Regardless of their sport, their rank within a program or how long they have held their position, all coaches had to start somewhere when their careers began.
Most coaches — even those now holding the most lucrative positions in professional sports — once had to take positions at the proverbial bottom and work their way up. While working in assistant roles or with sophomore, freshman and grade-school teams, coaches with ambitions of varsity jobs gain the experience which schools value so highly when choosing their next head of a program.
Not all paths up the coaching ranks are equal in length or in substance. Carrie Claudnic got the head girls volleyball position at Gardner-South Wilmington High School last fall even though she had no coaching experience. A speech and language pathologist for the Grundy Country Special Education Co-op, Claudnic led the Lady Panthers to their best finish in years, going 13-14 overall and 7-6 in River Valley Conference play, but it was not all smooth sailing as her rookie season progressed.
"I think not having experienced coaching even at an assistant level, I didn't really know the ins and outs of it," Claudnic said. "Things like the organization you have to have. Not being at the school definitely made it more difficult. It was definitely challenging."
Matt Blaine graduated last June from North Central College, where he was a member of the baseball team. Blaine hopes to teach physical education and health and coach at a school in the future. During the current school year, he has been a regular substitute teacher at several area schools. He also became the assistant varsity baseball coach at Morris Community High School, helping the Redskins put together a 17-8 record.
"I thought it would be a good way to get my foot in the door, coaching baseball," Blaine said. "I heard they [the Redskins] had an opening. Initially I contacted Todd Kein, who is the head coach, and let him know I was interested. He let me know a little bit about the process. ... Eventually I went in and sat down with him for a little interview, or informational meeting. That led to him offering me the position of varsity assistant."
A standout pitcher at Coal City High School and later at NCC, Blaine has spent the spring learning how to relate to the hurlers on the MCHS staff.
"One thing I have learned is that it is not always easy trying to explain something that I may understand to high school kids," Blaine said. "It varies from pitcher to pitcher, and you can't say the same thing over and over. At the beginning of the year, I made up a big pitchers' manual for everyone in our program, from freshman through the varsity. It went through all of our goals and everything and what they should do in between starts.
"As a younger guy coming in and only being 5 or 6 years older than some of the kids, it's hard to an extent to be an authority figure and not a friend. The kids have been great about it. I haven't had any problems and they have been very coachable."
Blaine also coached seventh-grade basketball in Wilmington last winter in his attempt to gain experience that might lead to future coaching positions. A similar motivation caused Seneca High School alum and recent Northern Illinois University graduate Justin Zink to join the Ottawa High School softball staff this spring as an assistant coach at the freshman level.
"It happened to be the place where I was student teaching," Zink said of OHS. "I talked to the head of the P.E. department and he asked if I'd be interested in coaching, and it went from there. Don [Brown, a longtime SHS coach and Zink's stepfather] is good friends with Gordie Kirkman, who's the head coach. They talked about it and it ended up working out."
Zink was the quarterback on the SHS football team when he went there and would like to join a football staff in the future. His softball stint has opened his eyes to the possibility of coaching in new and unfamiliar sports.
"At one time, I had absolutely no desire to coach freshman softball," Zink said. "It just wasn't something I thought about. ... This has been a great experience. I like softball a lot. It is something I could definitely see myself doing in the future."
Like many young teachers and coaches, Claudnic, Blaine and Zink all face uncertain futures. Claudnic anticipates that she will return for a second season at the helm of the Lady Panthers, if some "conflicts" between her day job and the coaching position can be worked out. If she returns, not only will she have a year of experience to her credit, but so will the other member of the GSW staff. Both Claudnic and 2009 assistant coach Marla Eltrevoog were new to the high school volleyball bench last fall.
"It will be an asset to have Chris Moller as the new assistant coach," Claudnic said. "She left Dwight, and she was the freshman coach there. She has great experience. Between the two of us, I think we can do great things."
Blaine would like to find a permanent, full-time teaching job that leads to coaching opportunities in the near future. Until then, he is learning all he can while working side-by-side with Kein in the MCHS dugout and hoping that one day he will have the chance to be a head varsity coach.
"We have talked about numerous things in our time together," Blaine said. "We have spent hours upon hours going over different situations and bouncing ideas off of one another. He knows the game very well. I've learned a lot from him."
With his days as a student, and a student teacher, now ended, Zink hopes to find a teaching position — and perhaps a coaching spot as well — for the 2010-11 school year. He does not expect to do so easily.
"Now comes the job search," he said. "That's the next step, but it's going to be tough, especially with all of the teachers getting cut all over. All I can do is get my resume out there and do what I can to get to know people."
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