Another new day begets another high school coaching vacancy.

Summer used to be the time when a local sports columnist could catch his breath, clean out his desk and find out whether or not he’s still married. Well, not anymore, pal.

Seriously, if I had the time, patience and network of sources in Dallas Plantation, Roxbury and East Poland, I could write at least one resignation or hiring story each day from now until the first morning bell tolls a week before Labor Day. They’d be juicy stories, too.

The good news there is that high school athletics is growing. And the bad news, of course, is that high school athletics is growing.

Demands are growing. Travel time and scheduling headaches are growing. Participation is growing, which means, alas, the number of parents, stepparents and wannabe parents has escaped the barn.

What never grows are the numbers on the stipend check or the volume of thank-you cards in the mailbox at the end of each season. And so the final intangible entity to grow is frustration, made manifest when qualified coaches throw up their tired arms and say to hell with it.

Typically vague but always revealing are the reasons good, honest people give for throwing the whistle and clipboard into cold storage. My spouse. My kids. My continuing education.

Nobody ever says my burning ears or my bleeding ulcer, but you can bet they’re implied.

Look, coaches have always had families. They used to be able to tag along to every home and away game without hearing some bleacher-bound Walter Mitty shower Daddy or Mommy with playing time-motivated invective that includes at least one F-bomb.

Coaches always had career aspirations. They used to take summer courses to become better equipped as coaches or hone their skills as athletic administrators. Now it’s real estate and computer technology.

That’s easy enough to understand. When you enter a command, spreadsheets don’t demand a reason why. Trees don’t call the house during the 11 o’clock news to question your substitution patterns.

Take a look at the roster of fall, winter and spring coaches at your local high school 20 years ago.

They were almost exclusively faculty members. This was thought to be the ideal situation. The coach could cultivate relationships within the hallways. He or she would be better equipped to deal with the domestic dramas that cropped up at the breakfast table or in science class, and it all was a by-product of knowing the kids and their families.

Today, that familiarity is the problem. Teachers know what they’re getting into and know they don’t want any part of it.

There’s a school in the Sun Journal coverage area with 29 boys’ and girls’ coaches, varsity and junior varsity. One coach is employed by the same high school.

One.

This week we published a story about two area schools filling their girls’ basketball vacancies by fishing well outside their own pond.

I’m sure the two triumphant candidates are supremely qualified. I’m sure they interviewed well. I’m also sure they didn’t have steep competition within the teachers’ union.

Wonder if the new leaders will regret not conducting their own “interview” of the departed bosses and hearing all their reasons for leaving.

When one of us isn’t covering the summer coaching carousel, another is sitting through hours of school board testimony as some phys-ed flunkout that doesn’t like the way his son was treated tries to railroad the perceived culprit.

One fiery, veteran football coach dealt with that drumbeat within the last two years. Sad part is that the yahoo found other yahoos to back him up. Happy ending is that the guys with real credibility, the players who blossomed under the coach’s tutelage over the last two decades, stepped forward and spoke up in droves. Not only did the guy keep his job, he won a state championship. And he’s a better man than I, who would have announced my retirement then and there while telling a few selected citizens where they could cram the Gold Ball.

This is far from a pronunciation of the death of high school sports. It has survived until now, ascending above the stench of rotten eggs and bad apples more times than I can count. But for every veteran coach who steps aside simply because “it’s time,” there are eight taking up new hobbies because they can.

They’ve had it up to here. They’re not going to take it anymore.

As for those of us with enough self-confidence not to live vicariously through our progeny, neither should we.

Kalle Oakes is a staff writer. His e-mail is [email protected].