Tryout Meetings

I just recently held my tryout meeting for the upcoming school year, and it occurred to me the day of that I should probably write out an agenda so that I stay on track while delivering information.  I do tend to spiral out of control when I get on a tangent!

As I sat at my computer my mind went blank.  I have been coaching Cheerleading for 18 years and I don't think my mind has ever gone blank when preparing for a meeting!  If one of my coaching friends were to call me and say that they had a meeting that night and wanted to know what to include I would have been able to spew out an agenda right quick!  But here I was sitting in front of a blank screen. 

I finally decided to look at it from a parents point of view.  When I remarried a few years ago, I became step mom to two teens. One of which is a three sport athlete. I put myself at one of the football, wrestling or track meetings and thought about what I needed to know for my own student. 

I started with introductions. Not just a " hi, my name is..." But I made sure to tell a little bit about myself and my coaching style.  I also made sure to introduce my assistants and talk about their coaching experience. 

Next, I spoke to the parents about the cheer program. What it's goals were and how we accomplish them. I spoke a out the responsibility and expectations from the school and community and the time commitment. 

This lead well into the calendar and how much time this program takes. I also went over costs and fundraisers and any other expectations. 

I then went in to the actual tryout process. What we taught, what we were looking for and what to expect. I explained what to wear, times, locations, material,the importance of attitude and when they would find out if they made the team. 

I did a quick review of the team rules and the required forms for tryouts and then was available for questions. 

I was happy with the meeting and that the parents seemed to walk away with the information they needed. I made it clear that i have an open door policy and that communication is KEY to a successful season! 

I hope that you were successful with your meeting!  If you have already had it, maybe send out an email or discuss things with them at the next meeting. Too much communication is better than none!!

Cheers!

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CW3

I Survived!

The A to Z Challenge is over!  
It was a super fun month of writing and learning and getting to know some wonderful people.  The challenge for me is making sure that I set aside time to write.  The topics are not usually hard and often I have to edit out the content so that the posts are not too long.  For those that know me, know I can be a smidge-bit long winded [insert eye rolling here].

For me, the hardest part is writing for the rest of the year.  I would LOVE to be able to write every day or at the very least every week, but for some reason I struggle with content and topics. 

So, here I am putting my goal in writing!  

My goal is to submit at least one post per week.  

That breaks down to 45 posts from now until the next blogging challenge!

Ready? Set?... YOU BET!

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CW3

Countdown to Zero

The end of the beginning.

As the 2013 A to Z challenge reaches the end, we find ourselves at the beginning of the cheer season.  Most coaches are busy preparing and hosting tryouts, figuring out budgets, deciding on spirit packs, and planning the summer season.  As usual, during the blogging process I have discovered new things about my surroundings and myself.  I have made new friends, connected with new coaches and new people and still have lots to work on.  I want to take a little time and share with you some of the things that I need to work and what I have learned in the last thirty days.

Learned.

I have learned that as I get older and gain more experience, I learn to see past the BS excuses my students give me.  I know when their heart is not in it and when they are just going through the motions.  I need to not take it personally when a student leave the program, not every one is a cheerleader and not everyone works well in my style.

Work to do.

I really want to focus on hitting all those individual and team goals that we set at the beginning of the season.  I want them to feel like they are working hard and accomplishing things every day.  I want our program to continue to be a role model for other schools.

Learned.

This season is going to be an emotional one.  As the blog challenge progressed, I learned that 90% of the coaching knowledge I have, was learned at my current school.  Each year I come closer and closer to retiring as a coach and the thought of not being with my current school, students and staff saddens me.  I will be forever grateful for the lessons learned and memories made here.

Work to do. 

Focus on the individuals to make the team better.  I need to make sure that I connect with each team member each day.  They need to know that I care about them and the work they do.  Motivation to carry on the traditions set before them and leave their mark on the program.

Learned. 

I have learned that I need to spend some time on my coaching knowledge.  As we head into the new season with the new rules, I need to be better about asking for help and letting some of the control go.  (Eeeekkk!)  I need to stay on top of the trends and techniques that will make us better. 

Work to do.

Stick to the practice plan.  I usually have the entire season planned out by the first practice.  I need to stay focused on that plan so that we get everything done that needs done.  I need to help them do the best job they can do.

Learned.

I have learned that you cannot rebuild a burned bridge in a year.  Some things are beyond repair and sometimes you just have to let those people go.  I have done my part and built my bridge back up, but if they don’t want to cross it, at some point we have to realize it is their loss.

Work to do.

I need to prepare my assistant coaches and staff to lead and the team.  I will never be able to retire if I don’t train my replacement.  Let go.  Let them lead.  Let them have control.

Learned. 

I have learned that no matter the circumstances, life goes on.  We can think, plan and prepare all we want but at the end of the day, things are going to happen and we need to be able to roll with it and move on.  My program is successful because I have made it successful.  The kids come and go.  Some work hard and some don’t, but all of them have made this program successful.  As a coach, I learned from every single one of my cheerleaders and I hope they have learned from me.

Thank you for following along the past 30 days.  I hope that you too have learned something or have something that has inspired you.  I know that the comments of the readers opened my eyes many times.

Cheers!

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CW3

Your piece of the puzzle

Last year I had my team participate in a team bonding project. When I first started I though it was going to be just fun and it turned out being one of the most powerful projects of the season.

As a team we were a little disjointed, we were senior heavy and many of them had caught the senioritis bug and were not working to their potential.  The underclassmen were struggling to carry the team and motivate the senior girls that should have been motivating them.  It resulted in weak practices, some very poor performances and the team missing opportunities that could have been amazing.  I had seen the project on Pinterest and figured that it wouldn’t hurt to try.

Find a jigsaw puzzle that has at least as many pieces as you do team members.  Each teammate gets a puzzle piece.  If you have extra, you can take one or give the extras to the captains and managers.

The directions are to decorate the blank side any way they want.  They can color, paint, glitter, add stickers, feathers, etc.  The only rule is that they have to leave the puzzle piece in tact so that we can assemble the puzzle.  Make sure that all decorations are firmly attached.

I handed out the pieces to the puzzle, gave them the directions, and two days to decorate the puzzle.  At practice, I had them get their puzzle pieces and assemble the puzzle with the original image facing up on a board.  Once they had all the pieces collected and assembled, they flipped the puzzle over to reveal the team puzzle.  There were a few girls that did not bring their puzzle piece, so the puzzle was not complete. 

It was interesting that the girls that were the least invested in the team were the ones that did not participate.  The message sent to the team was that you have to do the work to be part of the puzzle and no team is complete without all of its team members.  The team members that did participate were able to see themselves as a part of the bigger picture and it actually motivated them to work harder at the remaining practices that season.  They even started pushing the girls that were slacking off more.  They saw the potential they had and knew that in order to complete the puzzle every piece was important.

Cheers!!

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CW3

X-Ray Vision

Seeing beyond the excuses and learning that Coaches always know.  Always.

This topic letter was a bit of a challenge until a fellow coach of mine offered up X-Ray.  As a coach of teenagers, I see a lot and I hear a lot.  In order to maintain the image that we want for our team, we have to be able to read a personality almost instantly.  As a veteran cheerleader and cheer coach I have gotten good at reading my squad and knowing when they are trying to BS me.  As a great friend of mine says, “You cant BS a BS’er”.  When I was a teenager, I thought I was sneaky enough to get away with things and I was ALWAYS caught.  My mom ALWAYS knew what I was up too.  Years after I was in high school and no longer living at home I asked her how she did it.  She simply said pay attention and listen. 

Society has gotten to the place where monitoring my team’s social media sites is important to maintain the image we have set for our program.  At tryouts and at my information meetings I tell the kids what I am looking for them to do and why.  I ask them to add our team page as a friend on Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, etc.  If they are following the rules there should be nothing to hide.  There have been a few times where my students were at a party or participating in something that they shouldn’t have been and it has shown up on a social media site.  I don’t stalk their pages, I simply read through and if something catches my eye I look into it.  99% of the time my kids are fine.  I see some language issues and a few questionable photos now and then, but for the most part, they are good. 

As a coach, I feel that it is important to monitor these sites.  You have a program that’s success is dependent on young girls making the correct choices.  They need to understand the responsibility that they have to the team.  Even colleges are getting on the social media circus.  Our local university here expects it squad members to work hard and portray them selves in a positive manner.  They have IIE on many of their practice clothes.  IIE means, Image Is Everything.  Putting those three simple letters on the practice clothes is just a small reminder to them to stay focused and do the right things. 

This past weekend was the tryout for the university.  As a coach, I highly suggest that if you have the opportunity to attend a tryout, you should go.  It is amazing to see the differences between high school and college.  While many of the things that college tryouts do we are not allowed to do in high school, there are so many things that we can take from watching back to our teams.  Each girl is required to attend tryouts wearing the school colors.  They must be “game ready.”  Hair should be done and clothes nice and neat.  Makeup on, clean shoes, manicured hands. Be on time, no phones, pay attention, etc.  They want to see what you will look like on the sidelines of a game or at an event for the school and if you have the discipline to be in their program.  If you don’t present yourself well at tryouts you are probably not going to during the season. 

Pay attention and listen.  Watch social media.  Listen to them when they are sitting around talking on breaks.  Pay attention to what they wear to school.  Talk to teachers.  Communicate with parents.  Listen to their friends in the bleachers during games.  You will find out quite a bit just by doing these things.  It matters. When I make comments to my team about a party or get-together that I knew about, or things they are doing, they always ask me and I always say, I know everything.  You don’t want to be that coach that gets the call from their athletic director saying that half your team is sitting out for 6 weeks because they made the choice to drink at a party and got busted by the police. (Guilty).  It may seem like a lot more work, but if you truly want your program to improve, you need to monitor your team outside of practice just as much as inside.  They don’t stop being cheerleaders when they take off the uniform.

Cheers!

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CW3

Workout Woes

Mixing up your cheer workouts throughout the year.

Lets face it, jog, stretch, motions, jumps, stunts, tumbling, dancing, cheers, chants, conditioning… over 100 times in a season.  Almost everyday for 8 months… I think we would all get bored!  Keeping our athletes motivated to come to practice and give 100% each time is a challenge.  Sometime around mid November, the kids start to get burnt out.  Keeping the fun in practice is one of the many ways to mix up your practices and make each day, week or month more exciting.

Warm-up.  I know my teams HATE to run, so we alternate our warm up each day.  We have a conditioning warm-up that we do to music, we jog and stretch, or we DANCE.  If you have been to a wedding in the last 5 years, you have probably seen the Cha-Cha Slide or the Wobble.  These are great ways to get the bodies warm and muscles loosened up.  In the cheer world, we do a few as well.  The Georgia Bounce, Monkey on a Stick and Ice Cream and Cake are a few cheerleader favorites.  All of which have specific music and motions that match.  You can find the how-tos on Youtube, and if you need the music for any of them, I can email it to you.

Games.  Sometimes I use games for conditioning.  The cheerleaders get to run around and play games, at the same time they are getting in a cardio workout. Depending on the game, maybe get in some light weight lifting.  These are good the day before a game or major performance to help relieve stress and condition without pushing to soreness.  Red Light, Green Light and Sharks and Minnows are great for cardio.  Like the dances, cheerleaders have some games that they learn at camp that are also good for cardio and strength.  Lovers Leap and Ships and Sailors are all variations of Simon Says.  Some times they are running around, some times climbing on each other, jumping, lying down, spinning around, etc. 

Themed Practice.  Another way to keep the kids looking forward to practice is to have themed days or dress up days.  Pick one day a month or so and set a theme.  Super Hero, Princess, Decades (50’s/60’s, 70’s, 80, etc.), Colored practices, or animals are all fun ideas for dress up days.  On these days, the cheerleaders would dress up in clothes that represent the theme.  If it is colors, assign each stunt group a color and the group that has the best representation of that color wins a prize. For decades, have each grade be a different decade. You can choose your themes by month as well. 

Here are a few samples of what my teams have done in the past:

• July – Christmas/Red, White & Blue
• August – Super Hero Training Camp
• September – Pirate (National Talk Like A Pirate Day is this month!)
• October – Halloween
• November – Boot Camp (for Veterans Day)
• December – Beach Theme (opposite of Christmas in July)
• January – Disco or Jungle Theme
• February – Pink out practice (Valentines Day)

You get the idea. Many times, we plan food or snacks around these dress-up days and make it a break from the norm.  Just make sure the kids know that they need to be safe for working on material.  Make sure they remove all capes, hats, boots, and accessories before stunting!

Here are a few more ideas that you could implement:

• Picnic Practice -Practice all day in a park.  Each member brings a different food.  Work on new material.
• Pillow Cases -Each person brings a white pillowcase to practice and Squad members draw and color each other’s pillowcases. Maybe before going away to camp?
• Quote of the Day -Squad members take turns bringing a poem or a positive quote to practice to share.
• Secret Pals -Week, Month, or Season.  Assign or draw for names.  Send notes, small gifts, etc.

Mix it up and keep it fun.  Break up the monotony of the everyday routine.  This will help squad bonding and creating those memories that last long after senior night!

Cheers

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CW3

Variety in Coaching

The longer you coach, the more you see. 

The more you see, the more you learn. 

The more you learn, the more you have to teach. 

-ELW

As a veteran coach I am asked all the time how I figured out my coaching style and what to do in certain situations.  My answer is always the same… Time.  When I started out coaching that first JV team, I had so many plans and dreams of what they would be.  I quickly learned that my dreams and plans are directly related to what they want to do.  There is a saying “You can lead a horse to water, but you can’t make him drink.”  This is SO true with coaching youth and teens!  As adults we tend to forget that teens don’t have the same plans or dreams that we do.  They do not see the world as we do.  We see the potential in our athletes when our athletes see sleep and food.

A long time coach will tell you that they start each year with those same plans and goals that they did the first year.  The difference is, the longer you have been coaching the better you get and motivation and getting the team to buy into what your trying to do. You have to change the way you coach a little bit each year to motivate the different types of students and different types of athletes.  You don’t change your expectations, you simply change the delivery. 

I have former athletes that come back, watch practices, and say to me, “Man! You have gotten so soft!  We would NEVER have gotten away with what these guys are doing!”  Also, some come back and say to me that I have gotten mean and they are glad they cheered for me when they did.  At the end of the year, the teams all accomplish the same goals.  They all learned what they needed to learn and participated to the best of their ability.  Very rarely do we have teams that finish a season a disappointment.  The teams learn to work hard every year their own way. 

Some years I am mean and some years I am super nice.  I have learned how to read my team and know how to motivate them.  There are still some years or some seasons where I miss the mark and the teams are not as good as they could have been.  Sometimes it is my coaching and sometimes it is the kids.  Sometimes you get cheerleaders and sometimes you get girls that want to be called cheerleaders.  You learn to do the best you can with what you have. 

At the beginning of every year, I start practices with the same basic plan.  We review or learn motions, jumps, basic tumbling, the fight song and our stunt progressions.  I learn about the team while they are mastering these skills.  If they have the motivation to get through their basics, I know that they are a motivated group and I can push them a little harder.  If it takes the full three weeks of summer practices to learn the basics, I know I have a playful team on my hands and if I push to fast, they will push back.  The teams that learn slower are not bad; they just have a different focus. This theory works most of the time.  I am always evaluating and re-evaluating my team, taking the motivational temperature of their skills.  I have also learned to pay attention to their school schedules.  Major school functions have a direct impact on the athletes.  I know that if we are coming up on Homecoming week that I am going to lose their focus for a while.  We have to be solid in our routines at least a week before any major school function.  If not, we will not have a stellar performance. 

For those coaches who have been coaching a while, please reach out to the new coaches around you and share your experiences.  They are going to need advice when their vision of what those first seasons fizzles before them.

For the coaches that are new and have all the dreams and goals and plans, please keep those dreams!  Listen to the coaches around you that have been there.  They can offer advice and guidance to make sure your dreams are realized!

We are not alone in our coaching.  We should never have to reinvent the wheel!  Listen and learn from each other!  There is a lot of knowledge and experience around you.