coaching?

Yesterday I got a call about being an assistant soccer coach for one of our middle schools. I asked him to give me a call back in a week so I could think it over, and I'm leaning toward not doing it. The extra money would be good, of course, with the possibility of moving into a house in the late winter/early spring. Not to mention yarn lust. But I don't think it's worth it. The position would be from August 3rd to September 25th or so, and it is HOT here during that time. Practice starts at 5:30 so it would be starting to get more comfortable out, but that's when I normally get home from knitting and Nathan and I do dinner together. Also, I have already done the assistant soccer coach thing at the high school. I did that for two years and it had it's pros and cons.

Most of them were sweet and hard working, but some of them were terrors. For example, sometimes we would get them on the field for a game, and one would notice she still had earrings in, so she would hand them to me. I'd put them in a sandwich bag and she'd get them back after the game. Just our little system for that. One day a girl had her hand closed around something to hand it to me, and I assumed it was earrings or some such she forgot, so I took it. It turned out to be the gum she had been chewing. Yep, the job had its cons. At that point I was fed up with it all and would have simply left and quit if I didn't think it would have been a bad example for the other girls. I let her parents know about it, and she apologized, but still. What makes a kid think that something like that is okay to do?

I work at a school where obedience and respect are expected of the students. They are to follow directions the first time given, and not so much as to roll their eyes at a staff member or another student. I don't think I could go from that environment to another one like I experienced at times as an assistant coach. It would be too frustrating.

Another concern is that I was doing the assistant thing during the earliest part of my marriage, which ended unofficially in October, legally in February when the papers were signed. I don't put too much weight on having accepted this extra job, especially since I only did it for the first two years of marriage, but it did affect us. I was often just exhausted when I got home from practice or from games and just wanted to sleep. Not to mention the obvious time it took away from us being together. I can't say he minded this very much as he was very independent, but I would have liked to have spent more time together. I don't want to risk making the same mistakes in my new relationship.

So, I guess I'm not going to do it. I think I've become more selfish of my time than I was when I first started working, and I don't necessarily think it's a bad thing. I don't slack on any of my duties at school, and I am willing to help out whenever I can while I'm there, but I don't want to commit to anything after hours. I want to spend my spare time with Nathan, my friends, and my yarn. I also think it's better for my students indirectly because if I'm not as stressed about my time and personal relationships, they are bound to benefit from my being more energetic than I might be otherwise.