Many teachers volunteer their time to running clubs, coaching sports, or tutoring after school, which can take up a lot of their time. 

This is a reality for biology teacher Kelsey Tunze, who is also the head girls cross country coach, and gym teacher Adam Williams, who coaches football and wrestling as well.  

Both Tunze and Williams think that coaching and teaching are amazing yet challenging at times. They often have to sacrifice time with their family and friends to fulfill their coaching duties. Additionally, to keep up with the workloads of teaching and coaching, more work has to be done outside of school hours.

“…If you are in season, it’s not like you can stay after to make up anything that you can not get done in plan. Really I just have been coming in early. That’s how I really have stayed afloat, to be honest,” Tunze said. “And that’s helped me extremely this year because I never want to compromise an activity for you guys (her students).”

Williams added he does more work at home when he is in season since staying after school is not an option. For both him and Tunze, this means that they might not get to do the fun activities in class that they want to do. 

“This is a prime example. Your guy’s new thing is Blooket or something. I would say those are the type of miscellaneous things that I can’t get to because your plan is used for taking care of coaching and teaching things and making sure you have good activities for teaching,” Tunze said. “But I can’t get to that extra step yet to update things, so I would say that that is another thing.”

Tunze and Williams both agree that if they did not coach their jobs would be easier, but both would not give it up because they get to spend a lot of time with their athletes. In fact, Tunze loves when she teaches athletes because their bond is stronger. 

“I love it because we can separate it when it needs to be separated, but then you also kind of have that extra level of bond or interaction with them,” Tunze said. 

Williams says that he treats his athletes differently when he has them in the classroom because his expectations change. 

“I would say I’m a little harder on my athletes because I expect more out of them because they know my expectations right off the bat, especially if I had them the season before,” Williams said. “Then they come inside my classroom [and] they know who I am as a person.”

According to Tunze, she thinks the athletes are the best part about coaching and that is why she continues to coach even though coaching can be challenging at times. 

“The best part is definitely the athletes…just getting to know people outside of school, you know, and it’s not always so serious,” Tunze said. “We can have fun. It does not always have to be about school. You get to know them on a different level.”