Frustrated!

[CoachC]

I struggle with the "practice begins at 6 but be there early to warm up" question.

Each girl decides they only need so many minutes to warm up. Someone shows up 5 minutes later and needs a girl to throw with, thus interupting somebody elses warm up. She does her dynamic or static stretches by herself and as a result may not get full benefit.

My start time is cleats on / on field ready to begin warm up. This eliminates ambiguity and judgement. If I want them there at 5:45, thats what I tell them.

What is more important. teaching them to be on time, or that twenty minutes early is on time? That is my struggle.

 

[Flash101]

CoachC, my take on that is to eliminate the ambiguity by making it clear that practice starts at the appointed time - i.e., cleats on, gear stowed, ready to roll at that time. If they're just arriving at that time, they are late.

We warm up together beginning at the appointed time, and we wait for no one. They don't get to decide individually what they do for warm up - it's all a routine with a small amount of variation just for variety sake. Over the years, I've found that this practice feeds on itself: the girls (and parents) know I will be there very early for field maintenance and practice setup, they know their teammates will be there "early" so they often take advantage of that for pre-practice socializing and getting their ya-ya's out, and they know they will miss stuff if they're not ready at the appointed time. The whole thing becomes somewhat self-enforcing by the players.

 

[jimginas]

I personally adopted Mike Candrea's philosophy: Early is On-Time, On-Time is LATE, LATE-Your'e in trouble. Stress punctuality, because my boss won't be so tolerant if I had a habit of showing late.
---- I've told my girls be ready to start jogging as a team when I say to start, which often may be 1-2 minutes before the start time (cause who holds the OFFICIAL CLOCK??). Means CLEATS ALREADY ON , glove on their hand and ready to move, NOT showing up to the field, or sitting and putting on cleats. I maintain an attendance sheet also and they and their parents know that, so its ironic how most girls are early and ready to go and rarely you have to concern abouot a late player, genearlly with a valid reason.
** Original question though included discussion for dealing with older players (21+) that were playing for fun and not taking the games as serious as the author of the question.