Interviewing to Start a HS Girls Golf Program--Advice Please

[tarcone]

Our HS is starting a girls golf program this year. I applied and would love any advice any of you may have.

I have coached varsity girls teams before, but not individual sports.

I have looked online and found some practice plans and what not. But anything any of you had experience with would be greatly appreciated.

Im thinking the skill level will be low. I dont know of many golfers in our district.
Also, my game is gone. I started playing when I was a youngster but havent played much in the last 19 years.

[thesloppy]

Where would you practice/play? Are there other (girls) HS golf teams in your district or is this a first?

[tarcone]

We play at a course about 20 minutes away from town. There are other teams in our conference and district. Not many though.

[JonInMiddleGA]

I can only speak to individual sports in Georgia with any knowledge but, here, the role of those coaches is generally more organizational (with perhaps motivational being second) rather than instructional.

There are some exceptions to that I'm sure but by & large those sports are dominated by players who train & learn on their own, play year-round in the local/state/national alphabet soup organization, etc etc. HS coaches are in charge of making sure they have transportation lined up for the meet, settling arguments about where to eat after the match, etc etc.

Your mileage quite likely will vary, my main reason for making this comment is to mention that the organizational / logistical aspect could be a much larger component than you might expect.

[NobodyHere]

Why Golf? It doesn't make sense to me to teach something that you haven't played much of in the last 19 years

[tarcone]

Originally Posted by NobodyHere

Why Golf? It doesn't make sense to me to teach something that you haven't played much of in the last 19 years

My family is big into golf and has always been. I love the sport, but time and kids limited my play and then my eyesight started to fail a bit and I would lose the ball in the fairway. Never knew where it went or where it landed and it became frustrating, and I didnt want to rely on others to find my ball.

Coaching golf in HS is awesome. Very low stress, no subjectivity, get out of school A LOT, and I want to bump my salary for retirement purposes. And, really, I want a shot at building a program into something and doing it from scratch sounds really exciting.

[thesloppy]

Do you coach other sports at this school currently?

[CU Tiger]

Originally Posted by tarcone

My family is big into golf and has always been. I love the sport, but time and kids limited my play and then my eyesight started to fail a bit and I would lose the ball in the fairway. Never knew where it went or where it landed and it became frustrating, and I didnt want to rely on others to find my ball.

Coaching golf in HS is awesome. Very low stress, no subjectivity, get out of school A LOT, and I want to bump my salary for retirement purposes. And, really, I want a shot at building a program into something and doing it from scratch sounds really exciting.

I hear a lot about why its right for you, but why are you right for them?

[tarcone]

Originally Posted by thesloppy

Do you coach other sports at this school currently?

No I do not but have in the past

[tarcone]

Originally Posted by CU Tiger

I hear a lot about why its right for you, but why are you right for them?

Good question.

I have the passion to start and build a program. I have some ideas already to build from the beginning, such as finding a local pro to come to our town for a summer youth camp to get girls interested.
I do well at building relationships with young ladies in athletics. I have built relationships with young ladies in my classes that helped me to direct them into different athletic fields where they have prospered and have thanked me for doing this.
I am organized to the point that I will have structured practices that help the young ladies progress their games throughout the year.
I love the game of golf and have a decent knowledge and the resources to help the young ladies with their games, if only mentally.

[tarcone]

Update: Interviewed today.Think it went well. Sent the thank you email. Had a mission and vision statement prepared and a practice plan.

I thought I did pretty well.

But our district is one that has its mind made up if you know what I mean. And Im not a preferred person in the district.

I imagine I wont get it and would be surprised if I did.

[thesloppy]

Good luck!

[tarcone]

Another update: Didnt get the job. Didnt expect to but still a little disappointed.

Oh well, more time to watch my daughter run cross country in her senior year.

[JonInMiddleGA]

Originally Posted by tarcone

Another update: Didnt get the job. Didnt expect to but still a little disappointed.

Oh well, more time to watch my daughter run cross country in her senior year.

In pretty much all situations I've learned that living well IS the best revenge.
Enjoy her season.

Curious though (since this always perplexed me once I saw it): is cross country a big spectator affair there? It's kind of turned into one in some places here, and by "big" I mean not only decent crowds (triple digits) but very elaborate affairs with family tents, tailgating before/during, etc etc.

Considering that you can virtually none of the courses (kinda like a Watkins Glen type road race) where I've seen that I've always been a bit bemused about it but never knew if that was common or just a local phenomenon.

[tarcone]

We go to some big meets. Went to one last season with about 75 teams. Big crowd there. For the smaller ones I would say there are decent crowds. I would triple digits at the lower end.
I havent seen much tailgating or family tents.

My wife runs during the races and can get to about 5 points to cheer on the team. I usually watch the start and then go to the finish line. Some courses are tighter than others and you can see a decent portion of the race. Others are more spread out and you have to work to get to the points to watch.

There is an area about 30 miles south of St. Louis that dominates the state. They had a coach who ran a program and did it very successfully. Got a lot of buy-in. The other schools in the area followed what he did and the sport has taken off in that area.

[JonInMiddleGA]

Originally Posted by tarcone

I havent seen much tailgating or family tents.

First time I saw the tents was one of the more w.t.f. moments I ever had on my son's campus (and there's a fair bit of competition for THAT honor lol)

Others are more spread out and you have to work to get to the points to watch.

Yeah, I'm sure that varies from course to course, with ours the viewable portion is nearly nothing

[BYU 14]

Originally Posted by NobodyHere

Why Golf? It doesn't make sense to me to teach something that you haven't played much of in the last 19 years

Originally Posted by tarcone

My family is big into golf and has always been. I love the sport, but time and kids limited my play and then my eyesight started to fail a bit and I would lose the ball in the fairway. Never knew where it went or where it landed and it became frustrating, and I didnt want to rely on others to find my ball.

Coaching golf in HS is awesome. Very low stress, no subjectivity, get out of school A LOT, and I want to bump my salary for retirement purposes. And, really, I want a shot at building a program into something and doing it from scratch sounds really exciting.

Yes, the stipend is very nice for Golf, and it is not split like other sports. Plus free golf!. Golf really is the HS coaching gig of choice if you want low stress and decent compensation/perks.

Obviously I don't coach football for the stipend (which amounts to less than 40 cents an hour over the year) so that never factors in for me, but yeah, we are all jealous of the golf coach life LOL.

[cougarfreak]

Originally Posted by tarcone

Good question.

I have the passion to start and build a program. I have some ideas already to build from the beginning, such as finding a local pro to come to our town for a summer youth camp to get girls interested.
I do well at building relationships with young ladies in athletics. I have built relationships with young ladies in my classes that helped me to direct them into different athletic fields where they have prospered and have thanked me for doing this.
I am organized to the point that I will have structured practices that help the young ladies progress their games throughout the year.
I love the game of golf and have a decent knowledge and the resources to help the young ladies with their games, if only mentally.

Have a plan in place to help the girls get to the next level after HS. I believe there are a lot of universities that have unfilled Women's Golf Scholarship dollars.

[tarcone]

Originally Posted by cougarfreak

Have a plan in place to help the girls get to the next level after HS. I believe there are a lot of universities that have unfilled Women's Golf Scholarship dollars.

Good idea. But too late. Just talked to a buddy who is good friends with the AD. I never had a chance. The wrestling coach who is a HS teacher and recently resigned is buddies with the AD. He applied.

I knew I had little chance going in. And I figured he would get it.

BS politics that the school systems breed.

Im over it. I dont like our AD and he knows it, also. Which was a strike against me. He is spineless and weak. A pussy I would say.

I have a buddy who is friends with him to get the inside story. Im not going to sue or anything, but I want to hear what really happened.

[AnalBumCover]

I thought I'd put this here instead of creating a new thread.

I'm a parent to a 3rd grader within the Catholic Youth Organization (CYO) system. Our school offers a golf team from 4th-8th grades, and my daughter was invited to join the team this year, since she had been taking golf lessons for a couple of years now. Naturally, I signed her up for the team.

In addition, I have been invited to help out with coaching duties. Not as an official coach, as I missed the required CYO coaching class for the school year, but for support in helping out the younger golfers (3rd and 4th graders, aka the "C Team").

These younger kids probably will have had some outside golf instruction, if at all. And most will have no tournament experience. CYO offers 3 tournaments throughout the school year: Fall, Winter, and Spring. I was told the C team will likely only participate in the shortest of the three, which is the Fall tournament. The expectation for C team is basic integration to team environment, and intro to tournament play (C Team scores are not counted toward CYO standings).

I have never had any coaching experience, golf or otherwise. I'll have the existing team coaches to learn from this year, but I'm sure they'll be tied up with the A and B teams. Our first tournament is early October, so that will get me only about a month to prep the little ones for their first tourney.

Any tips you can give for me? I think for the kids being really new to this, I would need to make practices as fun as possible for them, while also teaching them the rules of the game, etiquette, and scoring. How much focus should I put on fundamentals, such as putting, hitting, etc? Or should I instead advise the parents to look into some outside instruction? There are some affordable individual and group options in the area. I just don't want to take away from preparing them for the tournaments if most of practice time is teaching grip, stance, and posture.

FWIW, being that this is a Catholic school, all coaching jobs here are voluntary.

[tarcone]

Like you said, make it fun. Make up games to teach fundamentals. A putting game to make it fun while teaching the skills. Offer a prize to the winner to make it competitive as well.

You can do this with all shot types I imagine.

[JPhillips]

Don't touch the kids.

That's not all a joke. You'll need to be able to teach without the physical contact you may have with your own daughter. When I've done theatre things with HS and younger kids, I've always been very conscious not to touch them, both for their comfort and for my safety if a parent got the wrong idea.

[Toddzilla]

Originally Posted by JPhillips

Don't touch the kids.

That's not all a joke. You'll need to be able to teach without the physical contact you may have with your own daughter. When I've done theatre things with HS and younger kids, I've always been very conscious not to touch them, both for their comfort and for my safety if a parent got the wrong idea.

Seconded. Also, make sure you are never alone with any of the kids individually, and have a second adult around if possible.