A local HC was lamenting to me the other day that with his seniors leaving the program, he is also going to lose his very valuable Team Mom! Cuz her son is a Senior! He said he even asked her if she would come back next year. No such luck. Her son is graduating and she is done.
Now he has to go out and “beg” someone else to take over the duties of being Team Mom. I suggested that developing a Team Mom is just like developing players at the (very important) Quarterback position! You need to have a younger one in the program that you bring along. When he’s ready to step in to the starting role, he already has a good idea of what is expected of him and what he needs to do. The same thing goes for the Team Mom position.
I was fortunate that when I coached at Nansemond-Suffolk Academy, I had tremendous parental support. I inherited a Team Mom who’d been trained by the previous Team Mom as to what was involved in doing her job. The transition was seamless. The moms taught me the right way to go about this. They already had the transition process in place. A designated “Team Mom In Training” was learning the ropes during the season prior to her taking over the head job. Those ladies had even put together a “Book” (it looked like a scrapbook!) of information and tips to help guide the Team Mom throughout the year. They even had a little ceremony where they “handed off” The Book to the next Team Mom! It was pretty cool.
It was so nice to know that I didn’t have to go looking for a new Team Mom each year. The moms were actually training to take over. A couple of years they even worked at Co-Team Moms. That was fine with me. They got the job done and nobody was overwhelmed by all of the duties they had to perform. They were always nice enough to get my final “seal of approval” before the new Team Mom was inaugurated; but, I’d already seen the “mom in training” in action so there was never a problem. It was always nice to pick up the phone to ask the new Team Mom to accept her new role knowing that she was willing and able to take over.
It’s another of those little things that you need to take care of it or it can become a big deal if you don’t! As a Head Coach, you need to be able to delegate. Having a player’s mom who can handle things like pre-game meals, your team banquet and such is a tremendous burden off of you. Meet with your moms and explain how you want to do this. When they know that they are doing it for their boys as much (or more) than they’re doing it for you, I think you will find that you will get a LOT of cooperation and help!
