Trouble in Valdosta

Coach's firing illustrates high school sports' problems

If you happened to catch the recent Sports Illustrated series on high school sports, you know it's a different game for teenagers. The three-sport athlete is toast. And the pressure to win, to hone a specific skill, to be the next prodigy is greater than ever.

Those are the kids. What about changes for the adults involved in high school sports?

Take a 50-something coach like Mike O’Brien , whose Valdosta (Ga.) High Wildcats have won 77 percent (70-20-1) of their football games over the last seven years. Toss in three region titles and a state championship in 1998. Even this fall wasn’t a dog, the Wildcats going 8-3-1 and bowing out with an overtime loss in the second round of the state playoffs.

Good stuff, huh?

Well, you’d think so. Except Valdosta schools superintendent Sam Allen called O’Brien last week, saying he would recommend O'Brien's contract not be renewed for next year. O’Brien says he has to assume Allen has enough school board votes to make the firing reality, so the soft-spoken coach is already looking for his next contract.

This contract business has a lot more to do with football than teaching. O’Brien is one of the highest-paid coaches in Georgia, earning more than $80,000 a year, not counting perks and annual bonuses from the booster club. He’s the football coach and athletic director, but his driver’s ed responsibilities are the closest he gets to a classroom.

Of course, football in South Georgia -- and Valdosta, in particular -- isn’t run-of-the-mill stuff. Probably unlike anything you’ll ever see at your local school. We’re talking about a town near the Florida line that proclaims itself “Winnersville, U.S.A." That's not bragging when you’re America’s winningest football program (802-165-34) and the trophy case is stuffed with 23 state championships and a half-dozen mythical national titles.

You know you’re big-time when your head coach has his own weekly TV show (Wildcat Tradition) and the touchdown club chips in to provide him a car. Sound a little like college football? Trouble is, the main problem is also the same: disgruntled boosters and alumni, empowered folks with apparently too much time on their hands.

“There’s a small group that has been trying to get me fired for years, members of the touchdown club and others," says O’Brien, who’s in his 23rd season as a coach at Valdosta. “It’s the same group that didn’t want me hired in the first place. They wanted a national search and that’s what is being talked about now."

When he sought reasons for his pending ouster, says O’Brien, he heard a couple “dinky things,” like too much cussing from coaches and arguing on the sidelines. But you won’t convince him that a small faction of boosters isn't behind the whole thing.

“It’s just a couple malcontents that just kept it going," he says. "I’m sure they wanted more input into the program. But the program was between me and the coaches, and that is how we ran it."

Of course, O'Brien can blame only himself and other coaches across the land who play up to parents and booster club dollars. Sure, the majority of booster organizations serve a useful purpose. But a few rage shamelessly out of control, particularly in sections of the country where high school football is king.

Three years ago, I examined the football-rich culture in Georgia, whose educational system traditionally lags behind most of the country, and found that the average football coach was paid over 55 percent more than the average teacher. Almost $80 million in state tax dollars was going toward coaches’ teaching contracts, although nearly a third had minimal or no teaching workload.

Today, when you look at the latest federal tax records for the Valdosta Touchdown Club, you find the 1,200-member support group reported income of $75,000 in 2001 and assets of almost $165,000. The club spent $6,000 feeding players and $2,300 staging the annual spring game. Another $20,000 went to the football awards banquet and a two-week camp for players.

Money well spent? We'll let you decide. But those kinds of costs come with high expectations -- expectations that may end up costing a coach his job.

“I’ve been in this job 23 years, and it’s not just a job," O’Brien sighs. “It becomes your life. And now they want to take it away."

That, you might argue, is another sign of the changing times.

Mike Fish is a senior writer for CNNSI.com.

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