Do Small Texas Towns Hire Coaches That Teach, Or Teachers That Coach?

I suffered a bit of culture shock going from a pretty large high school to a small-town Texas school.

My first class as a new student in small-town Texas was Algebra and I was none too fond of it. Despite doing extremely well in all other areas, trading out x's and y's in place of numbers just didn't make sense to me. I wasn't the only one. The teacher had assigned some problems and one of the students in the back spoke out in an extra thick country accent, "Aw coach, we got practice today".  Wait a minute, excuse me? "Coach?".

Yes, it's quite normal for small towns to hire coaches or assistant coaches and have them do double duty as teachers. Now some of these coaches may well be brilliant and capable of doing both, but you have to admit, the practice is a little suspect. Do you think in Texas, the high school football capital of the world, they're hiring excellent math teachers who are good coaches, or do you think they're looking for excellent coaches who can teach a little math?

We can debate whether the students in these situations are getting proper education all day, but can we at least agree that it sucks for qualified teachers who can't coach? It just seems like someone, somewhere down the line is going to suffer because of this practice.

I'm not going to be too judgemental. I passed algebra. Then again, did I pass it because I had a good teacher, or because I had an offensive line coach who needed a 6'4 all-state potential offensive guard who could also go both ways on defense?