Team Policies: Elements to Consider: Coaching Mastery

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