What do us coaches need to know? Seriously. What works, what annoys (but still works), and what doesn't work (but is still fun, so do it anyway)?

Like cheesecake parties... good, bad, or the reason you're in Decathlon?

Cheesecake parties are good, since my team is redneck-y we do a crawfish boil, but to each his own. We take a trip to the MFAH every year, which is loads of fun. Some of the things I think helped our team were constant practice tests, making everyone do a project on some subject area (probably the easiest way to get people who are reluctant to study to learn the materials), and then saying that a certain meet is gonna be a multiple test grades forcing people to study, and then being nice and giving everyone A's. Snacks in the ad room, though often used are also rather effective.

DO NOT keep things that can be used as swords at easy reach. That has been quite a pitfall for us recently. Also, if we're going for the reason I'm in, it's getting medals. Never underestimate the drive that can come from getting the first medal. That's what caused me to put myself into it with much effort. In short, AWARDS WORK. Wonderful motivation to do it.

Yeah, all of this. My coach once threatened to attach razor blades to the sides of his yardsticks so I'd stop tossing them around during practice.

Actually, keep one thing that can be used as a sword, and then give it to your highest scoring varsity, and whenever someone slacks off, if they scored less than him at the previous competition, they get whacked. Then again, maybe it was only my team that had lazy honors...

Well our situation is a bit more extreme. Our coach teaches AP Lang, and she likes to have fake swords so they can act out the Shakespeare better. So she has 5 foam swords and 5 nice width dowels duct-taped on one end to look vaguely silver. So make sure to watch out for that.

Always be sure to tell your kids how underwhelming their test scores are and crush their egos until they're frothing at the mouth with anger at you to prove you wrong.

Know your types of kids. Lure in Honors with the promises of 'Great for college admissions!' and show off the binder. Lure in Varsities with promises of Nerf Gun Wars and food.
Help foster a brotherhood between the teammates. This makes them feel not only responsible to do well individually, but also as a team (its easier to quit if you're by yourself and you don't feel like you are screwing over the whole team).
Before meets, my coach always had pencils, erasers, gum, and batteries in gift bags. It a. ensured that everyone had everything they needed and b. gifts are awesome.
Help foster the competitive spirit in the kids. Pre-scrimmages, some kids (especially first years) find it hard to find the drive to want to spend their evenings studying AcaDec. My coach went to me and told me that I had the potential to take first over all in my category if I worked harder. She went to my best friends and told them the same thing. Our scores went up considerably because of this.
We would split up packets, and create 'sparknotes' for each section which we would then present to the class. This helped us learn the material, and right before competition we could review our notes instead of rereading the whole binder.
Have a 'clank day' after every competition. Let/tell your kids t wear their medals the next school day. Not only does it give them recognition (and thus feel good about themselves and want to study harder), but it helps generate student interest for joining next year.
Keep a score chart in a prominent place.
Right before competitions, some kids call out of school, and just come into the library/aca dec room/hallway and study silently AcaDec for the whole school day.

The main reason to do Decathlon, but only if they are porkless.

I know that teams already do this a lot, but still,
medals and ribbons even for minor competitions.

I always studied just a little harder so that I could ensure my number one varsity ribbon.

Ask the principal for Varsity Letters (given to all the team members) and graduation cords

For honors and scholastics, get the smartest kids in the school. Chemistry can be worked out later, and if it can't, who cares. Competition is good. I don't really know about varsities. When I was still competing, we got "C" students who were just as smart as the top honors, yet they consistently failed to reach 7k. I don't know if I just never got them motivated or what. Work ethic is more important than intelligence when it comes to varsities.

Work ethic is important when it comes to everyone.

Get just the smartest kids? I don't really agree with that at all. Some of the smartest kids I knew made for some of the worst decathletes I've ever seen.

Yes, work ethic is important for everyone, but most honors and scholastics are already pretty motivated.

At my school, no one was really going to do any work, so having smarter people meant that they could cram more in at the end and at least do decently well.

Also, and this may only be my school, I have noticed that the more honors and scholastics who are juniors, the worse the team performs.

But remember...I'm from California, so my idea of "motivated" might be 90000000x more magnified than your idea of "motivated".

Tell your team straight up that they can do decathlon to have fun, or do decathlon to WIN and have fun.

Make sure everybody knows it's srs bsns. Point out medals, scholarships if you get them, plus colleges digging it.

Get competitive people.

Always be sure to point out "You think the boys at <insert name of rival school> are slacking!?" and then tell them their 43/45 on the super quiz practice test isn't cutting it.

Unfortunately for our team, this is a serious issue (NOT joking here).




I don't exactly agree with that. We recruited brilliant kids into AcDec who were extremely offensive and large-headed (egotistically). Team chemistry didn't work out at all and the whole year was terrible. The motivation was lacking, especially because people didn't have friends to compete with, people who they would be proud to beat. Even some of the MOST motivated students skipped meetings because the meetings weren't filled with likeable people.

In my opinion, people who join decathlon for scholarships either never strive to be the best, or they don't enjoy the "team" spirit of decathlon, which is the most rewarding thing it offers.

You make a great point by saying "Get competitive people". Some of the smartest people are only smart because they do what they need to for a good grade. Competitive people are still smart, but they will do anything to prove themselves, a perfect lure for decathlon.

It seems that my school is just the odd one out. The smartest people were big-headed, but so were the people who really weren't that smart at all. I actually got along very well with the smart kids; it were the not-so-smart people that made me want to skip practice. Also, I don't feel proud to beat my friends. I get a lot more out of beating people I don't like. I probably stand alone on this, but I know for a fact that my team last year could have scored several thousand points higher had a few people been replaced with smarter kids.

Your school might just be full of jerks.

I can't deny the veracity of this statement.

Or they drop out and you don't have a team anymore. (Believe me, I wish this worked.)

This is what happens outside of California.

Now you're getting it. B)

The quitters were already weeded out during the first round of testing. The ones that remain are the ones insane enough to stick it out.

One of my friends, a former state champ in Honors, had a great quote about recruiting, "You get A's by showing them medals, B's by giving them food, and C's by telling them Acadec might give them the chance to make up for bad grades and still get a good college."

(We call Honors "A's", Scholastics "B's", and Varsity "C's", typically)

I think you have your scholastics and varsities mixed up. Food is best for varsities.

Your friend is a poor recruiter.

Varsities are slave labor. Treat them as such.

What's a scholastic? An honors that doesn't get A's in AP classes. Exploit that chip on their shoulder! EXPLOIT IT.

Typically Scholastics are honors that don't get A's out of lazyness. They don't really care about the "chip on their shoulder."
Varsities on the other hand are honors that don't get A's or B's out of sheer indifference.

Speaking as a scholastic, all scholastics are bitter balls of hate, one way or another.

Your assessment of varsities is frighteningly optimistic.

Our varsities brought their indifference to decathlon as well.

Your varsities suck.

Yeah gonna side with OCM here although I wasn't a scholastic. This is definitely true.

Hahahahahaha. No.

You get Varsities with food. You get great Varsities on sheer luck. There is no way to mold a bad Varsity into a good Varsity. You simply teach the bad Varsities to only care about Super Quiz, and then they get to take your V-3 spot for the Relay.

You get great varsities by treating them like slave labor.

Which they are.

I swear, I shaped up a varsity into a near 8k scorer through the sheer power of disrespect and damning with faint praise.

"That's a good art score...for a varsity. HAHAHAHAHA"

*Leans back in chair and puts feet on the table with a face*

Hate to disagree with you, but I was a scholastic in this millenium and I never considered myself a "bitter ball of hate."

Grade inflation. You're actually a varsity.

I imagine that in OCM-land that's considered an insult. It has given me the idea that the only place unaffected by this "grade inflation" is CA, which explains the redonkulous varsities coming out of there. It's a conspiracy I tell you! A CONSPIRACY!

Stop sounding so bitter.

The scholastics on my former's school team are like fifth and eighth in their class of 450. What up with that?

probably "weighted" AP classes. if a student gets an 85 in an AP class it shows as such on the transcript. however, for class ranks many (most) schools add weight to the grade. i.e. 10 or 15 pts. it's completely a local decision. thus, the 85 would get calculated into the gpa ranks for the school only as a 95 or 100. our top scholastic is ranked 6th for this reason, as PreAP gets weighted 5 pts and AP gets weighted 15.

Right. My weighted GPA was 3.98 and I was 9th in my class of 2400. This was all due to weighing the AP classes I took.

Haha you were relatively ranked much higher than me despite being a scholastic while I was an honors. 9th out of 540. My high school had 8 people with a weighted GPA over 4.6. Grade inflation was utterly RIDICULOUS. Now be more impressed with our scores, heh.

I knew it had to do with AP courses and weighting, but last semester, one of the scholastics was fourth and an honors was fifth. They have since changed spots. Also, in my year, someone who was like twentieth was an honors. Used to, scholastics at my school barely cracked the top ten percent. It's getting ridiculous now. Anyone not in the top two or three in their class is no longer an honors.

the irony in a smaller district is that there are fewer honors to choose from... crazy as that sounds. our top four are honors and then it starts with scholastics. honors can be found further down in the class rank but they are students not taking AP courses or just a few so they aren't really the strongest students.

if not for the food I can't imagine what would put a varsity into a chair at practice. once you get them in the room it's fine, but I agree, food for the varsities. sholastics are usually there because of a bad subject or two but otherwise a good student. they are the ones who need to be reassured that they can still get into a great college despite some B's

You guys do realize that scholastics can compete as honors, right? Same for a varsity as a scholastic or...varsity as honors. Although I don't know anyone who would want to do that. lol

Yes I realize that. And?