Safety

PracticeField provides general educational resources. It is not medical advice, certification, legal advice, or a source of official league rules. Your league, facility, school, and governing body set the rules that apply to you. Follow them, and complete any training your organization requires.

Core principles

• Follow the applicable league, facility, school, and governing-body rules at all times.
• Complete the training your local organization requires before coaching.
• Do not diagnose injuries, and do not make return-to-play decisions. When an injury or concussion is suspected, remove the athlete from activity and follow your organization's emergency and medical process.
• Have an emergency action plan: know the facility address, the nearest AED, and how to reach emergency contacts for every player.
• Never use exercise as punishment.
• Never withhold water. Build water breaks into every practice.
• Avoid humiliating elimination activities; keep eliminated players active or use point systems instead.
• Avoid mismatched collision activities. Pair players of similar size for any contact-adjacent work, and follow age-appropriate contact boundaries set by your league.
• Check equipment and the playing surface before every practice: holes, wet spots, loose hardware, broken gear.
• For sport-specific legal rules (pitch counts, heading restrictions, contact rules), defer to your league and governing body.

Official resources

We intentionally do not paraphrase medical protocols. Use the current official sources:

• CDC HEADS UP: free concussion education for youth coaches.
• U.S. Center for SafeSport: abuse-prevention resources and training for coaches.

PracticeField is not certified by or affiliated with these organizations; we link to them because they are the appropriate authorities.

On this site

Every practice plan carries safety notes specific to its activities. For team culture, see Building a Positive Team Climate.

Found a safety problem in our content? Contact us and we will correct it.