Youth Club to Circumvent HS Restrictions for Off Season

Yes, many coaches do this. It also allows coaches to drive their athletes which is restricted in some HS associations. I know a few coaches who have club teams during the HS seasons to circumvent rules.

Every coach who is any level of serious in my area either has a club team or has a connection with a club team.

Check your state rules. It is different in every state.

coaching conundrum wrote:

Check your state rules. It is different in every state.

Exactly. In my state we can train kids over the summer and we are heavily restricted in between seasons during the academic year.

We are not allowed to coach youth teams that have athletes that are members of the school team.

coaching conundrum wrote:

Check your state rules. It is different in every state.

Entirely depends.

I live in a pretty rural small state and we can do almost anything w our coach anytime of the year except for sundays (bc our states insane and religious people run it). We do team campouts through the hs team, travel in coaches car for workouts and spend the night as his 2nd house bc it close to an invite for some of the varsity runners.

I just realized that kinda sounds like he's a groomer but I swear hes a good guy

Some years ago I did this for indoor season, although it really didn't circumvent any rules. I was more interested in having liability insurance coverage during the portion of the year that we were competing outside of our state-sanctioned seasons. (TSSAA doesn't sanction indoor track.)

I did this in my state. Tough rules for between seasons (not even supposed to talk to the athletes, let alone coach) and not supposed to have contact for about half the summer (even though this is almost completely ignored). I really started it because of COVID though: I coach kids who live in areas where they cant just go out for a 5/6/7 mile run because of either geography or they don't feel safe doing it, and when COVID started we had a blackout period where we weren't supposed to have any contact. I was able to just meet with them and make sure they could get a run in, and stay in semi-decent shape until sports started again. Make sure there are no rules against being a high school coach and a club coach in your state, some of them have those. And I don't know how many states still limit gathering size, but make sure you are allowed to meet in groups.

Also, I'm sure someone will have something negative to say about meeting with kids in the offseason. I generally think you should give them their space and let them have time off, but some kids will absolutely not run on their own no matter what, especially over the summer. You dont want 3 out of your top 5 coming into cross without having run a mile since the end of track.

Wow time travel!