Practice is Always Mandatory:

After the first day of practice, athletes are expected to attend every practice, every day. This includes any Saturday practices, or practices on Holidays like Labor Day. This also includes coming to both practices on "2-a-days" in August. Practices are never optional, they are always mandatory for every player.

Your PLAYER Needs to Contact the Coaches if he's going to be absent:

We believe in teaching your athlete responsibility as part of becoming an adult. As a result, if your athlete is going to miss practice due to a serious illness or academic reason, we require that your athlete contact us in person. We do not believe a parent should be responsible for contacting coaches when the player is perfectly capable of doing that. This also applies to other students at school; I don’t want to hear from Jimmy that Johnny is not going to be at practice, “because I think they had a dentist appointment after school.”

If your athlete is at school, they are at practice:

This is pretty simple. If your athlete feels well enough to attend school, they need to be at practice.

If your athlete needs a ride TO or FROM practice, they can always contact their teammates:

We believe our team should act like a family, and as such, they should help each other (there is a consent form in the athletics office to release players to ride with another). If one player needs transportation to or from a practice or team building event, there are many teammates who drive who can help get him transportation.

Family Birthday Parties, Part-Time Jobs and Babysitting are NOT EXCUSES to miss practice.

We understand that players have other responsibilities in life, and that they have friends and part-time jobs etc. However, we feel that your athlete has made a commitment to their teammates, and because of this, we do not excuse players for these types of activities. We publish our spring and summer calendars well in advance so that players can make arrangements where needed. They should not miss practice or team activities.

Potential Conflicts with other sports must be communicated to Coach Thomas.

We encourage our players to be well-rounded athletes and because of this conflicts between practice times can arise. All we ask of the players is that they communicate these absences directly with Coach Thomas and they make the effort to avoid these conflicts. During the football season we are not allowed to let students miss practice for another sport. This is not a Coach Thomas rule but a WIAA rule.

Coaches will not discuss positions and playing time with Parents, but we will discuss them with the player if he/she asks us to:

We believe that if your athlete has an issue with his current position or the amount of playing time they are receiving in games, that the athlete should speak to the coaches and voice their concerns in a grown up fashion. We will explain to them the reasons for our decisions, and give the athlete ways to improve and increase their playing time. We will not discuss these issues with parents UNLESS your athlete has met with us first. Then the door is open for you as a parent to set up a meeting with us.

Coaches will discuss your athletes health, well-being, attitude, and class work with Parents:

We are educators first, so if you as a parent have concerns about any of these things with regards to your athlete, we are more than happy to discuss them with you and shed any insight we might have. We CARE about ALL of our players from our most experienced seniors to the freshman who are putting on pads for the first time!

Injuries do happen, but we have a Certified Athletic Trainer to help with the process.

Players will complain of a nagging injury to parents and this is part of playing football. We encourage all players in the program to take advantage of the fact that we have an amazing sports medicine program and a certified Athletic Trainer to consult with. For minor injuries, they can receive preventative taping and rehabilitation exercises to help heal faster. When faced with a more serious injury our Athletic Trainers can help direct you and your athlete to experienced sports medicine doctors that specialize in sports injuries. Remember, once your child is seen by a doctor for any injury, he will not be allowed back on the field until we receive a Doctors note clearing him for participation.

Medical and Dental Appointments should be made outside of Practice time:

There are many times that students have dental or medical appointments, and these are often scheduled after the school day has ended even though the athlete is involved in a team sport. This is not an excused absence for your athlete. We believe that because they have made a commitment to their teammates, the athlete should hold to that commitment and schedule his appointments outside of practice time. Please remember that each Monday during the season school starts an hour late and every wednesday we start practice at 5 – this would be a great time for appointments!

Injured players must show up to Practice every day too:

Players who sustain injuries that still allow them to attend classes must report to practice each day. For example, if a player breaks a bone in his wrist, and the doctor requires him to stay out of football for 4 weeks, he must still attend practice every day during those 4 weeks. The athlete will assist the training staff and coaches at practice, and they will need to mentally learn what the team is working on. The only acceptable excuse for missing practice due to an injury is because a doctor has required that you stay home. If your son misses practice when injured this WILL affect his ability to travel to Varsity football games.