What is your attendance policy? Consequences?

Be there or don't play until it's mop-up time or we've gone through just about everyone else. Pretty simple stuff, no confusion.

Unexcused absence - first miss a half, second miss a game, third off the team

Excused absence - may still miss time due to lack of preparation.

Must have prior approval in order to be excused unless it is an emergency situation.

Never excuse - shopping, hair cut, driving hours, hunting or fishing trips, senior pictures, work, or anything else that can be planned around practce time under normal circumstances.

1st tardy is handled on a case by case basis as I see fit. Additional tardies are considered absences.

Very strict I know, but after five years, multiple kids being kicked off the team, and several attempts to have me fired..........kids don't miss practices very often.

Be firm but fair. Stick to your guns. Be consistant.

First unexcused is a game, second is two games, third your off the team. Tardies are 200 yard bear crawl and three tardies equals an unexcused.

wow, very tough. This all apply for your stud two-way QB / OLB week of the big rival game?

I try to keep it vague. Any rule I put out there that is hardline, i'll have to follow.

Attendance = Playtime. Don't attend, playtime gets cut. Leave it at that

Attendance is key to play on the team. You have to be dependable and held accountable for your actions.

If you aren't there you during game week unless its been pre-approved. If not you don' blame unless we are in bad shape health wise. Other than that.. you dont play. In off season if you dont show an effort to make it to atleast 75% of the practices. Its really no reason for you to come out. Unless again it has been discussed of known you have other priorities in place.

We've had to start our 3rd string QB before to make our point and it is a system that has worked well for us. It's scary when your best isn't in the game but I'm a big believer in teaching accountability to the kids. It can seem a bit extreme but we were having horrible attendance problems and this has really changed that for us.

This is right on.

My first year at my school I had a frequent problem with kids ditching practice. Small town, good ol' boy system in place for years. Monday before our first game, 4 starters ditched my practice to go to a Burger King in the next town. I found out (gotta love the small town gossipers) and it was handled. In situations like this, I've found that peer motivation is the best tool in preventing future occurances. I had the kids bring me back some Burger King crowns the next day and the 4 students who missed blew the whistle for the team to do the conditioning they would have had to do. While wearing the crowns. Kids got the point that if they aren't at practice or they put themselves in front of the team, it's the team that gets hurt. All 4 kids had perfect attendance from then on, never had a problem with kids ditching after that.

All of these sound like they apply to missing/being late to practice. What about other events, such as chalk talk, team lifts, etc.? And how do you handle these situations during the summer? We are not able to count summer activities as mandatory until two-a-days. but obviously you want to maintain accountability year round. I am planning on making the conditioning for being late "coach's discretion."

its not mandatory, but they must attend x number of work outs. And again it depends on the player.

they have ways to make up. And then hc turns his back. But hc has final say over who is on team. In this state, his stature, this town, not about to impose players on him. And he is still leaving asap.

We cannot punish a player for not coming to anything out-of-season. Even a "Coach's Discretion" policy would not hold up because it would be pretty obvious why we were punishing the kid and the fact that baseball is a summer varsity sport in Iowa adds another layer of complication. However, and I know this is semantics, players are asked to attend a certain number of summer workouts. For seniors it's roughly 90%, juniors are roughly 80%, and then I think it drops to roughly 60% and 50% for freshmen and sophomores as the kids in those age groups are still sort of figuring out what summer workouts are all about.

Kids that don't hit their numbers have some extra conditioning when official practice starts to get them shape. However, in normal years, we have a youth camp in the spring, a community service in the spring, and other things that let kids get a head start on their numbers. Plus, if a kid comes to morning and evening weights, it counts as two days attended. A player has to almost try to NOT hit their numbers the way we have it set up, but there are always a few who don't.

Agreed. We enforce making up the practice that you missed but we have kids who miss all summer to go and live with their Dad in another state. Can't fault a kid if that's his only chance to see his dad all year. I don't do the case by case basis because that's opening up yourself to bull$hit you don't have time for.

Hard fast rule. You miss you make it up. If you have made it up by the time its game time then you can play if we feel like you are ready to.

If its the whole summer kid it would be 2 weeks of make ups mostly for conditioning purposes and he would be fine