How To Deal With Difficult Coaches?

[Twinklestars]

Remember as well:
Many times, high school coaches are simply "sponsors"...a.k.a The school needs a body to be there for practices & made a teacher take up the position. Most do not have much if any experience in the cheer coach realm, nor do the schools care. This is the recipe for MANY high school programs across the country sadly.........

This is our current situation. Our sponsor is on her second year and now thinks she knows it all. No previous experience in cheer, dance, or anything related.

 

[Twinklestars]

Oh and @FierceSnaps, good luck!

 

[Official OWECheer]

Remember as well:
Many times, high school coaches are simply "sponsors"...a.k.a The school needs a body to be there for practices & made a teacher take up the position. Most do not have much if any experience in the cheer coach realm, nor do the schools care. This is the recipe for MANY high school programs across the country sadly.........

And the sad thing is because it all comes back to stereotypes and a lack of legal protection for cheerleaders. Even worse, instead of supporting our protection, much of the public doesn't care because cheerleaders are seen as useless. A principal or AD's apathy toward cheerleading is not an excuse to give the kids an unqualified coach or leave them without practice space and safety equipment.

This is an injustice.

 

[Official OWECheer]

Remember as well:
Many times, high school coaches are simply "sponsors"...a.k.a The school needs a body to be there for practices & made a teacher take up the position. Most do not have much if any experience in the cheer coach realm, nor do the schools care. This is the recipe for MANY high school programs across the country sadly.........

Imagine how great we would be if we all got the help that we needed.

 

[Teacher Mom]

At my school, we have 3 cheer coaches, One for Freshman, one for JV, and one for Varsity. You could call the Varsity coach the "head coach" and this women is a piece of work. When I think of a coach, I think of someone who is strict yet somewhat forgiving on the little things if you're working hard. I think of someone who I can look up to and be comfortable telling things to and asking questions with.
The head coach normally controls every minute of every practice, I don't think I've had more than 5 minutes to work with just my JV team. Not that I'm complaining too hard but it'd be nice to get to know the strengths and weaknesses of my own team so we could work together and well be a team.
Also, at every practice the head coach normally spends 3/4ths of the practice on her phone and pays no attention to us, and then goes and screams at us when we get even one motion wrong, even though we haven't been properly taught how and where to place the said motion. (And yes, I mean scream. We are on one side of our school and people on the other side can here her). The other two coaches are normally sitting on the ground, on their phones, or talking to their children, who they bring to practice with them, Every. Single. Day. And then criticize us on every thing we're doing, even if it's surprisingly good for a first time doing it.
Another example, some girls are just learning to get their fingers all together and flat while doing blades, and I think they're doing a fabulous job with the effort they put in. But the coach makes girls stand up on their tip toes and hold their arms in a fight position with their fingers in blades and walk up and down the hallway on their tip toes until she says stop. And if you step down from your tip toes, even to get balance back, she makes you start again. She does the same thing for squats. If they're not low enough, she makes you squat with your hands on your things and basically waddle down the hallway while squatted and if your fingers come apart, she makes you start again.
I really feel like they forget we are all different teams, meaning we all have different skill levels. You don't expect someone on the freshman team to have the skills a returning Varsity member has right?
I don't mean for me to sound like this is complaining, because I'm not, it's just I'm tired of going to practice and having everyone looking like they'd rather be anywhere else but cheer practice because our coaches refuse to let us laugh at a little at our mistakes and then help us fix our mistakes.
I want to have a practice where no girls leaves crying because she's been completely broken down by our head coach.
Any advice?

Does your state have a high school sports committee? We have one here in Colorado, called CHSSA and parents can ask for investigations. My daughter only does all star cheer so I've never had to contact them. It may be worth investigating. As a teacher, I hate to hear of someone of authority acting this way =(