By Wayne Goldsmith
A lot of coaches get to a point in their coaching where they want to lift the standards of their teams, become more performance orientated and reach for higher and higher goals in the sport.
A common scenario is where a Club coach decides that the team could achieve success at State or National level championships and to do that, the team needs to train harder more often.
This leads to the coach considering the introduction of “minimum attendance rules” - e.g. to be in the National Age Group team you must attend a minimum of 6 sessions per week.
A coach recently wrote to me and expressed his frustration in trying to introduce new attendance standards in his team. He said, “It’s (minimum attendance rules) caused me a lot of headaches. Kids want to skip sessions but still be in the top squad. I don’t know what to do”.
Here’s a few suggestions if you decide you want to strive for success in your program:
COLLABORATE! Discuss your vision and goals with your swimmers, their families, your club committee, staff and everyone connected with the team. Take them through what you’re trying to do, how you’re going to do it and MOST importantly WHY you’re looking to introduce minimum attendance standards.
COMMUNICATE! Once you’ve got the support of the swimmers, families and the club to implement the changes you’d like to make - communicate clearly how it’s all going to work.
CONSISTENCY. The single biggest problem you will face if you go down the performance path and introduce minimum attendance standards is swimmers and parents wanting flexibility for their specific circumstances. For example, it’s highly likely a parent will approach you and say something like “My daughter plays basketball and also does gymnastics. She can’t make the minimum attendance requirements to be in the National Age squad but she should still be in it”. When this happens (not if it happens - because IT WILL HAPPEN) - you need to apply a consistent approach and policy to every member of the team.
In a perfect world, there would be no need for minimum attendance standards in swim teams - but our world is far from perfect. Ideally swimmers, coaches and families work together as a team with a clear focus on helping every swimmer realize their potential because they’re passionate, committed, dedicated and share a common focus on the achievement of excellence.
This is a very common challenge many swimming coaches around the world have faced and continue to face. How successful you are at introducing change depends on your ability to lead through collaboration, communication and consistency.
Wayne Goldsmith
Copyright Wayne Goldsmith. All Rights Reserved.
