City Coaches Ready to Fight for Fair Pay

Coaches in the Los Angeles Unified School District have finally reached the point of shouting, “Enough!”

The Interscholastic Athletic Committee voted two weeks ago to extend the City Section football playoff season from four weeks to five so administrators, bus drivers and school police officers could have Thanksgiving weekend off. Coaches, however, won’t be paid a penny more for their extra week of work.

“There has to be a time where you draw a line in the sand and say, ‘No more.’ This is it,” said Birmingham High football Coach Dave Lertzman. “We’re not doing anything more for free.”

City coaches last received a raise in 1989. Before that, the last increase was 1983. Their pay scale ranks 43rd out of 47 Los Angeles County school districts, according to an LAUSD survey.

The highest stipend for a city coach is $1,785. A football coach in the Conejo Valley Unified School District with 12 years experience makes $3,544, almost double a city coach. The nearby Conejo, Simi Valley and William S. Hart districts all pay their coaches additional money for playoff competition, as do many other districts throughout the Southland.

In the city, whether a football team goes 0-10 or 14-0, there’s no extra pay for postseason competition.

“I think I made $200 less than I make now when I came to L.A. Unified in 1981,” said Mike Walsh, football coach at San Pedro High, the two-time defending City 4-A champions. “As coaches, we didn’t get into this to make lots of money--that’s obvious to everyone. But we’re being taken advantage of.”

United Teachers of Los Angeles, the district’s bargaining unit, has asked the Board of Education to reopen contract negotiations to discuss the coaches’ pay issue.

But staff attorneys have advised the board against the move for fear other factions would seek similar renegotiations.

Does the board really think it’s plausible for coaches to wait for a raise until the next contract negotiation in 2000?

Board member David Tokofsky, a former soccer coach at Marshall High, is a strong supporter of the coaches.

“If you give all the coaches a 30% raise, it would cost $450,000,” he said. “The district spends that much writing a mission statement.”

Coaches also have the backing of Barbara Fiege, the City Section commissioner.

“The coaches have not received a raise in many years,” Fiege said. “I believe it’s time for the district to review coaching stipends as well as the number of coaching positions.”

The City Section has only 23 salaried coaching positions. In the Simi Valley District alone, there are 76 positions for athletic stipends, ranging from assistant volleyball coach to freshman-sophomore baseball coach.

During the 1990s, LAUSD added ninth graders to its high school campuses but didn’t increase coaching positions. There are soccer coaches paid $1,202 who must teach more than 80 varsity and junior varsity players.

“You have third-world sports being paid third-world salaries,” Tokofsky said.

There was a time an opening for a coaching job in the LAUSD produced a long line of applicants. Now, an opening is lucky to draw two to three candidates and sometimes none.

Does LAUSD realize it’s letting a whole generation of young coaches slip away to other districts because of its meager pay scale?

IAC is expected to reconsider its decision to add a fifth week to the football playoffs. If not, the football coaches will almost certainly take action.

They’ve had enough.

The evidence is overwhelming that LAUSD has fallen behind the times in taking care of its coaches.

Coaches don’t expect to get rich with their stipends, but they do expect to be treated as professional teachers and instructors. All they ask for is a fair pay scale in a district recognized for producing some of the greatest athletes in American sports history.

Eric Sondheimer is a columnist in The Times San Fernando Valley edition.