My dad has been a high school coach for as long as I can remember and I always have heard the struggle he has been through with the contemplation between loving his job and the amount of money he gets paid. He works long hours over the summer and during the fall I always went to bed without him being home. Coaches go through the longest amount of hours and dedicate so much time to getting their players ready for college sports. If you break down the amount of hours they work a year, roughly 600 over the summer, nearly 2,000 in the fall and 600 in the spring, the calculated the hourly wage is about 2 dollars an hour or less. The fact that professional athletes, who were taught and raised by high school coaches, make close to a couple million dollars a year is absurd to me because the average annual salary for a public high school coach is only $6,000. My dad and many other coaches have helped high school athletes make better decisions, stay out of trouble, and focus more on academics and everybody looks over the impact they have.  This is only one of the many ways it affects me and reasons why I am interested. This issue is right up my alley because I have an in on both sides of the spectrum: my boyfriend has grown up playing high school sports and tells me all the time what an impact his coaches had on him, and my dad has always been a high school coach.  I very much value the jobs of all public school workers because I feel like our society doesn't give them enough credit for the jobs they do. The immense amount of research I have done, in person and online, gives me the credibility to back up my argument. There are a plethora of other coaches across the nation who have voiced their opinions on this issue, and I have found their words in articles, videos, and journals. 



This article is all about the amount of money high school coaches get paid with surveys and facts to back up the claims. It states that the average salary for public high school coaches is 3,700 dollars, while 22% of them make less then 3,000 dollars. The statements in this article help prove that coaches are ignored and don't make the money they earn due to the long amount of hours that they work. This author values the work of high school coaches and all the time they devote to their players. He understands what's at stake for everybody affected by it.  He touches on the fact that this annual salary affects the coach's family and the future of their kids, for example, their college education. This author is creditable because he does his research in depth and gains facts from local high schools, also interviewing multiple coaches from his region about their salary and the hours they work. He writes word for word quotes, and has pictures he took of the coaches, also providing links to the coaches and their high schools. 


The second article I found is an article that highlights the importance and power of coaching. It talks about the way this affects the kids in the long run and how most coaches are more like parents or friends. It emphasizes how important positive coaching is and what a difference it makes. They do so much for their players and don't expect anything in return even though they should. This article values the importance of coaching and the job they are putting forth to help teach kids sports. It also talks about the value of positive coaching and how much that sets an example for kids. The stakes talked about in this article are mainly family and community, and that's a wide range of impact. The whole community is impacted because the adults coaching the kids help set an example for the way they act outside of sports as well. For example, "Lesyk and Kornspan found that coaches ranked having fun, learning life skills, being part of a team, developing confidence, and the excitement of competition as important outcomes for their players.". This author is creditable because he has experienced with his sons and he uses his personal experience to attract the readers using pathos. He talks about the importance of coaching with his sons and why he is so passionate, and this makes his statements creditable and easy to believe. He also uses interviews to provide an outside source of creditability. 



The third article is written straight from a former high school athlete himself. He talks about his feelings when he hears his high school football coach is retiring. His main claim is how much he underappreciates his coach when he was in high school. He stresses the time and energy this man spent devoting to him. The values in this article are all from a first hand perspective and it makes it easier to understand how much this coach's time really was treasured. He uses words like "hero" and "mentor" to really express to the audience what his coach meant to him and how much he cherished his coach's time and effort in his life. One of the stakeholders in this article is the author, and he discusses the major impact his coach directly had on him. He talks about his friends, his teammates, his family, and other people at the high school.  He even states "All of my coaches were an important part of my high school years, but there is only one who I refer to as a major 'life influence' even to this day." This just further justifies how much he appreciated them. His evidence (quotes, experience, and pictures) help amplify his creditability because we can see, hear and feel what the author is feeling. He interviews friends he went to high school with and adds pictures so we really can see he has creditable proof. His creditably helps push the audience to feel the author is being genuine.  

My research question is arguable because the school board and sponsors of school athletics may not think high school coaches really affect society as much as they do. They also argue that there are other jobs that deserve the money they are getting instead of the coaches. Although I understand where they're coming from, I do not agree at all. My sources also bring up points about how some coaches are not at all like I talk about in my paper, and why should they get a salary increase? I totally agree and this issue could easily tamper my argument. Different perspectives could affect my argument as well because people who write checks (school board) have a budget to divide between all of the faculty, and that would change the perspective of things so easily because they don't have a choice of how much money to spend. I know they deserve more than they get. I do need to do more research about where the money comes from and by their salaries are as low as they are. There is also more to learn about something you're interested in so I do have many things that could help me learn more about this issue. 
