Establishing Team Policies

I am a first time high school level head coach and I am looking for a good set of team rules to distribute to my players.  I need to be tough on them because I have already had problem with players missing conditioning, smoking and with attitudes.

Coach Forrester
Caldwell County HS

Dear Coach Forrester

I have heard two different school of thought regarding team rules and discipline.  One is you must have rules to cover every possible situation, the other is you only one basic rule.  That rule would read something like no behavior is permitted which is detrimental to my school (club, or team), teammates, coach, or myself.  I think the best solution lies somewhere in between.  

Having a general rule such as in the above paragraph gives you a lot of latitude as a coach to disciple a variety of behaviors and unusual circumstances where you might get locked into a bad decision.  In cases where something happens that doesn’t have such a big consequence you have the space to handle discipline at different levels without usurping your basic rule.  However more significant problems can be dealt with more severely still within that rule.  

What I would do is establish a basic rule like this for my team as “my coach’s rule”.  
You can also have a higher set of rules, which might be called “school or team policies”.  I have always liked to have my players establish their own rules as well.  This can be important to your team’s success as well but might result in less severe punishments if violated.  You can give your players some guidelines regarding rules they might establish.  You then need to clearly identify which rules you will allow the players to control and those you will control.  Missing practice for me is a “coach’s rule”.  Missing practice results in dismissal from a team.  You can not get better or demonstrate your commitment to a team if you don’t make every effort to improve.  You can only improve through practice.   No practice, no play.  Too many missed practices, maybe 2-3 and you are dismissed.  No if’s, and’s or but’s.  

Drinking and smoking in educational institutions probably falls under school rules and I would be sure I was completely educated to school policies regarding these rules. In most cases violation of these rules can result in suspension.  Suspension from a school should mean suspension from athletic participation.

I would however encourage my players to take responsibility for establish as many rules as necessary and demonstrate a commitment to the teams success by adhering to their own suggestions.  I think the balance of these three sets of rules would be my suggestion for establishing team policies.


Thanks for Asking the Coach