I've been taking notice of different things when I go to practice and meets now.  I use to watch individuals closely and figure out what they need to fix, what they are doing right and figure out generally their method of movement.

Lately I've been noticing how people interact in packs.  At meets teams are warming up as a team.  Being punished as a team.  Also cheering for each other like a close nit team.  I'm not against team work and people coming together but let's get this straight, this isn't a team sport.

Ya, we have a stupid points system to make the school's feel proud of having a "winning team.  I went to college with Jen Suhr, Olympic silver medalist pole vaulter.  She's a monster athlete.  We had two nationals being a Christian college, NCCAA (National Christian College Athletic Association) and NAIA.  At the NCCAA nationals she competed in 7 events and took 1st or 2nd in all 7.  The rest of the girls team got 10 points and they took 2nd place as a team that year.  The girls celebrated like it was a team effort when one person got 90% of the points.

Most winning track teams, especially at the high school level, have one or two amazing athletes that win 3-4 events or there's the frustrating team to face that comes with 100 athletes and picks up 4th, 5th and 6th in EVERY DAMN EVENT.

I think this team mentality is built in from football.  That's a team sport, it's individuals coming together to do something.  If an offensive lineman doesn't block a defender the quarterback is never going to have time to throw to a receiver.  Track isn't this style.  What athlete A does have no effect (beyond psychological) on athlete B.

On a team everyone has to want to be there and want to get better.  One person slacking can really effect the team.  With my group of throwers what one person wants or does has little to no effect on anyone else.  If they want to be the best it doesn't mean the others even want to throw this week.

The head coach at the high school punishes the whole team for one person showing up late.  I was about to head out of practice and they were about to start this punishment (laps, again don't understand giving running as a punishment to runners but whatever).

One of the hardworking upperclassman starts making passive aggressive remarks.  I see that if the person who was late says he didn't care and if he has something to do he would be late, regardless.  The upperclassman got pissed the guy just didn't care and things got heated quickly.  Thankfully it calmed down quickly but it didn't need to go down that way in the first place.

If the offensive guard was late for football practice someone else would have had to fill in and things would have been different.  That one kids showing up late didn't effect anyone but himself.

Treat the team as individuals.  If they aren't working hard to the point where it's a problem, like they are encouraging others to do nothing then kick them off the team.  But don't punish the good ones because of idiots.  It only creates unnecessary tension.

Individual practice punishment team track and field