High School Practice Start Time

Appreciate the responses… I’m not a troll though.

To answer a couple of main points:

1) I HAVE been assistant coaching at this school for three years prior, but my career demands are also simultaneously changing as I’m becoming a manager at my full-time job. That won’t be starting immediately, but will be the case within a month or two. So I know that sounded weird, but it’s not a preference at all - I would MUCH rather keep it at 3:30.

2) I found out I was head coach last-minute as the previous XC/Track coach was let go.

3) As I said in my original post, the cross country team (which has always had the same coaching staff and very similar distance runners) has always held practice at a park at 5:30. So this would fundamentally be the same thing - just seems less sensible since people are coming back to the same spot they left.

Why does XC practice so late? I assume the park is 10 minutes from school. How do the guys get there and get home? We have 75 guys on XC team and less than 1/2 have cars.

It's far more simple than you are making this.

As I said before, you have to keep this about your athletes only. It's a hardship to hold late practices for many reasons.

For your XC team it is also a hardship for them. Most XC kids are the hardest working students in the school. Once in a while a meet can be disruptive but late practices every day will mean late nights doing homework. You might have a small team due to your practice time or they might be too afraid to tell you. Even if that is not true, it's still detrimental to their studies, dinner, family time, and sleep. Silent poll your team and have them pick the practice time. You will be surprised.

During Covid they were letting the kids out early so I was meeting them at 12:30 every day. I own a company and it literally destroyed my 4th quarter sales that year. I prioritized my athletes. I didn't see this as a choice. It was either do what is right by them or get out. It's not like I would ask the AD who didn't care about XC athletes. I could have started late also.

The reason I am currently not coaching after 15 years is my own children have moved to different areas of the country for work. I was not going to put them or my team through my absences. So, I found my replacement for the team who is able to be there on time every day 30 minutes after the kids get out of class.

So, if work keeps you from having practice at the proper time, then you need to step down.

To otter:

I think you’re being obtuse. As I said, the Cross Country team has ALWAYS met at 5:30 (including when I was an athlete on the team), this isn’t some new thing I created - or had anything to do with, for that matter.

As I said, I much prefer holding practice after school. But the reality is that, like most people, I have to work a full-time job and am in my early 20’s myself. I very much enjoy coaching this team, but I’m getting paid next to nothing for this and there is no one else interested in leading the program. It’s not like if I “nobly” stepped down for the team, someone else could immediately be slotted in to replace me anyway.

PS: There’s no “proper time” as such - it’s been one way but there is leverage to change the time as needed because the reality is most people have other obligations.

To coach of it:
It’s always been that way so that parents are able to drive their kids to practice. The park is 20-25 minutes from the school. This is what leads me to believe that my idea is reasonable. As I keep qualifying, I would prefer not to have it at the later time but it’s somewhat necessitated.

Please explain why though. Practicing 5:30-7:30 getting home at 8:00 is unreasonable on a daily basis for.a runner because fueling is very important. Eating a large dinner at 8:30 is not good. Why not go after school from the school? I guarantee that the team would benefit. Your are increasing the chance for injuries, limiting the amount of participation, which both negatively team performance. How good had the team been over the past 20 years?

confused coach - you already know the answer. Practice will be at the time you can make it. If you could make it to the school at 3, that'd be great, but you can't so it will have to be at 5 or whenever.

This will cost some athletes. Nothing you can do about that. It will be better for the athletes to have a coach who cares, even with a bad practice schedule, than to be coached by a no nothing pe teacher at 3 pm.

Short answer; The first 30min plus (esp for girls) is changing etc...then 30 min of stretching (if you do that) and drills. So 4pm is a possibility without even needing you. Any assist coach can get things going? You roll in at 345 or whatever and make announcements then git r dun. IDK if by 310 you mean that's when they start --all dressed, or after drills, or just going into locker room to start getting dressed? Now if you are saying you cant get there until 5 that's different. Temperate climate? Minnesota? Fla? Lots of variables. But just use assistants if you are talking 30 min disparity They can warm up without you.

*FWIW answer: All sports started after school when i was coming up, but my sons lacrosse and hockey teams practice when they can practice. That may be 7pm when the soccer turf is available or 530 am when they get ice. So the real answer is people can adjust if they are committed. Nowadays you got the boys and girls soccer team, field hockey, lacrosse boys and girls, all needing the same surface...they have to adjust. Some sport is at practice field from 3pm to 9pm. I think XC in the dark would hard. Track in warmer climate doable.

I coach HS track/xc and don't work as a teacher. It's definitely harder, and getting out of work is difficult. I work remote twice each week, so no one sees me leave early those days. I take one day completely off from coaching (let an assistant give them an easy run)...the other two days I get in by 8 and leave by 3.

It's certainly more difficult working outside the school, but on the other hand I think it makes it easier for you to connect with the kids. In my experience, they appreciate having people in their life who aren't a parent or teacher.

My high school XC coach worked a full-time job during the day along with other obligations, so we had practice at 6am SHARP, well before school started. If you were even a minute late, you did push-ups. The worst days were when we had a brutal workout as the sun was rising, and then gym class later in the day, when all you wanted to do was recover haha

first off, you can say "no." i can really only handle assistant duties right now and after a promotion i couldn't hold practice at a normal time.

second, i think you implied the XC team was either small or bad or both. you then ignore the practical outcome of that choice and act like it's a great idea for your team. harrumph.

third, making school kids do anything longer than a short bike trip to a second site for training, is absurd and not in the spirit of school sports. childhood friend of mine went to a nascent naia-d3 switch that was adding track. they had no track. his whole deal was it got old going off campus every day for months. he quit before he graduated.

fourth, making kids wait around hours for daily practice is similarly nuts.

personally the solutions here would seem to be (a) practice before school (and probably before you're expected at work). (b) we had a track period where some did their workouts. like instead of PE you were in an athletics period where in season you could work out. (before being punted by the hurdle coach, i was doing my best hurdling off an hour workout during school followed by doing soccer after school.) (c) you delegate afternoon workouts to assistants.

This is why High School teams have trouble finding good coaches because one of the requirements to having a good team is having coaches be at practice right after school is out.

To Confused Coach:

I coached both XC and TF at the HS level with this exact same situation for four years. I worked a job outside the HS and successfully made this happen. We had a few additional factors that made the setup pretty seamless:

1. We didn't have our own track. We shared with the local public school so they always got first dibs at practice time.

2. We also didn't have any bussing before or after school, so parents were already used to the transport.

3. We had a few multi-sport athletes (small school - 125 HS enrollment), so the later practice time actually helped those athletes (usually higher performers) get to both practices.

4. Practicing at 5:00 PM also allowed our students to get in a snack ( and even a nap) after school. They could also go to any academic clubs and/or meet with teachers for study help during the time gap.

5. The later practice time is also the same time the athletes will be competing in weekday XC and TF meets so they get the prep for that as well.

6. It is VERY important that you manage your time well. On non-workout days, practices would be 1.5 hours, workout days would be 2 hours, and workout + lift days would be 2.5 hours.

Hope that helps. Pros and Cons to both early and later practices.

I was in a similar situation, with changing personal/professional obligations. I decided to step down until I could make a more complete commitment rather than ask the team to adjust to my schedule. As much as it makes sense to expect an employer that barely pays you to meet your need for flexibility, it isn't feasible in the context of a school, where students and families are your key constituents -- and they are neither flexible nor responsible for the fact that we aren't adequately paid.

the top hs team near me does their training at a local park for distance. The result: they're one of the top teams in the state and all but like 1 other team are chumps who send few to the ncaa. But the coach teaches and buses the team down there almost every day. Those with cars can drive, but its not expected for them to.

Not quite the same as being Head Track Coach for the entire team. The assumption would be that they also have throwers, sprinters, pole vaulters, jumpers, etc.