"Rome wasn't built in a day" is the saying our choreographer uses.
Mine is
"Trust the process" or "Climb the ladder"
Think of it like building a house. You can have all the fancy doo-dads in the world, but if your foundation isn't strong, they'll end up buried in a pile of rubble. Approach this job, and any coaching position you accept in the future with a five-year plan.
Year 1: Assess the Situation
Coaching is a fantastic exercise in "Continuous Quality Improvement." If you're a teacher, you will constantly be looking for ways to improve your classroom environment. If you're a nurse (I am), you'll forever be looking for ways to improve your practice. Most professions involve some level of quality improvement. If you have some experience in quality improvement, be ready to expand on that. If you don't, but know you need to, here's your learning environment. Before you go diving in head first and trying to make the program look like you want it to look, though, you have to know exactly where you stand.
If you want a nationally competitive program, and walk in and announce "we're going to Disney" on day one, people are going to expect you to live up to that statement. If the history of the program is that they practice 30 seconds a week, those practices are halfway thrown together at the last minute, and people blow them off regularly because they have fornicating to do, then you (and the more serious members of the team) are going to be very disappointed. If you make that announcement, and then realize that you have a budget with $50 in it for the year, the team has never fundraised a dime, and median household income of your constituents is $2000 a year, you will go bankrupt and lose your job the first year. You need to spend a year becoming familiar with every minute detail of your program and it's background. You can make some minor changes. Any change you make that saves people money in this particular year, will be appreciated by everyone. If that involves team warm ups or something, consider "phasing" those in, so that your seniors don't have to purchase a new warm up for one season, if that makes sense. In any case, any change you make, needs to be logical. I'm not one to condone taking the "path of least resistance," but there's nothing wrong with being logical.
Year 2: Paint the Picture
One of Stephen Covey's "7 Habits of Highly Effective People," is that they "begin with the end in mind." In other words, if you've got a vision for team, your pre-season-two parent meeting is the time to share it. Paint a vivid, long range picture. Don't be afraid to aim extremely high. If you aim high and miss, you'll likely still be better off than if you never took the shot. Be up front with people. "I want to take this team to national-level competition in five years" may sound like you're leaving out a group of kids, but reassure them that their role in getting the team to that level is invaluable. If you have personal anecdotes about being in the trenches when a program for which you cheered was being built in route to becoming a household name, share those. If you have a personal story about a coach who influenced your life, share that. Let them know that you're there for the right reasons, not to earn a check.
Now is also the time to start planning for big changes you want to make in the next year. Got an eye on new uniforms? Start the planning process now, in anticipation for purchasing them in year three. We are on uniform rotation for next year, and I just finished the design process with our uniform company (four months prior to order). You do not want to do this kind of stuff last-minute, or you will end up with cheap, generic-looking uniforms that look like they were designed in a hurry. Anything you purchase for the team will be expensive, and you want to take the time to bounce designs off of your AD/Principal, team, parents, and other coaches.
If you've played your cards right, you should have established some traditional things that are going to go on during your practice sessions so that your team-leaders can run some of the day-to-day stuff. Example: We pull in to practice every day and begin with a huddle where I give a brief review of recent practice/game activities, things we need to look at in the future, and things we are going to work on that day. When I'm finished, I say "warm up," and my team goes through the exact same routine every. single. day. When we go to the warm-up mat at state, I said, "warm up," and my team went through the exact same routine. One of the ladies supervising the warm-up area came to me and said, "I am SO IMPRESSED. You know how to warm up a team." That's where you get to be a whole lot proud, but a little bit humble and say, "they did that, I just showed them how."
Year 3: Prepare for the Worst
My experience has been the same in both coaching jobs I've held, and that is that year 3 is typically the one where you will be pushed the hardest. You should be putting the accelerator to the floor, but you'll have that last group of seniors that still remember some horrible "bullying" that happened to them their freshman year. They've been waiting for three years to get their revenge, and now they're going to be determined to live out that dream. In my third year at this position, I threw a kid out of practice for the first time in my seventeen years of coaching, kicked a kid off the team for the second time in my seventeen years of coaching, had more intrasquad drama than any of my previous seventeen years, had more phone calls to the AD/Principal (3 total) than my previous two years combined (0), and almost cancelled our trip to NHSCC because I was done with it all.
I have no advice for this particular year, except grit your teeth, be ready to tell a lot of people to go to hell, plan for the fact that parents who used to be your biggest supporter will turn their backs on you, and get through it.
Year 4: Now REALLY Put Your Foot on the Gas
Now that you're done with year 3, you're going to find that the next group of seniors, with a little help from you, will be willing to do anything to avoid a repeat of that season. You can really teach them HOW to lead. You can start the process of teaching leadership in Year 1, but you're going to meet a lot of resistance from the kids who just want to maintain the status quo. In year 4, after the hell of year 3, there will be a lot of open minds from kids who do not want to see that again. You will have done what most cheer coaches do not do, and that is survive the transition period. For some reason cheer coaches seem to think that major change, and a new culture can be cultivated in a few weeks. It is a long, grueling, difficult process, but it is so worth the effort once it happens. You will never be able to put the program on autopilot, but when you have athletes holding each other accountable and refusing to let each other down, it makes the administrative tasks much more bearable. Designing and ordering t-shirts for nationals is a process that I used to HATE, but I don't mind doing it for this particular group of kids because they've turned the corner.
Best of luck to you, and if you have questions, post here or message me your email address.
