No group on Facebook gives me better blog ideas than the Crazy Moms of Cheer. You may not believe it, but that’s where much of my inspiration comes from. Occasionally, I’ll read a post and think, “Oh, you’re just new to cheer. You’ll figure it out soon,” but more often, I read posts and think, “Gym owners need to know this!” So, today, this blog was brought to you (and if sponsorship were a thing, I’d say, “sponsored by”) a crazy cheer mom: Does your practice run 30 minutes to an hour over every time.

This post’s replies shocked me (I mean shocked me!) The number of parents who said this was totally normal in their gym was vast. I’m here to tell you, there are some inherent issues with this old-school cheer mentality: 

1. Your labor cost is unpredictable! 

Obviously I’m into the business stuff, so my first point here is purely mathematical. Your coaches should be starting and ending practice on time, every time so your labor cost is predictable. If you’re paying them an hourly rate, as most are, then you need to ensure every team is profitable. Labor is going to be your top cost in the gym, and great cheer coaches aren’t cheap. Don’t hurt your entire program because coaches aren’t using their practice time wisely. 

2. Parents value their time too!

I am incredibly respectful of parents’ time. As I write this, I’m sitting in the car waiting for my own girls to come out of high school cheer practice. This isn’t my first rodeo. We do a lot of sports and activities in my house. From here, we’ll go straight to youth group drop off. I’ll go home, make dinner, leave for youth group pick up, come back to eat dinner, and then start helping with homework. That doesn’t even take into account the nights we have cheer practice and then head straight to the gym for hip hop. If your coaches are keeping kids late without notice, their parents are going to have a hard time adjusting their schedules. Ironically, I bet the same gyms are the ones complaining that they’re not babysitters—and yet, parents are leaving their kids at practice 30 minutes after it ends. Be respectful of your gym parents’ time.

3. We should be teaching athletes time management. 

Last week, the high school cheer coaches put out a last minute-schedule calling for extra practices and extended practices for our athletes. My oldest has a job, and it was too late to ask off. I told her to be honest with her coaches. We’ve taught her to plan ahead, and if things get changed last minute, then her first commitment is the one she needs to stick with. As a result, she did miss part of cheer practice. 

4. It gives you a leg to stand on. 

If you can respect your parents’ time, then it will be much easier to explain to them why you need their athlete on time for each practice and competition. When you’re consistently mismanaging your practice time, you can’t expect them to do any differently. In fact, one of the parents at my gym is the varsity cheer coach at the high school. I had to have a serious conversation with my foreign exchange student last week about being five minutes late for everything. I explained that if my kids are late to varsity practice, it would be very hard for me to approach that parent if her child were ever late to my practice. Give your gym parents the same level of respect you expect back just in case you ever need to go down that road with them.

5. It shows parents you’re prepared.

My lesson plans are usually down to the minute. I plan out water breaks, full outs and all the other important parts of practice. Not only does this keep the pace of practice moving quickly so the kids don’t have a lot of downtime to get bored or chit chat, but it helps our parents see that I’ve spent time outside of practice preparing and planning ahead. When coaches fly by the seat of their pants, they spend an hour on pyramid and neglect dance altogether. Their favorite parts of a routine are typically well-scored, while the remainder falls short. Planning practice ensures that you’re hitting every area of the routine and scoresheet with proper emphasis and time. However, by going 30 minutes over practice, you demonstrate to parents that you’re not managing your own coaching time well.

What About Special Circumstances? 

Now, I understand if this whole time you’ve been reading this and saying, “But what happens when you finally have a full team for the first time in a month?” or “What happens when pyramid has hit all season, and it’s not hitting the week before a competition?” I get it. Things happen. I coach three teams, and I fully understand the urge to overemphasize things in our routine that need to get fixed (and get fixed now!) However, we’ve got to communicate to parents and athletes in a way that shows equal respect for their time. The respectful way to do this is by asking earlier in the day via email or text message if everyone is available and would mind staying after “because XYZ.” This allows owners to have a bit of time to budget for the extra labor cost, and if your gym is full, it also allows them to reposition other classes and teams so everyone gets adequate floor space.

Without going on a long tangent (because you know I could …), I’ll also say this: Owners, if you have coaches going 30 minutes over, then you have a glaring problem that we can help you with. You don’t have enough going on at your gym. Seriously. The only team in my gym that could go over that long is our U17 team at the end of the night. Why? Because others are ready to take the floor the second cheer practices end. We can help you have a highly demanded floor space with teams and classes just waiting for their turn, but you can’t do that if you don’t have an organized, well-run program that’s starting and ending practices on time, every time.

If that’s something you could use help with, book a call, and we’ll be happy to tell you what the Next Gen Academy can do for you!