Queen’s should pay its coaches full-time

T.J. Sutter
T.J. Sutter

With the movement of Queen’s athletics towards excellence, it’s about time Queen’s gives its coaches due compensation.

No Queen’s coaches are paid full-time.

I believe the old adage, “You get what you pay for” applies in this situation. Queen’s and Windsor are the only two men’s hockey teams in the CIS that don’t pay their coaches full-time. Windsor finished this season dead last at 6-21-0-1.

The competition for recruits, mainly from junior hockey, is intense because we not only compete with other Canadian universities, but also semi-professional and professional teams, European Leagues, and the NCAA—all of which have full-time staff. Head coach Brett Gibson is the only full-time recruiter for Queen’s, although he’s only paid part-time. He’s supposed to remain competitive on the recruiting scene while coaching daily practice, going over video, being away every weekend for games and managing his career and family at the same time.

Although he’s only paid part-time, Gibson knows he must put in full-time hours for the betterment of the program, or suffer the consequences of falling into the sustained sub-mediocrity that Queen’s hockey has experienced for many years.

While many teams are flying recruits in for a university tour or having their assistant coaches travel to meet potential players in their hometown, our part-time head coach is trying to lure these same players with phone calls.

The quality of the athletes is another reason full-time coaches are needed at Queen’s. The CIS has a very interesting demographic of players. There are players who have spent time in the NHL, AHL and other professional leagues who come back to attend University. There are also players who are using the CIS as a stepping stone to get into professional hockey. The problem is that players who have played at a high level would have trouble accepting a part-time coach when they’re used to the professionalism they’ve already experienced in their hockey careers.

Queen’s athletes have trouble enough balancing a demanding work schedule with a less-than-ideal practice/workout/class schedule with little compensation to show for it. As a player it’s sometimes easy to see why highly sought-after recruits choose to go elsewhere to build a championship team. Although I only have experience with Golden Gaels hockey, I’m sure many of our varsity teams that dream about bringing a championship banner to Queen’s experience a similar situation.  If Queen’s wants to achieve excellence in CIS sports, we have to provide incentives that other schools offer; one of these is having a full-time coach. We at Queen’s like to fancy ourselves as “The Harvard of the North.” I can’t imagine seeing Harvard run some of their most storied sports teams on a part-time budget.

When I think of Queen’s, certain words come to mind: excellence, tradition, culture and pride. Both the faculty and the students at Queen’s hold themselves to high standards. I think it’s time that we do the same with athletics, starting with our coaches.

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T.J. Sutter, Comm’10, was a men’s hockey assistant captain this year—his sophomore season. This is part three in the Journal’s series of opinion pieces written by student-athletes.

All final editorial decisions are made by the Editor(s)-in-Chief and/or the Managing Editor. Authors should not be contacted, targeted, or harassed under any circumstances. If you have any grievances with this article, please direct your comments to journal_editors@ams.queensu.ca.

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