At Golden Valley, many sports have unfortunately been unable to maintain a consistent coaching staff within the past years. This has led to many sports such as baseball, volleyball, and soccer having inconsistency from game to game and overall struggling.

Sports like baseball, softball, and soccer have had inconsistent coaching and the effects of this have shown through their performance. There have been many athletes who have played their sport since freshman year and are now seniors. They may have been through as many coaches as they have years at school. Athletes like Joey Scattaglia (baseball), Kaia Usher (soccer), and Jiana Williams (swim), have experienced this during their tenure at GV. Jiana notes that “[Not having a consistent head coach] makes it difficult to come up with a rhythm each season because different coaches want different things from their teams,” when asked about how multiple head coaches affect production. The absence of rhythm has caused the teams to struggle greatly and not be as successful as they would like.

Likewise, baseball has been feeling this struggle since the establishment of the school in 2004, there has been a revolving door of head coaches. Most recently, there have been 3 head coaches in 4 years, starting with Matthew Sorensen, then Richard Escalera, and now the current coach Adrian Rios. Joey Scattaglia has played for all of these coaches and has experienced all 3 regimes of coaching. He has first-hand experience with the inconsistency of head coaches. He told us what he believes his experience on the baseball team would be like if there was consistency at head coach, “I think if we had consistency with our head coaching, we would have a better routine and discipline in the program. I think we would be winning a lot more games since our team chemistry would be significantly better.” Team chemistry is essential in a sport like baseball because you need to work as a team and have good communication while on the field. Every aspect of baseball is this way. Fielding, running the bases, batting, and even the umpires need to have good chemistry.

Another sport that has dealt with the hardship of inconsistency at the head coach position is girls soccer. Kaia Usher has been a soccer player at Golden Valley since freshman year and has dealt with all the coaches. She told us why she thinks it is hard for coaches to stay at GV long-term, “…they want immediate results. It’s hard to turn a team that loses pretty much every game to a team that can contest well and has a desirable outcome such as a tie or a win.” The list of head coaches at most GV sports is vast.

Not all sports at GV have had inconsistent coaching, including golf and track. The sports that have had consistent coaching have had good production in their play, like the track and field team winning the league last year and many of the athletes having college scholarships. Consistency at the head coaching position leads to wins and better team chemistry than when there is inconsistency.