- Dec 14, 2009
- 233
- 21
I am a coach for a high school program and lately another coach and I have been disagreeing about team consequences.
Currently for most things, not all, if an individual makes a mistake the whole team has a consequence. My reasoning for this is at a competition if one person makes a mistake the whole team will suffer. This way you are building team unity and the realization in the athletes that they behavior effects the whole team.
This has become somewhat of a problem because of a simple 5 8-count motion drill we have been working on for 7 weeks. As the weeks have gone on the consequence has become more severe. Recently we have had 4-5 athletes decide to not show up because they "do not want to make the team run for their laziness". Since we are still in the summer and in Illinois we can not make summer practices mandatory. So in theory these kids are able to skip practice with no repercussions.
The coach I am not on the same page with claims that this is a problem. I do not like losing kids in my program but from my perspective we are just getting rid of the slackers. The motion drill we do can be mastered in probably 1-3 hours depending on how quick you pick it up. So basically these kids just aren't willing to put in the time or effort to learn the drill. While these athletes are very talented athletes they aren't willing to dedicate time to learning something simple. Therefore I do not see it as a huge loss and I also feel that team punishment is doing what it is suppose to do in a sense. It is making these athletes feel guilty for having their team have a consequence for their actions.
So I wanted to get everyone's thought on this situation but also team punishment in general.
Currently for most things, not all, if an individual makes a mistake the whole team has a consequence. My reasoning for this is at a competition if one person makes a mistake the whole team will suffer. This way you are building team unity and the realization in the athletes that they behavior effects the whole team.
This has become somewhat of a problem because of a simple 5 8-count motion drill we have been working on for 7 weeks. As the weeks have gone on the consequence has become more severe. Recently we have had 4-5 athletes decide to not show up because they "do not want to make the team run for their laziness". Since we are still in the summer and in Illinois we can not make summer practices mandatory. So in theory these kids are able to skip practice with no repercussions.
The coach I am not on the same page with claims that this is a problem. I do not like losing kids in my program but from my perspective we are just getting rid of the slackers. The motion drill we do can be mastered in probably 1-3 hours depending on how quick you pick it up. So basically these kids just aren't willing to put in the time or effort to learn the drill. While these athletes are very talented athletes they aren't willing to dedicate time to learning something simple. Therefore I do not see it as a huge loss and I also feel that team punishment is doing what it is suppose to do in a sense. It is making these athletes feel guilty for having their team have a consequence for their actions.
So I wanted to get everyone's thought on this situation but also team punishment in general.