Help

[wyosciencenerd]

This year was my last year on Division B (and this year we finally made it to Nationals!) and I am now moving up to Division C. All of the now tenth graders on my team (myself included) are all very concerned about what will be our new team. You see, our high school has a really, really bad team. They virtually have to recreate their whole team every single year because people know about their bad reputation and they never have a coach that will stick with it more than one year. The coach this year was really bad. What the kids on C told me was that she basically told them where to get a book for their events and then she let them run wild. She never checked in with them to make sure they were ready for their events or anything. They didn't get one medal at state this year (and we had to ride the bus home with them and you know, we won state, they didn't get a single medal. It was very uncomfortable).

Now, I do have good news, my coach from Division B is going to contact the principal of my high school to try and see if she could coach Division C on top of B because she's the only one who actually knows how to run a Science Olympiad team. Also, this year's coach doesn't seem interested in running it again. I don't see any reason why the principal would say no, however, if he does, do any of you have an idea to keep a team running and to get a coach who's interested?

I hope this post didn't sound too whiny, but we're desperate for ideas! Thanks so much in advance! I appreciate it!

[Mr. Cool]

Ask one of the dedicated science teachers at your school. And try to get more than one coach, maybe a coach who specializes in a specific event. Just ask random science teachers at your school and see if they are interested. Our high school has the same problem. No coaches, the students are basically on their own from the start. They find their own study materials. Luckily they actually medaled at state, but only because my older brother, who goes to the school and was a master in division B, but didn't do division C, was begged to join the team and ended up medaling in 2 in of his 3 events.
But seriously, just ask around and encourage your team mates to study.

[sachleen]

We have 2 main coaches, but most of the teachers in the science department help out a lot. We have a coach for just about every type of event there is, the bio teachers help the bio kids, the chem teachers help chem kids, physics and physics, our coach is a monster with rocks and earth stuff, and even the engineering/CAD teachers help us out. So I would talk to a bunch of teachers and ask if they would like to help the kids doing related events. The more people you talk to the better

[wyosciencenerd]

Thanks to all of you for replying! I am grateful. That's how we did it in Division B too, everyone had a coach for a specific event, but we do feel the need for a head coach too, for stuff like arranging bus rides and using the school credit card to buy supplies because unfortunately, the school will not give students their credit card. I hope things will work out for us!

Again, thanks so much!

[sachleen]

Right, you will need someone to organize and do the paperwork for you. Once you get some teachers on board ask them who would be interested in doing that and they probably know more about getting money from the school this than you do so just ask.

[dudeincolorado]

well if it's an issue of finding a coach get some one for the paper work and then for the events did you try student coaches? it seem out there but it works (at least in my case) just get some of the senoirs or even juniors to help with the freshmen and sophmors. most of the stuff you learn in class will somehow go back to SO. for us we just read the rules many many times and then had trips to the libray or serched the webto find info. of course some events do need more then just reaserch we found a host teacher everyday of the week to do stuff they didn't do much more then sit there and grade papers except the occasional chem storage trips and wal-mart runs but that was it. hopr this helps

[Jturtle]

I'm also on the team that she posted about above. I just wanted to thank everyone for their advice.

I was also curious if most high school teams had freshmen on them?

Our freshmen attend the junior high but I thought we might include them at the high school if they are willing.

[sachleen]

We always have one freshman on our team. For the three years I have been on the team, two times a freshman has medaled (one was me, during my freshman year) so it's been fairly good for the team to have a freshman, who will probably stay on the team for 4 years and be the most experienced during his/her senior year and lead the team well.

[dudeincolorado]

my high school team has like 5 people so anyone is welcome

[Matthew]

It's great that your middle school team coach will coach the high school coach, but I'm more concerned with the underlying problem: you said the C team can't hold a coach for more than one year. This sounds like the real problem. Would you care to expound a little on what's happened? It sounds like you need to fix this before you can really start to build a C team.