Iowa high school volleyball coach quits over parent pressure

An Iowa high school volleyball coach won’t return to the bench next season, and she said overbearing parents are the reason.

Tori Braby carried a 126-85 record and won three conference championships in her seven years at Mount Ayr High School. She wrote in her resignation letter that she’s sad to walk away, but the constant pressure from sports parents became too much to handle.

Braby told KCCI in Des Moines that she once received 22 emails from a single parent who was upset her daughter wasn’t playing. She’s had parents approach her in restaurants and others wait for her outside of the locker room after games to threaten her job. In her resignation letter, Braby said she feels “defeated by parents and politics” and that the negativity has affected her personal mental health.

Braby adds to the long list of coaches who have walked away from their jobs over mounting pressure from parents. Earlier this year, a Texas volleyball high school coach stepped down to escape parents who constantly complained about playing time. Occasionally, parents get so incensed over their child’s coach that they petition to have the them fired, regardless of the coach’s success.

Mount Ayr athletic director Delwyn Showalter noted how difficult it is in today’s environment to find coaches who stay for the long term. He told KCCI that he needs to hire roughly eight to 10 coaches before next year.

In Coach & Athletic Director’s annual State of the Industry report, athletic administrators have named “finding qualified coaches” as their No. 1 concern for the past seven years.

Read more from KCCI.