"Play Your Cards Right".

At the high school level, most coaches are responsible for the setup of the gym for home games and its subsequent return to normal use. The team will usually do this work under the direct supervision of the coach.

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Some of the tasks involved with gym

Though athletes like to compete, they don't necessarily enjoy setting up the gym. These jobs require some organization. Without it, some jobs will always manage to get forgotten until the last minute--a time when the coach and athletes should really be concentrating on the meet itself.

Things can get worse after the meet when just as many things have to be done and the kids' minds are shifting to parents, girlfriends, or possibly ducking out.

As a young coach, I tended to "micromanage"--feel that I had to control every facet of the program in order to get things done right. With experience, I learned that part of my job was to develop leadership among the athletes, and that you don't develop leadership skills when you're simply being told what to do all the time. I decided it was time to "play my cards right."

I divided the set-up jobs into three groups and listed them on separate 3X5 cards. On the back of each card, I printed the names of one-third of the team members. I circled one name on each card--a senior, to serve as team leader of his group.

Thus, within the three cards were listed all the set-up jobs and all the team members. The only exceptions were the few details reserved for either me or the team manager.

On the day before our first home meet, I pulled the three team leaders aside and explained what was expected of them, using the 3X5 cards as a visual aid. At the end of practice, I explained the organizational concept to the team and the necessary "chain of command."

For example, individual athletes should not approach the coach with questions about the meet set-up, but should refer them to ask their team leader, and have the team leaders check any problems with the coach.

Example: The warm-up mats are still locked up. The 3X5 cards were "lent" to the team leaders during set-up and break-down, but otherwise kept thumbtacked to the bulletin board in the wrestling room. By the second or third meet of the season, the team leaders had typically memorized their routines and crew members and no longer needed the cards.

An important concept for the athletes is that they aren't finished until the team leader says they are, and that when the team leader thinks his group is finished, he will check in with the coach.

Frequently, one of the younger athletes will ask me something like "Are we finished yet?" I will just smile and reply, "Check with your team leader."

Naturally, a few details may pop up outside of the assigned duties. The coach can have a particular group attend to these.

The kids naturally want to go home. At the end of the meet, each group will reverse its set-up jobs (ex. returning the competition mat to the wrestling room). With a finite set of jobs and a team leader in charge of a small group, camaraderie increases and the kids want to get the job done right and go home.

I've had reporters comment to me that ours was the only school they had covered in which the mat, chairs, etc., had all vanished before short interviews with the two coaches could be completed!

Running a responsible program and your won-lost record may seem more important, but at least part of running a successful program is learning to "Play Your Cards Right."

By Milt Sherman, Retired Wrestling Coach, D.H. Conley H.S., Greenville, NC