If They're Not Sick, They're Injured: Part 1

There's something that I've started to call the absence trifecta and it is injury, illness, and weather. And if you have not experienced one or all of those three things this season, then you are a unicorn and all-star cheer. Hey guys and welcome to the full-out tier podcast. I'm Danielle and I am your host for today. Guys, I am excited to be on here with you today, but I am not alone this week. Isn't that exciting? I have on here with me, Ali Lumis. Ali is the marketing director for next-generation gym owners. And I'm going to let her introduce herself because that is not all she does in the all-star industry. So Ali, welcome to the episode. Yeah, I'm so excited to be here. This is going to be a lot of fun. So I'm Ali. I am full-time with next-gen as the marketing director, like Danielle said. But I also am the program assistant at an all-star gym out here in Rochester, New York, called Dynamic Elite. I've been there for gosh, over 10 years, coaching, and then bending the program assistant for the last couple of years there. So yeah. So guys, this episode was really inspired by a little bit of complaining, mostly started by me, but then I think everybody in the industry is going to be able to feel this and experience it. Because if you're a coach or an owner or gosh, even if you're a parent, you're going to be able to feel the nature of this episode. Recently, Ali and I have been talking about how hard it has been to coach our teams this season with the rampant illnesses and random injuries. And well, now I just added, I don't even think I told Ali, but I just added to the plate the weather, canceling practices, and Ali's even worse. She's in Rochester. So it's like Tuesday for her to get that kind of snow. But it doesn't mean that it doesn't impact our competitions and our practices. So if you guys have been dealing with this where you're like, what the heck am I going to do with my teams? They're a mess or you know, one more injury and like, I'm just done for the season. Like guys, you're not alone. So Ali, give us a little bit of insight on what your season has looked like and how that would compare to, you know, like last season, for example. Yeah, absolutely. So we get our choreography in August. And you know, we're always super excited right after choreography to get these routines going shortly after that. We had a back spot out for the season season ending back injury. Yeah. And she, of course, is a crossover. And that is just honestly the very, very, very beginning. It has been injury, illness, absences, scheduled and unscheduled. And it feels like our absence policy doesn't mean anything. It really, it just feels like what's the point in having an absence policy? The injuries are kind of half from the gym, half not, you know, or so and so's back has been hurting for a long time. And she just went to the doctor and now she's out. And it just continued on and on and on to the point where now, you know, in the beginning of the year, we tried to cross over as minimal as possible. And now to be completely honest, I have two kids who are crossing between three teams. And we know that that is not a long-term option because that can't happen in all-star worlds. But right now, it's the only option that we have. So same but different for me because I would say same because it feels like we have constant injury and illness. Attendance, like, gosh, I did a whole episode on it. Maybe the most listened to episode in the whole I think it was called the attendance dilemma. So you guys can go back a few episodes and listen to that. But I feel like we've been in such a similar boat with just injury, injury, injury. The difference is that we only do our elite teams only practice four hours a week and that includes their tumbling. And so I get a lot of kids who want to be in the gym more and they want to do more cheerleading than just four hours a week. And like, I don't blame them, that's what I would want to do. And so, but it works, it works really well. And that's where every gym is a little bit different. And so I had a lot of kids this year that wanted to cross over. And so I was, you know, it was tryouts. And I was like, you're a crossover and you're a crossover and you're a crossover. And we, in some ways, like, exercised that crossover right a little bit too generously. Because now I'm limited, you know, we're in the same boat where I have some kids that cross to two teams already. And if I put them in February crossing to a third team, I can't keep them on there for all-star worlds. And so yeah, it was, it's been one heck of a season. And then on top of that, I have dance teams. And so I have a lot of kids who cross over two tier teams and one dance team, which is allowed because dance is different there. And so the idea of those kids then picking up another team, like there's just no way. Even for one competition, three routines in one day is a lot. Yeah. And we've even been saying, you know, like one of my kids who's crossing to three teams, she only tumbles level one. So she's only tumbling on the level one team, right? Or, you know, so she'll be okay because she doesn't tumble on the other two teams. It's gotten to the point where I've taken I think two or three kids off of my senior one team because I need them stenting on the other teams. Yeah, like I just, I've completely shrunk that team down because I'm like, well, you can't realistically cross to three. And same thing like you said, in the beginning of the year, I feel like once teams come out for us, sometimes kids are like, oh, wait, no, I want to cross over. I did want to cross over. But I didn't put that on the questionnaire because I wasn't sure. But then all the sudden, you know, we have a 4.2 team, we haven't had that, you know, then kids want to cross. And of course, who am I to hold them back? And if I think that they're able to be on that team, then let's do it. But yeah, we've sort of exhausted all, all options for kids at this point. So it's been really hard. Yeah. Well, and I think one of the hardest things is, you know, this is like next gen is your full-time job. So then if you have a team that needs recoreography, like, when are you doing it? Because I know it's not Tuesday at noon because you're talking to me on Tuesday at noon. You know what I mean? Like, right, I imagine that's really hard for most coaches because this isn't their full-time job and sitting down and like mapping out the recoreography and making those decisions like it takes time. Yeah, you know what? I will say, yeah, I have a full-time job and most coaches do have a full-time job. Something that I've really tried hard to do this year is set the boundary of like, I will not talk about practice things outside of practice. A, because I have a full-time job. B for my sanity. I already spend so much time at the gym. I can't possibly talk about so-and-so's injury and so-and-so's absence coming up. And what we're gonna do, honestly, it gets to the point where we just make the changes at practice. I don't have time to sit and map out what we're gonna do. And the crazy part is honestly, we just had somebody get diagnosed with mono. She's out for a couple weeks now. We, we asked the kids, you know, do you guys want to compete or do you want to pull and we'll do a virtual or something? Immediately, they all said they wanted to compete and they were all on FaceTime with each other, figuring out what we're gonna do to the routine themselves. So when I got to the gym yesterday, yeah, when I got to the gym yesterday for their two practices, the two fill-in kids knew the routine. Top to bottom, they knew stunt grips, they knew the dance. I didn't have to spend any time teaching, just reviewing, and just, you know, getting reps in. Yeah. So it's, it's the kids. The kids are extremely helpful and the parents. I'm lucky. The parents are, you know, we added in a practice yesterday for two whole teams. Every single kid was there. Nobody was, nobody was missing. Couple kids were a little bit late because they had a high school cheer, but everybody was there, almost 30 kids, you know? And so I have to, I have to give a little bit of credit to the athletes and parents and my gym because it wouldn't work unless they made it work. Yeah. Because yeah, I don't have the time to sit and map out what we're gonna do when these things come up. Yeah. Well, and I imagine that team you're talking about is a junior or senior team? Yeah, they're senior. Yeah. Because if I did that on my youth, too, that I just had to record your graph, I'm pretty sure half the team would be like, okay, Coach, I'll fly. Oh, absolutely. Uh-huh. Yeah. Yeah. I think I, so I had to make like a very creative decision this year because I had a girl. She had mono and then she went ice skating, which I know you're supposed to not do a contact sport. I'm just gonna put it out there. If you're not a solid ice skater, it's kind of a contact sport. But regardless, she broke her foot while she was ice skating. So she was out for mono. So we thought, okay, one competition, just because ours are spread out enough, we're gonna miss her for one competition. I was like, okay, I've already got the solution. I'll figure it out. Not a big deal. Then she broke her foot. And now she's out. Who knows? I basically said, if you're able to come back in full by the mid-February, then we can put you back in the routine for all start world. If not, then at that point, like I can't make too many changes, you know, within six weeks of a giant, you know, our end of season event. Well, anyway, so I started looking at my individual teams, and I got to my youth to them, and it has 20 kids. And so I was like, okay, we have to take a whole stunt down. Well, not that we have to. You actually, yes. And one of our sequences, we are maxing out three elite skills with all five groups. And there are skills that really would be probably a little bit too hard for them to try to do with just a base in a back spot, such as an extension. So, to extension. So anyway, I had to make that decision of like, what are we going to do? And these poor flyers, like, which of them is coming down, like, this just sucks. And I'm going to break hearts. And that's just not that's not my jam either. And so, luckily, I was looking at this. I'm like, wait a minute. This kid who broke her foot was also across over to senior three. And she tumbled a lot. And I'm going to be missing a lot of tumbling on that team. One of my flyers on youth, too. If I move her to senior three, I get all the tumbling I need because she can fill that spot. And I don't have to pull a flyer. And most likely, she's going to be okay with it because she would get to fly a prep and pyramid on senior three and get to all that tumbling she's worked so hard for. So, and Ali, the most beautiful thing happened. They were opposites and dance. Oh, so amazing. Yeah. And I'm not saying it didn't take two practices to make all that happen. But I was like, I really was had to think outside the box to think like, how do I not make this take five practices, you know, for you. Yeah. Yeah. And that's the thing too. It's like, I feel like every single practice, somebody is filling in, whether it's just for the day or it's permanently or it's for a few weeks, you know, even if somebody's missing for the day, I try to have a fill in come in. But I just feel like we're spending, you know, we go to the first stunt section, right? And I'm like, okay, warm up. Oh, so and so doesn't know their grips. Okay, this group go to that group, teach the grips. It's we don't we're not getting in all the reps that we need to because I'm constantly teaching people new things. Yeah. Yeah. I agree to that. Hey, shout out to those kids who are willing to come in and fill those spots. I recently told my co-coach on senior three. I'm like, hey, there's a kid on junior two who she doesn't have the tumbling, but like she's a good backspot. And we're losing two backspots next year because they're seniors. And I said, maybe we should ask that kid to come be at practice every so often when we're doing stunting or fill in when one of the others is sick because I don't think that she would expect to make a level three. And I don't think she'd feel very confident unless she got a chance to stunt at level three a little bit. So yeah. And honestly, one of the kids that I pulled off of our senior one, that's exactly what we did. It was middle of the year. We needed somebody to fill in on the level three team. And you know, she's friends with a lot of kids on that team. So she's like, hey, I can come and try. I bet I can do it. I'm like, you backspot on level one, but at this point, I'm out of options. So yep, come try it. That kid is now permanently on our level three team and not on the level one team anymore. Yeah. Because we gave her that opportunity to come in and stunt. She's so strong. She's so strong, you know. Yep. Well, I suppose some of those skills, I mean, could kind of be level. I switch up to heel stretch. Like just don't grab a hand. And yeah, it's now level three. Yeah. And arguably level one, honestly, to me, it's hard. It's very hard. Level one. Especially for the senior kids who are used to stunting higher than level one. They're like, yeah, how do I need to have the ankle? Like, what is this grip? You know, it's right. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. And if you get flyers who fly at level two, and then they also fly at one, they're like, but hold on now, I have to reach down in this. I'm doing a TikTok. And you're telling me to stand up and like engage my core. But now I have to like lean over and grab this hand of the super short kid. Yeah, it's, you're right. It's super hard. So as we're going through, like, just give us a range of some of the injuries because I think this is one moment where, and coaches can connect. Give us a range of some of the injuries you're seeing. And do you think, like, I guess it's important to note, did those happen, you know, outside of the gym, which is what we see so often. And how'd you guys handle it when kids called and were like, I broke my finger. Like, how what's the policy in your gym? Yeah. So I've, I've joked that I, I'm a desk. I have a folder where we put all the doctors notes. And that folder is so heavy. That folder should never have that many pieces of paper in it. It's, it's scary. It is. And so yeah, we started off this season with a back injury. We've had all kinds of ankles. We've had different boots. For example, I know one kid was out for a little while. She had just came back. I believe it was her first event back. She tripped on her way onto the mat, did the whole routine and then came off and was like, I can't walk. And I'm like, what do you mean you can't walk? Yeah. She heard her ankle. She was out for weeks. She's just coming back in February. And she, I talked to her last night. She's since September has cheered for three weeks. Oh my gosh. That poor kid. Yeah. Yeah. And other injuries too. I mean, we had a foot injury. And they just, you don't know when they're going to get cleared. So you and I had talked about, you know, the minute a kid goes to the doctor, it's going to be minimally two weeks. But from there, it's not, it's two weeks. And you know, then it's physical therapy. Then is the boot coming off? When are we off the crutches? You know, who could know? I mean, and even yeah, most recently, we lost two more kids off of the senior three and the senior 4.2. We had changed everything. And then they practiced this past Sunday, Monday, Tuesday, Wednesday morning. I found out one of our kids has bono on both of those teams. And so, yeah, then last night we had that extra practice to put two more fillings in. And then we compete this weekend. And yeah, it has just been, it's been a mix of things. Do I feel like they're all from cheer directly? I mean, it's hard to say, is it overuse? Is it like, I mean, I will say we haven't knock on one, have had a ton of instances where like something happens and, you know, somebody's leg is broken. Knee is hurt. Like at the gym kind of thing. Yeah. Seems like a lot of it is more like wear and tear. The one athlete that was off of senior three and senior 4.2 recently, she in warm-ups came off of her shoulder sit kind of funny and the pyramid in her routine in warm-ups. And she's crying. She's like, my ankle really hurts. We're about to go on stage. I'm like, can you stunt? If not, she recently had been absent. So we had a fill in for her. I'm like, I can go try to grab that fill in. I'm like, we can have you not tumble. Of course we can set up that if one kid doesn't tumble, you know, we're safe, which I think is important too. I agree. But she went out and she stunted. She didn't tumble. She did the whole routine stunting and then, you know, two days later, she went to the doctor and she broke her ankle. Oh, so it wasn't broken. It was a tough kid. Yeah. Yeah. I mean, yeah, she, well, because I think we competed on a Saturday so that earlier she could get in to be seen was Monday, you know, so right. Yeah, that makes sense. That makes sense. And I think that's been a hard thing for us this season is that a lot of these injuries are not happening in the gym. And so there's only so much you can do to prevent injuries when they weren't your injuries. You know, and then there's also kind of the freak injuries like we had a girl on senior three breaker finger in multiple places. We were doing, well, we call them Baja's, but the suspended front flip of the twist, I realized the whole country does not call them Baja's and that really throws me off because it's so much faster to say, but well, we call them that too. Yeah. Okay. Perfect. So we were just practicing those and they're actually not even in our routine, but I'd like to add them in by also our worlds. And so we do a suspended front flip. And so the only difference is the flyer was learning to twist and the backspot was learning their grips and stuff like that. And they had, you know, done the skill a whole bunch of times. Well, one of my bases went under and she just went to catch a little high and it we thought maybe it jammed her finger definitely broke it in a couple spots. And so it and she's a senior and this poor kid was just like, oh my gosh, I hope this isn't the end of my season. She just came in back in last week. The one benefit and I won't say there's ever a lot of benefits to getting kids their freshman sophomore year who are like, I'm done with cheer. I'm going to go do high school sports. Like there's not a lot of benefits to that, but like gosh, coaches don't burn the bridge on the way out because what did I do? I to fill in for the girl who broke her finger. I called in a former athlete who left cheer to play volleyball. Then we had the second injury on the broken foot on senior three. I actually called in an athlete who left us to go to another gym years ago. We did not burn that bridge. She had been with us like 10 years and left to go to another gym with higher levels and is no longer cheering there. And so I looked at my business partner and I'm like, I got a weird idea. But what if we call her? It was actually really sweet. She's a senior. And I will say, thank God we didn't burn that bridge because to see that kid who was a tiny in year one on our team, our senior team, her senior year wearing our uniform, even she was like, I kind of made the joke. Okay. I just did. It's I have no filter. But I made the joke. I'm like, it's good to see you finish your cheer, you know, high school cheer career in this uniform. And I kind of made that joke, but she goes, I agree. I missed it. And I was just like, that's the coolest thing ever. Do you want to finish the season? No, I'm kidding. I can't. Yeah, right. I have to have exactly 15. Yeah, I guess that's like one tip to coaches. Don't burn those bridges on the way out if you don't have to because you never know when you may be calling an athlete and saying, is there anyway, sorry, way you can drive six hours to Oklahoma City with us next weekend and be it five practices between now and then. Yeah. And you mentioned two like with with having to have exactly 15 that just made me think too, because now we're talking about recording and all these things. We have been playing the numbers game now. So heavily this past month, where I mean, I feel like I'm going crazy. I coached to my sister and my mom. And we're all sitting next to each other. And I'm like, okay, so when this kid comes back, now we have 24 and we need to have this in this, but now we're at the bottom of the range. And this kid only tumbles on the team, you know, some other kid, she can't base. So it's like, well, we have to pull somebody else on the team. And I feel like I've just been doing that. Like I will get to the gym. And I'm like writing everybody's names down. Okay, that's 15. Okay, well, if we take that, like I had to play that game with my senior one and get them down to 14 because it's the only way that we could figure everything out at this point in the year. Right. Yeah. And I think that's really important to note, actually, because part of something I learned just years ago, and it's in our athlete handbook now, is it will say in there, if your athlete is out due to an injury for, I can't remember the exact length of time, but it's like six weeks or less, we will have somebody fill in for them as long as we have a fill in. And then once they are fully cleared, they will be able to come back in. But it does say in there, just not guaranteed a particular spot, but usually we can get them right back in their spot because we just took someone to fill in for them. It does say in there, if you're out more than eight weeks, I cannot guarantee you're coming back to your team. I can usually put you on a team, but it's probably going to be a lower level that has openings. But you know, when you're building your teams, most people are building pretty smart. We're building to 19 athletes. We're building to 15 athletes. We're building, you know, the 23 because once you hit, and I had to educate parents on this, once you hit a certain number, now I have to put up more stunts. Now my max plus and my pyramid is different. It's essentially re-teaching something that another athlete or a group of athletes had all season to learn. Now you're expecting four kids to pick it up in, you know, two weeks. And I think that's an unreasonable expectation of athletes too. You know, and a lot of stress that they don't need. Yeah, it's a lot of stress on them. And yeah, me and my owner have sat down multiple times like, okay, well, we need to add this sentence to the handbook now. Yeah, because of this injury, you know, and we, I feel like we have just made that section so lengthy. But yeah, that's a great tip for, you know, coaches and owners. You need to have things in your handbook that back you up when it comes to injuries because if somebody's out for three weeks and they come back, you know, the practice before you compete, well, are you, are they expecting that they're getting put into the routine that day? Right, right. Coaches, of course, are like, no way. We just had to replace you for three weeks. But do you have, you know, things set that they understand, no, you can't just pop right it back into your spot. You need a certain amount of practices with the team before you come back on, you know, those kinds of things. So yeah, you're right. And I imagine there's coaches out there that are like, but what if what if it's, you know, this amazing athlete that can just step right in? What if it's a non-tumbler? What if it's my best back spot? And you know, create the policy as firm as it really should be for the average kid. I would rather be the good guy that's like, Hey, listen, I know it says that she needs to be back two weeks before our next competition. But like, I really do think she can pick this right back up. I'd rather be the good guy that makes somebody happy than the bad guy that's like, Oh, no, I know it doesn't say two weeks, but it's two weeks. You know, yeah. And I hate to be like, well, according to policy, you know, like, I don't want to have to say that. But yeah, we did that with an athlete. She was out with a back injury, but we were able to put her back in. And she doesn't stunt and she doesn't tumble as of right now. So yeah, we were able to pop her back in. We never filled her dance spot. So she went right back into that. And in that situation, yeah, she was fine to come right back in. I think it was the last practice before we competed. Sure. But if it's somebody basing everything and tumbling like, no, it's not enough time. So right. I agree. Yeah, it's it's funny that you said on dance that you never filled her spot because it's like my favorite thing to get on dance. You have a hole or your dance looks uneven. And I'm like, I know Karen, it's uneven because a kid called out today or I know Karen, it's off because, you know, so and so broker ankle two days ago, and it gets to the point where like the dance is the last thing I might to do is. So when I'm fixing the routine, and if we don't get to dance, I'm sorry, but we're not filling that spot. And it's just going to have to look like that. Yeah. Yeah. Sorry, dance judges. Please don't judge me poorly next weekend because I made fun of that. But no, and I get it. Like they have to tell you because what if you just miss it? Like that's true. But Allie, you're so right. Like a dance is the last thing I usually fix because nobody's going to die in dance. Like nobody's going to have major injuries because we didn't fill a spot in dance. Whereas, you know, if you don't fill a basing spot, like you're in trouble. Allie, there was actually one other thing you just said. And it was along the lines of like that policy. One thing that I've just started doing is when we get an athlete who's injured and they're going to be out one I like I had this yesterday. How do youth one girl who this was weird? She evidently she broke her finger. That's what the x-ray shows, but she broke it during her tumbling class that's before a little practice they do. And so she broke it during that class came to practice and said, man, my finger really hurts, but this is just a little kid. And she I think my youngest kid on youth one and did all of her tumbling, did full outs, stayed three fourths of the team tumbling portion, and then asked the coach, can I go can I go talk to my Mimi for a second? And it was basically she showed her her finger and the finger was huge. But like there's 14 kids on like we didn't I'm not looking at every kid's finger, like I didn't you didn't even tell me it hurt. But it was wild because this kid had like multiple fractures at the growth plate and like just kept going. So one of the conversations I called she lives with Mimi and I called Mimi yesterday. And I said, hey, I want to before you get this x-ray, I just want to talk through the scenarios. I know I can wait four hours and we can just say it like it is, but I feel like it's better if we talk about the what if so that I can put your mind at ease. You know, if she's out, I started actually I started with the good, hey, best case scenario, nothing is broken. And she we're going to tape it to the other finger just so she feels a little bit better if it was jammed. And then she's going to push through just like she did it tumbling before she told you it hurt. You know, her grandma was like, oh, yes, that is the best case scenario, perfect. And I said worst case scenario, though, I've already got somebody ready to fill in. This person already knows that they'll be filling in probably one competition, but we'll have to wait and see what the doctor's note says, blah, blah, blah. And then today I'm going to just send her our, hey, just to be sure we're super clear now that we know that it's broken, you know, page six of the athlete handbook. Here's the link just so we can review it. Make sure we're all on the same page. Can't wait to get that doctor's note that says she's cleared. So like you're you're reinforcing you're giving the potential like best case scenario, worst case scenario. You are giving them the process like the system as written at the beginning of the season before anybody even signed up. And then we're also going to give a little gift to the athlete. We have these eagles that we ordered that have the twisters logo on them because it's like our season of patriotism. And with like a little card that our team signs and she's going to come. And I don't know how you do it. This is a good question actually with injured athletes. We have them dress out the day of competition. They go to warmups with us. And they're like a little assistant coach the whole time. Even if it's a tiny like they're a little assistant coach. They help carry water bottles. And then they go out and actually she'll sit with me in the coaching area while her team performs. So is that. Yeah. So when it comes to when it comes to competition day. Yeah. Absolutely. They will come to warmups with us. They'll sit right with us in the front the exact same thing that you said. I will say though something that we have talked about this year is that our policies. You know the handbook states x y and z but as far as reaching out and following up and staying you know up to date with all the appointments and all the days that they're going to maybe get cleared cleared. We have to put place because genuinely there are days where I will spend a whole hour following up via email on injuries. And it's just it just gets you know and I I want the athletes to know that we care about them and yes. But of course when when an athlete's injured what's the first thing that you think of is it while I feel so bad this poor kid or is it immediately what am I going to do to fix this? Yeah because it needs to be both right but mine is always usually okay what are we going to do to fix this? Right. Well and that's fair. Coach is going to damage control mode and it's not that we're not thinking about the one athlete that's injured. It's that we're trying to remember the other 19 athletes that aren't injured and like how do I how do I make this a good experience for the one who's injured but also not detract from the experience of the other 19 because and the bad part is like every kid I have who gets injured feels horrible they know how important their role is on a team. Every parent of a kid feels horrible because they know how important that role is and that now we're not spending practice time you know upgrading our stunts we're not spending it working on secretization we're working it teaching somebody their spots. I think it's also valuable to know you know those athletes that are filling in like God bless you all. We actually had the one who will be filling in for this one who broke her finger my manager Melanie called the mom and the mom so she knew right away why we were calling. She's like yep I figured that's what it was and I'm so grateful that they're like always up for it because it's hard. I mean man when I had 28 all stars I don't have a lot of kids to fill in. It was recoreography every single time so for owners and coaches doing that like I feel for you because I've been there and it's one of the biggest reasons that you have to grow your program and if I can do it in a town of 20,000 and Samantha can do it in a town of 1,000 anybody can do it. So for those athletes I guess you know as we're talking about like the the tips and the things that you can do to make it a little bit better for them. For those athletes who are filling in I try to be really clear up in the beginning like I need her the rest of the season or I understand that she may be part of a team that's winning a paid bid but she is filling in for this other athlete at this and I try to say it before we ever have the moment of you know winning the bid or winning the whatever. We just try to be really clear like that you know the injured athlete is the one who got us to this point and just like if that were you on your team I want that athlete to be able to go to also worlds with her team. That said if they don't get cleared in time you know we'd love to have you because you helped get us the remainder of the way. So and I think I hear a lot of gym owners who run into the issue because they didn't prepare the fill-in and I think that's important to remember. Yeah I think it's super important to just have those policies and things that you are going to say to the fill-in athlete of hey this is the amount of weeks we need you for but after these three weeks so and so might be cleared or she might not so we also might need you after that but yeah with the bids and everything I mean even my my poor team reps this year they'll come up to me and be like can I have a new roster for Lady Teal because I thought so and so was on the team but she hasn't been at practices lately like it it has been you know and then it's like they're they're gifting things to a certain team with their team logo and the fill-in kid doesn't get something and I'm like oh yeah I forgot to tell you that kid been filling in for four weeks now like she probably should get the team gifts it's hard yeah and I know they can't always do that because sometimes they order things but one thing I've started doing is we use Facebook group so I think you guys use band right on communication for teams we use staff this year oh okay so yeah we use staff okay I've never heard of that one one of the things that we started doing was I will actually add the parent into the team Facebook group and introduce them so like yesterday I was like hey guys bad news Alia's finger is broken we're super sad for her she'll still be there at competition cheering you guys on in the meantime Bella will be filling in this is her mom and I tag the mom and say you know and here's what the next week or two is gonna look like and my my last one I've started putting on there I'm like please show Alia your love when she's there because she's gonna feel really sad and I know she didn't want to let the team down but we also know that Bella will do a great job filling in for her and so that that parent gets already added into that group so one everybody knows at that point like exactly what happened but two the coolest thing is most of the time those parents start searching the group for videos and like as of last night are filling because we don't have practice till Sunday and the wall and they get two practices but that girl who's filling in as of Sunday mom was like I've already seen a few videos she pretty much understands the layout of the routine and I think she'll be good to learn dance I'm like that's awesome maybe we'll actually get to yes practice on Tuesday right and that's so helpful to just have it systemized in that way where it's like okay we have a fill in here's the you know different things that we need to do do you need to is it long term do you need to add them to the email groupings like for us we use stack team app and we have like different team group chats do we need to add them to that group chat if you know like yeah there needs to be systems in place so that you know you can just follow those things because yeah it's so important and it's really important to show that injured athlete love and that's something that I'm honestly not always the best at because I'm constantly in panic mode of what are we going to do to fix this and you know these are kids yeah they're upset to not be cheering you know they're they're hurting physically if something's wrong and so I think it's important as coaches owners as well but coaches too of the team like show those injured athletes some love because they're hurting and they don't want to sit there and watch the team going about them right yeah talk about you know the system you never wanted to write but you really need to have is like what do we do when we have an injured athlete because I you're right we focus so much on the routine itself that I think sometimes we forget about the the human side of it like the person side of like you know there's that and there's checking in on the athletes which by the way I'm going to teach your owner how to use NG engine because you could just set up automated updates asking for updates every Monday or to say whatever day you want okay guys so we filmed like Ali and I could literally talk forever on this so we actually cut this into a two-part episode so you are going to have to join us next week to hear the second part of the episode where we also go into some weather stuff and talk about like how we've been handling this wild weather that we have seen this season so with that you guys thanks for joining us on this episode and join us again next week for part two