So I've got a question for y'all that might seem easy but I'm looking for other viewpoints:
I'm a middle school coach (boy's for track, both in XC) at a rural/rust belt/low income school. We have lots of very good athletes - though they focus on football/basketball/baseball.
I took over 3 years ago. They had 5-6 kids the year before and did poorly. Never did big meets, only low key county meets. My goal was to increase participation and work on discipline, in that order. Now we have 20+ boys for XC, 15 or so for indoor and 35+ for track each year. We've won our middle school county championship each year and are one of the better programs in the state.
However, the HS has gone through 3 coaches in 3 years. The latest coach has very strict rules in terms of coming to practice, missing meets, etc.
Sounds great, but in our community many kids don't have rides and can't always make it to meets when they're on weekends or days there's no school. Most students get free/reduced lunch. We are a Title I school. In fact, it is a "failing school" - being in the bottom 10% of all schools in the state. It's not a great community in terms of parent Some have to miss practices due to issues with getting picked up or having to watch siblings. When this happens he suspends them or kicks them off the team. Consequently, there are 2 boys on the team now. There are 5 girls. The school has over 1,000 students.
I'm more flexible. I understand that kids can't control transportation or what their (sometimes drug addicted) parents do in terms of making them watch siblings. My rule is they have to tell me if they miss practice or a meet ahead of time and when they come to practice they have to do what they're supposed to.
Do you think it's better to start off very strict and build a program that way or to be understanding and slowly tighten up as the program develops?