College coaches - what's your team drinking policy? How do you address alcohol?

ukathleticscoach wrote:

Age is 18 in UK & it always amazes me that it's still 21 in USA.

After all you can join the army, get married, smoke and buy a gun!

In answer to the question, how are you going to know if they are drinking? As long as they are turning up for training on time and not obviously wasted I would ignore it. Mixing drinking with running or racing is where it becomes a problem training wise ie where it affects either time wise

You are only young once and most people are going to want to have some fun at college but its deciding the point where it is too much or interfering with training/racing

From the early 1970s into the mid-1990s the drinking age in the US was 18 or 19 in many states (not all). DUIs and death rates (from drunk drivers) increased so there was substantial political pressure to move the drinking age back to 21. So there it is. And yes, I believe the death rates from drunk driving declined. In Canada they can drink at 19. I don't know the stats there vs. the US. Binge drinking on college campuses is a problem in the US. But I hear, have seen, it's even a bigger problem for young people in Scandinavia and parts of Europe.

Arishole wrote:

Summer: I really don't care.

Above 21: More or less, do what you want.

Under 21: If I don't know about it, I can't do anything about it.

No drinking within 48 hours of a meet whatever your age.

End of discussion.

[This may be your policy, but I guarantee you your athletes not adhering to it.[/quote]

I am sure all of them are not. That's why I also stated that if you are willing to do the action, you should be willing to live with the consequences of that action. I have removed people from the team for excessive drinking. I personally think the drinking age should be 18, but that's not the law. I'm not losing my job over some 19 year old kid deciding he wants to get drunk and tear up his section of the world. If it crosses my desk, you will be punished. I hope that clears things up for you.

On the teams I have coached (multiple sports, NCAA DII)...

--If 21+ you may consume alcohol unless otherwise prohibited by school policy, federal/state/local laws

--If under 21, consumption of alcohol may result in penalties including removal from the team. The exception to this policy is if a team member under 21 is in a place where they are of legal age, for example if they are on vacation abroad, they may consume alcohol within the terms of the first bullet point.

--The above age related rules apply all 12 months of the year, not just during the competition season.

--No "24/48 hour rule" related to meets or training sessions. We used to have a 48 hour rules on my teams but then I coached a few 25+ year old student-athletes and had a couple situations where team members who were 21+ were out to dinner with their parents and had a beer. All that caused me to re-think a blanket rule that bans drinking a certain number of hours before a race or training and I concluded that I'd rather address unhealthy over consumption than set rules based on the clock.

--Out school prohibits alcohol consumption by all parties in certain circumstances: official road trips away from campus; on campus when school is not in session (due to a lot of the usual campus support systems not being fully in place such as RAs/RDs).

The consequences for underage drinking or over consumption by the team members of the teams I coach is severe. I have suspended multiple athletes for 1 year including a couple of good athletes who would have scored for us. We have the conversation at the beginning of preseason about what the expectations are - they're based on respecting one's body/mind and acting in a manner that respects the effort we're all making.

"Don't drink" for college athletes never worked for me as an athlete and it doesn't work for me as a coach. I drank regularly in college but very very rarely to excess. I played 6 varsity seasons in 2 sports and I think most people who knew me would say that I got closer to my potential as an athlete than most college athletes do. As a coach I want to see the young men that I coach develop to the best of their abilities. Over consumption hinders that goal, drinking in moderation I would say does not.

haha. smart coach. great story!

I find a lot of these responses to be a little far-fetched. College coaches who ban underage drinking or 'excessive' drinking just end up looking silly, because those 'rules' get broken all the time.

Drinking is not something you address with the whole team-- they've heard plenty about it from the school already. You're their coach, not their guidance counselor. You talk to the seniors/captains, and you emphasize four things.

1. All team functions must be open to all members and no one can be pressured to drink at those functions. Anything related to alcohol that looks like hazing means you're off the team.

2. As a coach, I will do nothing to shield you from any college/legal consequences if you get caught, and if our athletic department has rules about suspending people for alcohol violations I will uphold them to the fullest.

3. If I hear about anyone drinking and driving, they are off the team permanently.

4. As captains, it's you're reaponsibility to make sure that alcohol does not effect team performance. If you hear about or see an underclassmen who has a lroblem with that, take action. If you can't do it on your own, tell me and i will intervene.

I am not a coach...so maybe I shouldn't respond...but here I am anyway. If I were a college coach, I wouldn't want to make it seem like I control all aspects of their life - after all, they're in college and are (theoretically) usually learning to become independent adults. I also believe the drinking age should be 18. I would lean towards not banning alcohol completely, since I don't believe that non-excessive drinking (i.e., a beer or two per day or something like that) will affect training. At least, I haven't noticed it in myself, although I am not a very talented runner. I would probably tell them that if substantial evidence came my way that they were getting blasted all the time, or even just every so often, they'd be off their scholarship/off the team. I would probably give them one or two chances, depending on the individual situation. I am DEF-initely not an anti-alcohol person, so though I would encourage regular gatherings with friends which include alcohol, I would stress the importance of not relying on excessive alcohol to have a good time. I realize not everyone would follow my rules, most likely, but I think that depending on the school which I am the hypothetical coach, I would like to think that I would only recruit student-athletes with decent values and a good character. In that particular case, the number of athletes on the team who would readily break my rules would probably not be very high.

I really have no idea - those are just my thoughts. FYI I am only 23 years old, just graduated from college last year, and I think I would have flipped out if my XC coach had banned alcohol. Not because I am an alcoholic or anything - actually, I don't drink much - it's just that I don't think it's their business to completely ban it. Should there be rules in place which decrease the students' likelihood to binge drink/get hammered all the time? Yes, since that could have a very negative affect on both the individual and the team. But I just don't think completely banning it would be necessary.

Small D3 school athlete here. Coach says all things in moderation. Championship season should be dry and he's never happy about drinking during the week, but having a few beers on a Saturday won't get attention. We've had team members make bad decisions and those incidents are handled individually. Some team members are no longer on the team as a result. Coach shared that he'll have a drink occasionally, but he's not a food about it and part of college is learning to manage behavior for the adult world. That includes time management, socializing, drinking, what have you.

I know other teams that ban drinking completely during the season completely and others who want to be Nick Symmonds without realizing how hard he trains.