The primary duty of any professional educator who takes students on the road is to protect and care for the children in his charge. Even on a teacher salary, he or she must protect them from harm and tend to their needs. Young coaches often forget their care giving duties in the intensity of the competition. When I first started out, I expected my kids to pretty much take care of themselves at a tournament. As I grew older, I learned of different ways.
Early Days, Early Mistakes
As a twenty-something on my first job, I treated the wrestling tournament like a big classroom to be properly supervised. My job was to make sure my students behaved themselves and wrestled hard. I had been taught about the importance of education, but less about things like food, water, and medical care. It was years before I even carried a medical kit. Kids had parents. These parents gave them money. There was a concession stand. I had the whole thing under control. Years later, when I ran my own tournament, I considered the other coaches and made sure they and the table workers had a decent hospitality room, but I still left my wrestlers to their own devices when it came to eating. I was not totally heartless; I sometimes provided them with oranges or energy bars. I warned them against the evils of those sugar straws, but they still ordered up nachos with jalapenos at 9:00 a.m., and ate them with relish.
The Parent Brigade
As I got older, I began to realize that I was an adult watching over children, and I needed to do more. When boys came off the mat after wrestling their hearts out and complained of headaches and fever, I gave them ibuprofen and Tylenol and didn't tell a soul. I wasn't supposed to do it, but I'd be damned if my boys were going to suffer. Later, I organized efficient parent volunteer brigades for duals and tri matches. I saw to it my boys got sandwiches and drinks before every match; morale and performance improved accordingly. The only problem was the big water coolers making huge messes on gym floors. Most teams cleaned up after a long, hard day. Some didn't. And of course, there were the few who insisted on taking their child out for McDonald's during break times instead of bringing the food in. I don't know which I hated more.
The Package Deal
Lately some of the bigger, better run tournaments are doing something very simple that takes care of many of the age-old problems of feeding kids at tournaments: the Event Pass. Coaches still had to pay the entry fee, but for twenty-five dollars, which the parents paid, a child would get a pancake breakfast after weigh ins, an event t-shirt, two drinks, and an all you can eat pizza buffet during set hours, along with cotton candy. Cost for the tournament was probably fifteen dollars a head, but it's better to get half price out of a hundred people than full price out of twenty-five. If you can come up with a package that assures a profit per kid, then it's a good deal. Otherwise, go piecemeal and you'll make more.
Making sure the wrestlers are well taken care if is the primary duty of any coach. If the parents see you looking after their child as those he were your own, they'll reward you with faith and support. Either way, you come out ahead.
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