I started revising my all star packet last week. Can you believe it’s almost that time already? As you start looking at your’s this year, there is one thing I want you to review.
Do you have unreasonable consequences for your athletes when they fall short of your expectations? Does any part of your packet follow an antiquated “industry standard”?
We all have rules in our packet, and that’s expected. Athletes need to be on time. They need to wear the right apparel. They need to prioritize their team. It’s our job to set the expectation and then hold them accountable when they fall short.
But all too often, our methods for accountability are all wrong. We expect our athletes to be at practice on time, every time. When they’re not, many gym owners have put unrelated consequences in place that send the wrong message. (Yep, Danielle is on her soap box about the “industry standard” again…)
Late to the competition? $50 fee.
Miss a practice? It’s going to cost you $100.
Wear the wrong sports bra? That’ll be $25.
In the same breath, as we tell parents they owe us these asinine fees, we accuse large monopolies in our industry of being money-hungry and not in it for the kids.
In my early years, I took some really bad advice from Facebook groups in our industry. I tried to teach my parents, “This is how all gyms do it.” It turns out, they didn’t care how other gyms did it. They were members of my gym and expected my policies to make sense.
In an already-expensive sport, we need to do better. I own a gym and coach three teams myself. My gym is large, but my all-star program is D2. I don’t have an extra athlete to put in as an alternate just because someone has to miss practice or is late. The inconvenience of an athlete who is late or missing practice puts a burden on the whole team and is a valid reason for coaches to stress. At the same time, the assessed fee doesn’t correlate to the root of the problem.
In the past, when an athlete is repeatedly late, I sit down with the parents and we have a conversation. When it’s practices they’re late to, we talk about options. The last time I approached this with a family, I found out dad was battling cancer and mom was having a hard time getting the kids where they needed to go after work without dad’s help. We talked it through and made a plan. Mom was a very private person who wasn’t comfortable telling anyone dad had cancer or even asking for help. If I had simply assessed her a fee, I’m sure that would have put an even greater hardship on the family and appeared severely insensitive.
Other times, I’ve learned a parent got a new boss who was no longer willing to allow them to leave early. We made it work. We’d start practices marking through routines rather than warming up. (It doesn’t take much warming up to walk and mark spots.) By the time the athlete arrived, we could start the warm up and it worked great. She knew her spots, while others needed the extra practice. (I did ask the parent to communicate with the other team parents who stayed at practice to eliminate animosity. In return, she found a group of highly understanding and compassionate team parents.)
Other times, I’ve had parents saying it was their child’s fault and natural consequences were welcomed. So, we had conversations with the athlete and clarified our expectations. This was a conversation with the parent present. We let the child know we were on the same team as their parent and gave them some tips such as laying out practicewear ahead of time or eating a snack in the car on the way to practice. We worked alongside the parent rather than against them.
Years ago I had an athlete who was late to competitions every single time. Mom had four other kids under the age of five. She couldn’t be on time to save her life. At one point I even thought about making her arrival time 30 minutes before everyone else’s so she’d actually be on time, but ultimately decided that was passive-aggressive and honestly it just seemed dishonest. So, after conversations and conversations about being on time, we suggested she do a sleepover with another athlete the night before each competition. Our other team parents were aware of the issues and were willing to help. Somehow, over the years as the athlete got older, the situation sort of fixed itself. She’s cheered in our program for nine years and now, she’s rarely late to competition. As a 15-year-old, she pushes her mom to be on time.
Do you think that kid will ever be late a day in her life when she can drive herself? I bet not. She is learning a valuable lesson right now that will likely stick with her throughout the rest of her life.
A fee wouldn’t have solved that.
When athletes miss practice, it’s rough. I mean, with a small team of 11, it’s very hard to practice sometimes. But, I learned years ago that if I planned ahead, I could make it work pretty easily. So now, I do two things:
- On our welcome night, I ask parents to bring along any dates they know they’ll be on vacation. They complete the sheet that has the dates on it, and we add it to our Google Calendar (I have a separate one just for cheer.) As a coach, I can look at the calendar for the month and know weeks out if Vivian will be in Florida or if Amy is visiting grandma for the week.
- We are in a small community and “Friday night lights” is a real thing. So is volleyball. I was an athlete who played every sport, so I have some empathy for those who want to experience it all. In fact, I’m usually pretty grateful that we get to be part of their life experience. So, we ask for their practice/game schedule at the beginning of every semester. Once we have it, we look at practices and see what conflicts we have. Can the athlete come to practice late or leave a few minutes early? Do I have 75 percent of my team with that issue? If so, let’s readjust practice that night altogether. My gym is packed with rec classes most of the week. It’s not easy to readjust, but we make it work.
At the end of the day, it’s important to take your pride out of this. It’s not “MY” practice you’re missing. It’s “YOUR” practice. I control what happens once you arrive, but you control what you get out of the season. Whether you’re fully committed or not, I want you to get the most out of your experience with our gym. I want you to look back with amazing memories of Twisters.
Years ago, I thought we’d never have a senior team. Kids would hit 15 or 16 and quit because they wanted to focus on high school sports or get a job. That’s when my mentality changed about practices. If you have 350 all stars, I get it. You might be able to run things differently than I do. But at my gym, I have to work with athletes if I want to keep them. I have to step in their shoes momentarily and look at things from their perspective. If they work as hard at their volleyball practices as they do at my cheer practices, then they probably are just as proud of that volleyball trophy as they are their grand champ banner.
Most kids these days just want to do it all, and I get that. A fee is definitely not going to make them want to continue doing it all, and in the process, your program might be the one that is on the chopping block. When the high school cheer coach gives my athletes a hard time about missing a pep rally because they’re traveling to Dallas to compete the next day, guess who our parents and athletes are frustrated with. (Hint: It’s not me.)
Get to the root of the problem. TALK to your gym families. If something is mandatory, it must have consequences. I get that. But make the consequences relative to the action. Make sure athletes know they have some leeway, but ultimately what it means to the team when they miss a practice.
I realize there are excessive cases of downright insubordination. I’m not really referring to that in this blog. With those athletes, you can deal with it this season and have that conversation before they start next season – or you can address it now if it’s hurting the team. I’m really talking about the 99 percent who are just trying to make all the things in life happen and keep all the balls in the air. At the end of the day, they’re trying to balance all the things in life the same way I am. When I have grace for them and communicate with them, I can ask for the same grace in return.
