Teachers balance time-consuming tasks of being department chair, head coach

Scheduling. Planning. Choosing the best personnel for the best position. Selecting and purchasing equipment.

The world of high school coaching has a lot in common with being a department head, and a handful of area coaches take on the extra responsibilities of both tasks.

“I don’t think people generally know how much goes into being a head coach,” said Sycamore baseball coach and math department chairman Jason Cavanaugh, who has held both duties for almost 25 years. “I think people think they know cause they coach their kids’ travel team. So they think that’s the same thing. But I’m essentially in charge of 60 kids, all the uniforms, six assistant coaches, fundraising, communicating scores with newspapers and MaxPreps and IHSA and pitch counts and umpire ratings and I don’t think that people have a good grip of what it takes.”

And when Joe Ryan, the Sycamore head football coach and physical education department head, lists the responsibilities of being in charge of a department, the direct correlation between the two, as Ryan put it, becomes apparent.

“A lot of my duties is making sure we have the equipment that we need to make sure we can teach effectively,” said Ryan, who has been department chair of the PE department for about 15 years and also has served as the Spartans’ head football coach since 2004. “I also help fit our teachers in the best possible spots so they can be most effective as teachers. We have a lot of different options. It’s not just general PE. We have dance, we have mind-body, we have weight training. There’s a lot of options and different places people fit better than they would in other spots.”

Another element both positions have in common is the amount of time that goes into them. Cavanaugh said during baseball season especially he ends up working on Sundays just for planning purposes.

Ryan said his co-chair of the PE department up until 2017, Maura Moulton, was a huge resource in helping with planning even after she retired. Ryan said she left behind a calendar detailing month-by-month what gets done when, a huge resource he still occasionally consults today.

Mark Meyer, golf coach at Kaneland for 17 years and in his third year as the high school’s social studies chairman, said he’s got a secret weapon when it comes to his time management. His department has four other head varsity coaches – Brian Aversa (baseball), Scott Parillo (boys and girls soccer), Kelsey Flanagan (girls basketball) and Sarah Ray (boys bowling).

“It helps have some peace of mind that they understand I might not be available all hours or after school,” Meyer said. “They understand that very well, the commitment that comes with being a head coach. I think that really helps. ... There’s a lot of that type of supportive talk. When we know someone is going to be out or gone after school or an entire week with matches or tournaments, we know that maybe we need to pick up the slack here or there for them. That’s something that kind of comes with the territory of being in our department because we have so many head coaches.”

Meyer said he’s lucky to be in such a one-of-a-kind situation.

“I think that may be pretty typical of PE departments, but it’s definitely unique for a social studies department,” Meyer said. “It’s impressive the work our teachers do to be leaders in the classroom and leaders of their sports programs. They do such an awesome job.”

Whether finding what teachers fit what subject or a place indoors for his team to practice as snowy weather pushes into April and keeps fields unplayable, Cavanaugh said it’s about making things fit in a way that is productive for everyone involved.

“It does become a giant jigsaw puzzle, especially when you combine the fact I’m making practice schedules for three different baseball teams,” Cavanaugh said. “We’re trying to find practice space for all of them as I sit here on March 31 looking at snow.”