Serving the Flathead Valley & Montana since 2006. A reality based independent journal of observation & analysis. © James Conner.
Coaching the Whitefish High School basketball team pays $5,000 a year. That’s extra money for a retiree, but not a living wage for a man still in his working years.
If a young coach is not employed full time — full time teaching at the school where he coaches is my preference — he must, if married, depend on his wife’s income, be independently wealthy, or begin drawing down his savings as he travels a one way road to poverty.
A responsible school district does not put a man in that position. But the Whitefish school district, which just hired Phoenix, AZ, resident Curtis Green as its boys basketball coach, does:
The Whitefish School District Board of Trustees approved Green’s hiring last week after High School Activities Director Aric Harris recommended the Phoenix, Arizona native as the new head coach.
Green replaces Josh Downey, who abruptly resigned two weeks ago amid a disagreement with the administration over employment.
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Downey, who accepted the Whitefish head coaching job in mid May, claimed administrators promised him a job in the district but failed to help secure anything that would support him and his family beyond the roughly $5,000 coaching stipend. Harris denied the claim.
Green, a finalist during the previous coaching search after Mark Casazza stepped down in March, emerges as the new head coach for a Bulldogs program trying to regain its winning tradition.
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[Green] said he understands that there is not a teaching vacancy in the school district and instead has a few employment options in the community that he is looking into.
Green may want to coach in Whitefish so badly he’s willing to put himself in such a dicey situation. If so, he’s taking a risk that’s likely to pay off in economic misfortune.
But how in thunder can the Whitefish school board and high school administrators think that hiring a coach who lacks a job that pays a living wage brings stability to the basketball program or sets a good example for the school or community?
Mr. Green, like Mr. Downey before him, is being exploited by a school system for which fielding a winning team has become such an obsession that common sense and social responsibility no longer govern decision making. That’s a big black mark on Whitefish.