School of Hard Knocks

Eventually, all athletes become ex-athletes, women sooner than men, as there are next to no professional opportunities for them.  I would love for Clare to try out with the softball Bandits, but that’s a story for another day.  In the meantime, she needs to work.  They don’t send checks in the mail just because you got your master’s degree.

Back in early September, Clare had a phone interview for an assistant coaching job at a very important school, the kind where you either need to have a ton of money to go to or be willing to go into perpetual debt for one of their degrees; the tuition is almost double of old Trump University.  When September turned into October, she figured she didn’t get the job.  That’s when they called to bring her on campus.

What followed was a 6-1/2 hour trial by combat; Clare saw and spoke to everyone short of the university president.  Along the way, she learned that her duties wouldn’t involve just softball.  No, she’d have to run concessions at the men’s football and basketball games, too, and assist the head coach with her summer softball camp.  At lunch with several assistant coaches from various sports, Clare learned they all lived nearby in a rented house, and none of them were engaged.

Clare was told they needed to fly in a candidate from the East Coast before deciding.  This was all in the first week of November.  In the meantime, Clare was working for a Big Ten school in a non-sports’ capacity, and they were about to offer her a fulltime position, only they weren’t wild about her interviewing with someone else.  What was she to do?  Risk losing one job offer to pursue another?  Turn down a chance to coach at a big school?  What would you do?

My daughter decided on honesty as the best policy.  She told her current employers that she had interviewed for the coaching job before they had approached her with this other job.  Luckily, they didn’t get too upset.  In fact, they might even have decided to sweeten the deal with more money than originally mentioned.  Long story short, Clare now has a fulltime job with a Big Ten school, and she’s working on helping out at Elmhurst, which is where her heart lies, anyway.  As for that other big school, they never bothered to tell Clare she didn’t get the job.  She found out yesterday by looking at their website to see a picture posted of the new softball hire.

The work world—you gotta love it.