubs be writing checks directly to coaches? McMahan says no, for two reasons.

Besides unfairly elevating one sport above another, she says it can lead to power struggles between the school district and booster club. The district might believe the coach is doing fine, but the boosters might want the coach fired because he isn't winning enough to warrant their bonus.

"That coach might be in favor today, but the same people handing him a check, they now own him," McMahan says. "That coach might be in favor today, but that can change overnight."

Texas-sized salaries

In neighboring Oregon and in football-crazed Texas and California, the state associations that govern high-school sports prohibit booster clubs from directly paying coaching salaries.

In all three states, all booster-club money goes directly to schools. From there, the school can dispense money as it sees fit. None of the states has a restriction on how much coaches can be paid.

"If someone is paying a coach to win, or to see their kid play ... obviously that takes away from the integrity," says Thom Simmons, director of sports information for the California Interscholastic Federation.

At the request of the Bellevue School District, the Washington Interscholastic Activities Association is considering whether to limit the role of booster clubs in high-school sports.

Some states pay coaches more. According to a recent investigation by the Austin American-Statesman, the average salary for head football coaches in the two largest classifications in Texas is $73,804.

All coaches in Texas must be full-time employees of their school districts, so that average includes what some earn as a teacher or administrator.

Still, some are hired by the school district only to coach, including the highest-paid prep coach in Texas — Jack Welch of Copperas Cove in Central Texas. Welch, one of five coaches to top $100,000 annually, makes $101,271.

Steve Gervais, the football coach at Skyline of Sammamish who has won five state titles in 30 years of coaching, has visited peers in Texas several times.

"They've put a value on it," says Gervais, who makes $61,000 as a physical-education teacher, and $5,100 as a coach. "But of course, they've got gorgeous 12,000-seat stadiums filled on Friday nights. They're bringing in $250,000-$300,000 for their ASBs. I don't know if that's realistic up in Washington to say we're going to be like Texas."

Keeping up with the Joneses

The trio of Gervais, Terry Ennis of Archbishop Murphy near Mill Creek, and Mark Perry of Snohomish has almost 90 years of football coaching experience combined.

They say that in the last 15 years or so the demands on football players and coaches have increased significantly.

"Our kids are in the weight room the Monday after the season ends," Gervais says. "To be good, to be successful, they have to be there. They have to be in an offseason program year-round. Training camps, speed camps, passing camps."

Ennis calls it "keeping up with the Joneses." If one coach finds something that makes his team better — a speed camp in Portland, for example, or a week-long team-bonding retreat — someone else is sure to replicate it.

Perry says struggling programs have to do more so they can be competitive while stronger programs keep doing more so they can stay on top. Perry, who teaches five math classes, including Advanced Placement Calculus, says he puts in 35 hours per week on football during the fall.

"In the offseason, there probably isn't a day going by without looking, thinking something that will make your program better," Perry says.

Sure, football is better today. The kids are stronger and faster, and the game is more sophisticated. But at what cost?

Ennis sees coaches burning out working at essentially two full-time jobs, and players having little time for anything else.

Building boys to men

Still, the rewards are significant. All three coaches talk about the lifelong bonds they make with athletes or teams, or the chance to reconnect with players years later and hear about the impact they made as a coach.

Ennis says most coaches know they're underpaid but "think they can make a difference in kids' lives through athletics. As a person, what better contribution could you make than to help someone else, and for the person to acknowledge it?

"It's one of the most gratifying things I've ever experienced."

Certainly Bellevue's Goncharoff has made a lasting impression. Amy Haroon, who has two boys playing in Bellevue's junior program, says what Goncharoff has done for his teams "has less to do with winning football games and more to do with making men out of boys — which has been an elusive art form since the beginning of time."

Liberty's Valach sometimes wishes he made more coaching, but believes the job has benefits that money can't buy.

After Valach's mother died last year, team parents helped put together a tribute for her before a recent game, and plan to plant a tree in her memory near the football field.

"You do it for love," Valach says of coaching, "not a living."