Team Policies: Elements to Consider: Coaching Mastery

By Scott Rosberg

Good athletic programs have standards and guidelines by which their leaders and teams operate. This book offers numerous ideas on what coaches should consider when establishing the policies they want their teams to live by.

Specific sections address:

         Why a Policy Sheet?

         Standards

         Rules & Guidelines

         Punishment

         Mentors

         Expectations for Coaches

         Expectations for Athletes

         Expectations for Parents

A detailed "Sample Policy Sheet" is included for you to use as a template.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Scott Rosberg
• Release date: Dec 18, 2022
• ISBN: 9781737312123

Scott Rosberg

Scott Rosberg has been a coach (basketball, soccer, & football) at the high school level for 30+ years, an English teacher for 18 years, and an athletic director for 12 years. He has published seven books on coaching and youth/school athletics, two books of inspirational messages and quotes for senior athletes and graduates, and a newsletter for athletic directors and coaches. He also speaks to schools, teams, and businesses on a variety of team-building, leadership, and coaching topics. Scott has a blog and a variety of other materials about coaching and athletic topics on his website – www.greatresourcesforcoaches.com.  Scott is also a member of the Proactive Coaching speaking team. Proactive Coaching is dedicated to helping organizations create character and education-based team cultures, while providing a blueprint for team leadership. They help develop confident, tough-minded, fearless competitors and train coaches and leaders for excellence and significance. Proactive Coaching can be found on the web at www.proactivecoaching.info. Scott can be reached by email at [e-mail] or [e-mail].

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Why Do I Need a Policy Sheet?

There are some coaches, both new and veteran, who might ask why it is necessary to have a policy sheet. It may not be necessary. Especially at very young ages and levels, a policy sheet might not be completely necessary because you are not going to be dealing with the same kinds of issues that you may have with older players and school teams. While you will have rules for younger kids, you will have far fewer of them, and you will have far less need to enforce them. Little kids just don’t create the same issues that the bigger, older players do.

However, it helps to have some policies in mind for the members of the program at the younger levels, too. These types of policies give coaches a basis for creating the behavior expectations and goals for the team members. If you start them out early in their athletic experience understanding that there are expectations of them and standards and guidelines by which they need to abide, they will start to expect that at each step on their journey. You are laying a foundation for them to be able to be good teammates and members of teams throughout their careers, as well as any organization that will have some kind of expectations of them. While you won’t need nearly the number and depth of rules and expectations for very young athletes (Kindergarten-4th grade), each step of the way creates more responsibilities for them to accept as team members, so you will want to help guide them through that process, whether you have a policy sheet or not.

As the age and skill levels of the participants increase, it becomes more important to consider having team policies and a clearly written policy sheet to distribute to the members of the team. After all, if you are going to hold kids to certain standards and make sure that they follow certain guidelines and rules as members of your program, it makes sense to have those standards, guidelines, and rules defined for them. The best way to do this is to create a policy