It is difficult to strike a balance between the demands placed on graduate students and those placed on graduate forensics assistants. The combination of duties as Graduate Forensics Assistants (GFAs)--baby sitters, confidants, teachers, travel agents, administrators, clerical workers, psychologists, proofreaders, authority figures, and finally, coaches--with those of graduate study devours so much time that many GFAs are burned out even before taking their first professional coaching position. Many excellent potential coaches are thus being lost because as graduate students these coaches were discouraged from becoming fulltime coaches as a result of the same conditions that drive experienced coaches out of the activity. GFAs should expect to spend large amounts of time helping students learn the skills necessary to compete, but not at the expense of his/her graduate studies. GFAs should have time to learn to be good classroom teachers and sound scholars. There are several ways to prevent the problem of GFA burnout: (1) shorten the competitive season; (2) make the tournament schedules more humane; (3) offer GFAs half-time appointments so that he/she could teach half-time; and (4) recognize and appreciate the amount of work put forth by the GFAs. The future of forensics is based upon the skills of today's GFAs, and the activity cannot survive if new coaches are not encouraged to remain active in the forensic community. (PRA)