CBS Sports college basketball insiders Gary Parrish and Matt Norlander spent a month surveying 100-plus Division I men’s basketball coaches for our annual Candid Coaches series. They polled across the sport’s landscape: some of the biggest names in college basketball, but also small-school assistants in low-major leagues. Coaches agreed to share unfiltered opinions in exchange for anonymity. We asked them 10 questions, and will post the results over a three-week span.
In July, I wrote a two-part story on an emerging pall of burnout (and some fixes being sought) that has seeped into men’s college basketball over the past two years. A trifecta of transfer portal mania, unregulated circumstances around NIL and how those two factors came amid expanded rosters due to COVID-provoked exemptions have led to roster variability and instability at levels heretofore never seen in college basketball.
There’s also concern about a brain drain from young people in the profession: lower-paid support staffers and young assistants in their 20s or early 30s are either considering leaving the profession or have already left on account of 80-hour work weeks during the offseason.
But not everyone is unhappy. Some coaches are able to compartmentalize the job and their lives away from it. Others feel blessed just to have the opportunity to work in coaching at the Division I level.
It’s been the biggest conversation topic around the sport over the past five months, so we had to ask:
Have you experienced professional burnout in the past year or so?
Quotes that stood out
Coaches who said no
• “No, but I’ve enjoyed the job less than ever before. A combination of calendar never ends and portal/NIL factors.”
• “Hell no. Coaches just love to complain. This profession is full of the biggest time-wasters and inefficient workers in the world. If you need time off, don’t stay in the office until 6 p.m. on a…
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