New Division B head coach, remote-first program in Texas — requesting 2 or 3 mentor calls

[Sarah Langdon]

Hi coaches,

I'm new to the list. I've just taken on the head coach role for a new Division B program at GT Anywhere — a remote K-8 school based in Texas. We're building from zero for the 2026–27 season: 15 kids across Texas, grades 6–9, Science Olympiad as a core part of the school day rather than an after-school activity.

Our 11 events: Anatomy & Physiology, Disease Detectives, Entomology, Heredity, Dynamic Planet, Meteorology, Solar System, Rocks and Minerals, Codebusters, Experimental Design, Metric Mastery.

One wrinkle: the team is geographically distributed. Practices will be virtual; regionals and states we handle in person.

I'm registered for the Content + Build clinic in Naperville in July. Before I get there, I'd like to learn from 2 or 3 of you — 30-minute Zoom calls with experienced head coaches. Especially keen to connect with anyone who's coached a distributed or remote team, but I'd value time with any veteran Div B coach.

Specifically I'd like to understand:

• How you structure practice across the event slate with kids training 3 events each
• Recruitment and selection process
• What you'd do differently in year one if you were starting today
• Resources you wish you'd had earlier

Happy to reciprocate however would be useful — share our playbook, connect people in our network, compare notes later in the season.

If this isn't the right channel, I'd welcome a pointer.

Thanks, Sarah Langdon Head Coach, Science Olympiad GT Anywhere | Georgetown, TX sarah....@gt.school

[Sarah Langdon]

[Larry Hsieh]

Congrats Sarah! First year in itself can be a bit much and you definitely have some unique challenges but workable to still have a successful first year program. It's tough but very rewarding.

One of the biggest hurdles is that your kids are spread out and Texas can be a BIG place. The challenge will be how to make the virtual practices as effective as possible and then transitioning that to in-person comps.

There's lots of satellites available which will lend to the virtual format. Each satellite has its unique rules where they may require the kids to be physically together as the notes are suppose to be share but many satellite organizers can make accommodations if you ask if not there's a whole plethora of others to choose from.

With kids spread out, organizationally it may make sense to group pairs into strands/groups/topics. For instance an Earth Science "pod" of Dynamic Planet, Meteorology, Solar System, and Rocks & Minerals. This way it's the same kids studying and then you can rotate the topic. Where it gets to be a nightmare is having free for all which will make scheduling a nightmare. It's less autonomy for the kids but it will keep you sane.

The virtual practices will be a big hurdle as you really don't want their first meeting together be regional at least look at some in-state comp like perhaps UT where most of the team can make it, it's okay to filed partial teams, in my mind it's better to have part of the team have some experience vs none having any experience.

Happy to discuss further, just reach out. Best of luck!

-larry

Westpark Elementary SciOly Founding / Head Coach