This summer, Cocalico athletic director Larry McComsey went looking for a new head coach for a girls' basketball team that was 29-3 and reached the PIAA Class AAA Eastern final last year.

So how many applications did McComsey receive for this attractive assignment?

Exactly three.

And none from a teacher, or an aspiring teacher.

It's a situation that is becoming more prevalent each year, according to local athletic directors.

Twenty years ago, nearly all of a school's coaches were teachers in the district. But increasingly, coaching positions at many local high schools are being filled by non-faculty members.

At Cocalico, 28 of the 55 head and assistant coaches are not members of the faculty. The percentages are similar at Donegal, Elizabethtown and many other districts around the county.

Certainly, the trend hasn't spread to all local schools. Garden Spot and Hempfield, who have a number of longtime teacher-coaches on their staff, have few outside coaches.

But on the whole, there's little doubt that non-faculty coaches are becoming more prevalent. And it's not just a Lancaster County phenomenon. Schools in other parts of the state - and around the country - are reporting the same situation.

So, what is causing this coaching trend? And why are school officials so worried about it?

"It's definitely a concern," said Dick Balderston, the Lancaster-Lebanon League's executive director. "Not that the people hired aren't adequate or can't do the job. But they don't have the contact with the students during the day."

Since outside coaches aren't in the school all day, they have a more difficult time keeping up with their athletes' grades. They don't have a chance to meet with teachers during the school day to discuss any problems involving athletes. And they aren't around if players, or the athletic director, for that matter, need to consult with them during school hours.

Athletic directors say coaches who are teachers typically have one other advantage. Because so much of their teachers' training involves working with youngsters, they are better prepared to communicate with players and parents.

Donegal's Gayne Deshler, the athletic director for eight years before his retirement June 30, said the school has had some excellent outside coaches, but also has had problems linked to their inexperience in dealing with students and parents.

"We've had some silly things that have happened," Deshler said. "Things that were said or done that shouldn't have happened.

And yet, outside coaches are filling a big void for local teams. Without the outside help, schools wouldn't be able to keep some of their sports programs going.

Athletic directors say there are a number of reasons why fewer teachers are coaching now than in the past.

For one, the rewards of coaching don't seem as apparent as they were in the past, and the drawbacks are more pronounced.

"We expect a lot from our coaches these days," Ray Oberholtzer, Hempfield's athletic director, said. "It takes a lot of time, commitment and expertise."

Deshler, who will continue as Donegal's head football coach, puts it another way.

"Coaches can really be under a microscope," he said.

In today's sports world, coaching is often a year-round job. Consider a football coach. The season lasts from August through November. In the off-season there are weight-lifting programs to supervise and camps to attend. Coaches also find themselves attending clinics to keep up with the newest techniques and strategies.

At the same time, teachers are being faced with increased responsibilities in the classroom, and in their own educational careers. New teachers have to earn 24-36 credits of graduate work in five years to keep their teaching certificates, compared with previous requirements of six credits in three years.

"The demands on a teacher and the demands on a coach are much more than in the past," Deshler said.

Some teachers - especially those who are trying to raise a family - no longer feel there's enough time to teach, keep up with graduate requirements and also coach.

And those teachers who are coaching sometimes feel their efforts are less appreciated than in the past. Over the years, parents and others in the community have become less supportive, Deshler said.

"It seems like coaches get negative support instead of positive support," Deshler said.

And teachers are finding it more difficult to maintain discipline in the classroom, as well.

"It takes a toll," Deshler said. "There's more pressure on teachers. For some it gets to where at 3:30, they're done with the kids."

Have higher teacher's salaries had an impact?

When Deshler began teaching and coaching at Slatington High School some 30 years ago, his teaching salary was $4,800. He got another $525 - more than 10 percent of his teaching salary - as an assistant football coach.

"Most people who went into teaching needed another job to supplement their income," Deshler said. "If you were interested in sports, that's what you did. You coached one or two sports."

With starting salaries these days in the $25,000 range, young teachers often don't feel the necessity to have another source of income.

Larry McComsey, Cocalico's athletic director, doesn't think coaching salaries, by themselves, are much of a factor. He says few high school coaches are motivated by the money.

"You're going to do it because you love to coach," he said.

One other factor affecting the situation is that it's becoming more difficult to find a teaching slot when a new coaching position is available.

"There is less new-teacher hiring each year," Tom Knorr, Elizabethtown's athletic director, said. "There's a smaller pool to choose from because not as many teachers are being hired."

What are the problems facing coaches who aren't teachers?

Oberholtzer said coaches who teach can get a better feeling for their players by seeing them during school hours.

"How does he behave in the cafeteria?" Oberholtzer said. "Is he a bully? In study hall, does he have good study habits? ... When you observe someone in a non-athletic setting, it can help you see how he'll act on the field."

In addition, athletic directors say much of a teacher's training applies to coaching.

"From a philosophical perspective, a great coach is probably a great teacher," Oberholtzer said.

But Oberholtzer, more than anyone, knows you don't have to be a teacher to be a great coach. He noted that former boys' volleyball coach Ryan Strait and Mike Vogel, the new head coach and former assistant, aren't teachers.

"Our volleyball program has probably been the most successful program in the school," he said. "They won three state championships and Ryan Strait and Mike Vogel aren't teachers."

But he said Strait had a built-in relationship with his players because he coached many of them on non-school teams.

"It may be a little misleading because they coached a lot of the kids in Junior Olympics," he said. "So they saw them out of the school context."

Although about 80 percent of Hempfield's coaches are still teachers in the district, Oberholtzer thinks the trend toward outside coaches is here to stay.