All-Star Coaches And Rivalries

[callmecoach]

Every cheerleading team (or sports team, for that matter) has rivals they love to beat. What do you think, though, when coaches use those rivalries as motivators? I recently had a conversation with some fellow coaches about this and am interested in other opinions.

I think when it comes to college age teams and even senior all-star and high school, it can be a motivator if done in the right way. Older kids can better understand healthy rivalries, in my opinion. But what about coaches of younger teams, or even coaches of older teams who go too far?

When a coach starts to concentrate on beating other squads rather than making their own team the best it can possibly be, I think it can turn friendly rivalries into heated ones and lead to disappointment. If you say during practice, "we need to hit this if you want to beat so and so" or "you need to work harder if you ever want to beat so and so," doesn't that set kids up for disappointment? What if your team goes to competition and hits perfectly, and still gets second? Is that no longer acceptable because you didn't place ahead of aforementioned competitor?

I'd love to hear some thoughts. I coach 12-14 year olds and have seen coaches putting all their focus on beating other teams, often one team in particular, thus creating a bad situation when it doesn't happen. Even worse, it spawns unnecessary hatred and encourages unsportsmanlike comments and actions on the part of the kids they coach, when beforehand, these kids might have been okay with second or third as long as they hit their routine.

Do you think there is a positive way to use rivalries as motivators? Or should coaches stay completely away and focus on hitting a solid routine and letting the chips fall where they may?

 

[TheVipersMom]

 

[SarahS]

I've been coaching since 1999 an I've never used a rivalry to motivate teams. Not my style. We do what we do, and we do it best. Other teams don't matter.

 

[CoachMandiCF]

As a coach I don't even let my teams know who they're up against. I don't think it matters. I coach them to hit a winning routine regardless of the opponent. Sometimes at comps they'll ask me "are we against that team?" And I respond "does it matter?"

 

[callmecoach]

As a coach I don't even let my teams know who they're up against. I don't think it matters. I coach them to hit a winning routine regardless of the opponent. Sometimes at comps they'll ask me "are we against that team?" And I respond "does it matter?"

I agree completely. I guess I'm referring more to teams who always compete against each other, sometimes several times in one season. This is where I've seen coaches begin using those other teams as motivators, or at least attempt to. I think it's a slippery slope though. While competition is what continues to set the bar higher and higher (a good thing for our sport), if you can't find motivation internally, there is probably a problem.

I know the obvious answer to my original question is no, you should not use other teams as a tool for motivating your own team. But then you see coaches who videotape other squads at regional competitions, go through hell and high water to "hide" routines until the last second, etc. It's this kind of thing that fuels the fire of unhealthy rivalry even if a coach is not outright stating "it's really important that we beat this team!"

 

[GreatWhite92]

If you use it in a healthy way I think its ok. Sometimes when people would complain about extra practices, conditioning, ext...Our coaches will say, you think you are working hard? Well think about so and so team who is probably putting in twice as many hours just to beat you. I think thats ok cause it puts emphasis on the work you're doing.

 

[INeverStopCheering]

I don't usually use a specific team. I refer to them as "your competition." As inI bet your competition is being much cleaner than you guys are. I remember when I first started cheering my coach called out specific teams and when you're young it really does breed hate

 

[PullandPray23]

Ahh,, beating rivals really doesn't pay off...prime example: I was a diver in high school, and without trying to brag I was the deal (*flips hair* *snaps*) and I would watch our rival school dive mostly cause we shared a pool and I would see what they would be throwing (/or in what ballpark their dive caliber would be for a certain meet) at meets we competed against them, and I was never concerned cause I would just stack a harder dive sheet and I would put like 1 or 2 risky dives that were my specialty and I knew that when I hit those dives I would beat them but 50+ points...came back to bite me in the butt when I only placed 3rd at districts, 5th at regionals and 6th at state, when realistically I could've won state if I had been working harder dives all season...so train hard for yourself not anyone eles

 

[coach12]

I have 2 things i tell every team i coach:
1) You can't control what other teams are doing - you can only control what you do.
2) Do you talking on the mat.

we put all our focus and time into our routine and making it the best it can possibly be. the coaches job is to make sure the routine has everything needed to max out the score sheets and bring out our teams strengths. the cheerleaders job is to perform the routine as best they can.

 

[JulieP]

We don't talk about other gyms in our practices. Our goal is to always hit routines with no deductions, and that's it. When you get focused on what others are doing, you take the focus off your team/routine and then I think it's harder to hit a routine.

 

[cupieqt]

We don't talk about other gyms in our practices. Our goal is to always hit routines with no deductions, and that's it. When you get focused on what others are doing, you take the focus off your team/routine and then I think it's harder to hit a routine.

100% agree. No wonder we are so alike in so many ways. I admire you guys MORE than any other program in this country. If we ever talk about any other team, it's our Madtown Twister sisters and what cool new things they're doing.

Occasionally my kids try to tell us things about other teams in our area. I squash that as fast as they can bring it up. I don't care, it doesn't affect us, we don't have time to discuss what they're doing. Back to work.

 

[dawgshow]

The only time I've ever heard a coach bring up another gym was after hearing her team constantly complain about losing to a particular gym every time they competed. The girls (jr age) were screwing off at practice and their coach said "do you guys really think that gym XYZ blows off practice or do you think they come to perfect their routines?". Point made and the girls focused.

 

[Rudags]

I absolutely use rivals as motivation, in what I feel, a healthy way. My kids get excited to compete against our competition. I think its fairly healthy and nothing negative. Most competitions its us and two other gyms fighting for 1,2 and 3 spots.

I also show my teams videos (if available) of the routines we compete against. If I can't find videos, I find videos of their gym from the previous to season to see how their routines are as far as execution/difficulty. We also talk about scoresheets as far as where our routine is at compared to our competition in both execution/difficulty and as well as hitting the scoresheet.

If I feel we are a head of our competition I make sure to point out where we will lose and why we will lose. If we are the underdog going in, I point out things we can do well that will beat our competition in a category. After we talk about scoresheets and watch the videos (typically done at the beginning of a practice about two weeks out from a competition) we talk about goals for that competition.

Sometimes the goal is to win, sometimes it to get Top 3 and sometimes its just hit deduction free. Depends on the team.

I do what I do, because I feel its important going into competitions as a realist and my kids to be educated. If we lose, my kids know why before I even go over scoresheets next practice. If they win, they know why. Maybe it was they were better, maybe it because the other team dropped, or maybe its us rearranging our routine to better hit the scoresheet.

I feel my kids being smart plays a role in their sportsmanship. You can't be bitter when you know the team that beat you did so fairly and I told them they would before we even got there is we didnt do something specific (like be clean, etc).

 

[JulieP]

If I feel we are a head of our competition I make sure to point out where we will lose and why we will lose. If we are the underdog going in, I point out things we can do well that will beat our competition in a category. After we talk about scoresheets and watch the videos (typically done at the beginning of a practice about two weeks out from a competition) we talk about goals for that competition.

This is similar to what we do, however we talk about our strengths and weaknesses in terms of how well it maxes out on the scoresheet. Since we compete mostly at Jam Brands, our kids know how they will score on stunts, tumbling, etc. They know the quantities and difficulty they need to hit to max out, and maxing out is always where we (and everyone, I suppose) want to be. They are generally checking the EP websites for line-ups, and I am sure they scour youtube for videos of their competition. I am fine with them looking, but I just don't want to feed into it because things between some programs have been far too dramatic in the past.

 

[JulieP]

I should probably also point out that we don't talk about winning with our teams, and it's not because we don't win... We only talk about deduction free. It's interesting how different strategies work best for different coaches/programs.