CardinalBacker

Yes and no... I firmly believe there are FBS caliber kids at lots of schools who never reach their potential because of limited coaching. WOS absolutely has their share of stud athletes... but CT gets so much more out of those kids AND the kids who aren’t as gifted and gets the job done, year in and year out. If believing that there’s a genetic force field around the Cove helps you sleep at night, good for you. It gets done because of their legendary work ethic and good coaching. Anytime you can hit Jerry world with a fourth option at qb, it’s not just athleticsm getting you there. Anytime you can return to the sc the following year with a complete new group, it’s not just athleticism. It’s all about molding the athletes you have to achieve their full potential. And it doesn’t start in high school. I’m willing to bet that there is a better football program in WOS Jr high than in a lot of high school varsity programs in the area.

You’ve obviously never been to Newton. I’m sorry. It was a beach ball right over the plate. I couldn’t help myself. Go Eagles.

No, sir....We Own Silsbee. And I guess Salado, too.

Yeah, but hopefully you can do better than 6’2” and 195.

Jerry Jones said it best when he said that "500 guys could coach this team to a super bowl." Then he fired Jimmie Johnson and the rest is history. Uneventful history. Not only did the Rattlers lose a proven championship coach, they have probably poisoned the well as far as attracting another coach of Fedora's caliber.

Nah... I don't even know where PG is or what their mascot is... like I said, it's just about the scheme. I'm still pulling for the Mustangs.

I'm pulling for the Stangs, just because you should always support the locals. On the other hand, it would be nice to see a team that runs the Wing-T get the best of the Mustangs.... I've heard enough talk about how the Chain Gang can't be beaten by the Wing-T. I've got mixed emotions, but in the end I'm hoping the Stangs make it 3 in a row.

D'oh! Be careful what you wish for. The downside is that it might be a little tougher to lure in a top candidate after the way that the board treated Fedora. I mean, if they'll run off a coach with Fedora's after such immense success, it just seems like a really hard place to be successful whether you win or not.

I agree... the thing is that those big lines year in, year out, are created in the weight room over a period of years. I'll be willing to bet that there's a dedicated strength and conditioning guy or at least a solid o-line coach who's instilling a dream in fat junior high kids.

The ones complaining the most are typically the ones who work in comfy schools that tend to pay less than the higher paying schools in rough areas.

You're the guy I'm supporting. If you keep working the way that you are, at some point you have to expect to be a HC/AD at some school earning the big bucks. Or you could have dug into your education while teaching, then working as an assistant principal, and ultimately earned a doctorate in education and joined the ranks of administrators making big bucks. It's all about the path that you choose. You could just as easily teach elementary school kids, drink wine in the evening and gripe about how teachers aren't paid enough. As far as working too much and being paid too little, I'll say this. I watched my Dad struggle as a logging contractor growing up. Being in the woods a hundred miles from home for workdays that start at daybreak meant getting up at 3 or 4 in the morning. Not getting home until well after dark, and summertime just meant longer days in which to work. Weekends were for patching up equipment and going to church. He went broke, just like a lot of people who work really long hours. It's easy to sit back and say "I make less than the people at Hobby Lobby" at which point I say "Go to Hobby Lobby, Chief.... they get Sundays off." If you're doing what you love, and it sounds like you do....suck it up. There are a lot of things I'd rather be doing, but it doesn't pay what I need it to. Just FYI, I actually got within 9 hours of having my certification to teach, but I realized that I would have to coach, drive a bus, and still work a shutdown or turnaround in the summer if I wanted to ever achieve the goals I had for myself.

Ok... it’s a good start. The only problem is that some areas have a substantially higher cost of living than others. Also, you have to consider the size and scope a school district. If you take a person capable of heading up a school district with say, 4000 employees, 12 campuses, and a multi-million dollar budget, wouldn’t you expect their salary to be in the same ballpark as a CEO that managed a similarly sized company? That was the problem that I had with Dr Thomas’s salary at BISD. It was the highest in the state, but BISD is nowhere near the largest ISD in the state. With testing results being so bad at that point, it would be like paying Suratt money to a guy that couldn’t make the playoffs. I’m all for paying somebody what there’re worth, but I don’t mind speaking up if somebody is making a killing for no apparent reason.

You can argue the thing to death. How many kids would have dropped out of school in Carthage if not for the opportunity to play ball, how many families were attracted to Carthage by their successful sports programs? What kind of effect would a shrinking enrollment have on the school’s ability to add more educators? Carthage is probably not even close to being a good example anyways, if you compare how little economic impact SCs have had on the bottom line at WOS. The simple fact is this.... Carthage prioritizes success in their athletic programs. Check out those Bluebirds they haul the team around in. They also have mega-bucks from taxes generated by mineral interests that exist in their ISD. In fact, my guess is that the budget pains they experienced last year were caused by a shrinking value on their mineral roll, just like most other ISDs that draw a large portion of their tax revenues from the oil and gas production. If those guys are serious about having one of the best football coaches in the state, then they have to be willing to pay him accordingly.... and apparently they are.

It’s not really fair to compare the highest paid, longest tenured coaches (the HC/ADs) to first year teachers. In fact practically every Head Coach started out as a....FIRST YEAR TEACHER. But, through hard work, long hours, and a proven record of success, the young teacher has joined administration as an AD and is responsible for overseeing a coaching staff, budget, multiple sports programs, media inquiries, college recruiting, UIL oversight, scheduling with other programs, successful game planning, disciplinary issues, late night games, offseason workouts, after school practices, team dinners, film watching and dealing with booster clubs and parents. But we compare his salary to that of a 5th grade science teacher who works 8-3 m-f and updates her lesson plan every summer. It makes my head hurt.

Lol... the old days, my man. Unlike so many people today, I didn’t borrow my way through undergrad. The only undocumenteds I work with now are the ones I hire to work on my stuff. Merry Christmas to you, too.

If I choose to chase my dreams and borrow to get a Bachelors in Art Appreciation, then strike out to provide the world with impressionist watercolors... good for me. But shame on me for complaining about my crappy standard of living that’s the direct result of the choices I made. You want to know who never complains? People who have had an actual job before they go into the teaching field. Those guys appreciate a cupcake job and realize that they have NOTHING to complain about.

I graduated with 2.67 GPA and a liberal arts degree. British Lit was my major and I have a minor in women’s studies. I also took four semesters of Latin. Nah.... I got my BBA in General Business and work about as many weekends as a teacher. I just get paid a little better, lol. And for what it’s worth, I learned a lot more about how to “do a real job” working alongside undocumented workers than I ever picked up in class.

I see plenty of posts about the miserable salaries that first year teachers earn. How about we post some salaries of 15 year teachers? I have a niece that could literally do anything she wanted.... she’s just that smart, tenacious, and charismatic. She always talked about wanting to be a pharmacist... even worked her way through college as a pharmacy tech. Somewhere along the way she caught the urge to teach. Her family was like, “are you sure? Teachers don’t make a whole lot of money,” to which my idealistic young niece stated that “money isn’t everything.” Wrapped up her degree, did a little student teaching, and started her career as an educator. Five or six years into her career, would you like to guess her favorite pastime? Griping about how unfair teachers’ salaries are. How her friends that became accountants, nurses, etc, are making so much more money than she is. Nurses work much longer hours, as well as nights and weekends. Bodily fluids and contagious diseases are a constant threat. Should teachers be paid as well as nurses? Teachers certainly don’t work as hard or long as nurses. What about young accountants or bookkeepers? 6 or 7 holidays per year and two weeks vacation if you’re lucky and the hours those guys put in during tax season is ungodly. Should teachers be paid just as much as a first year accountant, despite the fact that the typical teacher will work so much less than a person in the accounting field? What about salespeople who tend to have higher average salaries. I mean, a car salesman doesn’t have a guaranteed annual contract like a teacher. If he/she doesn’t produce sales, his family won’t eat next month... not to mention working tons more hours including nights and weekends. Going into education is settling for a second tier career for people who have set low expectations for their futures.

Teachers are like firefighters who work 7 twenty four hour shifts per month that largely revolves around polishing the firetruck and cooking spaghetti for the boys, but feel as if the rest of us are somehow putting a screwing on them. Want to make a real salary? Get a degree that will support you in an actual occupation that requires full-time participation. Year-by-year employement? Is that kinda like when you go home one afternoon in late May and then show back up sometime in mid August but receive a check the entire time? My J-O-B doesn't work like that, Susan.

Oh, please.... why would anyone CHOOSE to borrow money to earn a liberal arts degree? What good or service did you learn to provide? Making sick people better? How to produce any type of good? No. "I plan to impart wisdom on a part-time basis." Most effective teachers can easily grade their papers and do whatever lesson planning is required on their conference period. Unless, of course, they'd rather hang around the lounge and gossip with the other teachers. By show of hands, how many of us have an hour carved out of every seven-hour work day allocated for getting ready to do our actual jobs? Most people with real jobs get in a jam for making too many trips to the bathroom. Maybe we could also talk about the pension plan, too.

I don't think Coach T sticks around much longer. He's getting into his golden years, and it's no secret that his welcome has worn thin with a lot of the Mustang faithful.

Teachers collectively overestimate the value of their chosen profession. If teachers were paid their actual market value in an uncontrolled environment, most would starve. No offense, but 8-3, M-F for 185 days per year just isn't worth the big bucks that everybody else with real jobs earns. I mean, you do have to buy some nicer clothes to wear in those air conditioned classrooms, but other than that, I don't get it. If somebody needs a raise, it's the janitor.

I'll bet that once the new Coach at Barbers Hill is fielding a varsity team made up of kids that have been in his program since junior high, we'll all be singing a different tune. Kids who have never hit the weight room can't make up for 4-6 years of missed gains in a single off-season. Same goes for trying to pick up fundamentals after years of neglectful coaching. I don't buy the whole "athletes sticking around" because there are too many schools that seem to draw from the same talent pools but get wildly different results. Kountze has done well in b-ball, just like Silsbee, but do we really want to compare football successes? Who wants to compare schools like Kirbyville and Newton? Livingston and Corrigan-Camden? WOS has managed to succeed despite numerous transfers out of the district... even as much as losing multiple starting qbs in 2014. Are you trying to say that WOS had 4 state champion caliber qbs on the roster that fall? Or is the system the reason for the team's success? Coach T could do as well at some other districts, but only after time, and only if the parents and the kids were willing to accept the work that's required. It's also fair to point out that some classifications seem to fit better than others. 4A D1 is a totally different animal than 4A D2. The Stangs would still be VERY successful, but I don't think they'd be making their 4th trip to the SC facing teams like Carthage.... Hypothetically, of course.

I thought that kid transferred in.... On the other hand, a fellow Alabama signee from Beaumont didn't collect any state football championships (or even make the playoffs), so I guess you'd have to say that it takes more than athletes to get to Jerryworld. But I do believe that Coach Thompson could take his entire staff to High Island and win big after 5-6 years, IF the parents and kids would allow him to do his thing. I'll be a jerk here just because... Coach Thompson would fail miserably at BC. You can say it's a lack of "athletes" but that's not entirely true. We have our share of speed and size, maybe not at consistently as WOS, but so much of WOS's size isn't just occurring. It's an off-season program that builds bigger, stronger athletes. The problem is that parents and kids here in BC (and in a lot of other mediocre programs) aren't willing to do the work it takes to win consistently. I've heard stories from WOS athletes who were like "What? That's it?" after their first conditioning workouts in college. I don't doubt it. My guess is that IF either of those Alabama signees had gone to BC, they'd be about finished with their undergrad studies after an uneventful high school career and no scholarship offers. That, my friends, has nothing to do with the fast-twitch or slow-twitch fibers of those particular athletes. If all it took was a good group of athletes, I think Silsbee would have a collection of championship trophies by now, no offense. It's both... you've got to have a decent group of athletes, cultivate them with great coaching and offseason programs (through all levels), and an elite coaching staff.

I agree with a lot of this, but not all. WOS doesn’t just “have” athletes. They are molded and trained through years of participating in fantastic offseason programs and good coaching. Having parents that don’t sue the coaches for making Junior do bear crawls is a bonus, too. I firmly believe that when you lose the years between a good pee wee program and a solid varsity high school program, you can’t get them back.