Each year, Wayland High School employs over 50 coaches to try to lead our teams to state tournaments and hopefully even state titles. Coaches spend hours each day working with the athletes to help them improve their skills. Coaches and players can develop a special relationship with each other.

Often, one of the last things on a player’s mind while they are running sprints or doing push ups is their future in that sport. While they don’t think about it, chances are, some of our athletes will return to WHS to coach the team on which they once played. However, is the fact that we have alumni coaching our teams a good thing?

Right now, the large number of alumni coaches contributes tremendously to the success of our athletic teams here at WHS. We have numerous teams that qualify for the tournament and some which win championships. It would be hard to say that we don’t have a successful athletic program at the moment.

One of our most successful teams this year, boys soccer, has assistant coach Charles Goodhue, class of 2002, on the sidelines. Boys basketball has coach Dennis Doherty, class of 1992.

For both of these sports, these two coaches were on the last team that won a state championship. Goodhue led the team as a captain to the 2001 state championship and Doherty was the point guard on the 1992 championship team.

After taking time off, both of these coaches decided to return to Wayland to lead their new teams to similar fates.

One reason why I feel alumni coaches help is that they can form a special relationship with the players that most others cannot. Even though we just moved to a new building, alumni coaches understand the culture in Wayland. They can talk about problems and relate to issues that are specific to WHS.

Anyone involved in athletics knows that sports change. The speed of the game, the strategy and even the equipment used all progress each year. While one strategy might have worked last year, you can bet that it most likely won’t work this year. For these reasons, we have to be sure that our coaches stay up to date on their strategies.

You can be sure that the strategy that was dominant when alumni played would be a disaster if it were used today. Some might say that having alumni as coaches is detrimental to the success of our programs. They would say that using alumni wouldn’t allow new opinions into the system.

I disagree. Alumni can bring a new perspective and promote original strategies just as coaches new to the system do. Alumni coaches give us a distinct advantage that most schools don’t have.