Last week I received a great question about when athletes are expected shoot. The question asked if athletes need to shoot with their teammates or if they could shoot whenever they wanted on their own. The answer is simple and that is we expect all athletes to compete with each other each week. Although youth shooting sports can be looked at from an individual’s perspective we need to make sure that the athletes on your team treat this as any other team sport.
As we all know by now the weather can change in an instant. It’s only fair to everyone on your team to try and shoot in the same conditions. It becomes a huge problem if you have fair weather shooters who only shoot on nice days. Ultimately this can lead to skewed scores and potentially cheating. Make it clear to your athletes that this IS a team sport and that they will be shooting alongside their teammates.
Aside from the weather shooting together builds camaraderie and character among coaches and athletes. Keep in mind that you are preparing your team for competition and eventually tournaments at the end of the season. Tournaments are held in one day and shot as a team so there should not be any reason to do any different in the competition season.