Youth Sports

[Samurai Bucky]

I told my soon-to-be 5-year-old that we could go watch a basketball game at the local high school this Winter and then maybe catch a track meet in the Spring (his mother and I both ran track). He turned to me and said ‘No, Dad. I’m a basketball player.’ And so it begins …

 

Tomorrow he'll be a golfer. The next day it'll be professional pool player. He's 4 LOL

I know … it’s funny to watch him go through these phases. Although, beginning in 1st Grade, I played a different sport every season at the YMCA (flag football, basketball, baseball, and soccer). It was fun. I liked the variety. His reaction to merely watching another sport (track) was amusing.

 

Get this for Xbox, PS5 or his smartphone, and he'll be running Track and Field in no time...

 

[Ron Robinsons Beard]

Right now I'm the assistant coach and defensive coordinator for our school's 7th/8th grade eight-man football team. Last night the kids played their arch rival, and pulled out a tough, close 20-18 win against a team that was previously unbeaten. It was a heck of a game.

 

But what should have been a great night ended up being tarnished when one of the parents of our backup QB/S (a 7th grader) got in the head coach's face and chewed him out for "not playing his kid more" following the game. The head coach let him say his piece, and basically listened before ending the conversation. Then, as the coach turned to walked away, the parent let out a vulgarity when describing this man's coaching skill. The head coach swung around and, instead of decking the parent or yelling, calmly informed the parent that not only did his son not play the first half of last night's game because he decided to skip practice last Wednesday and not tell anyone, he is also not showing any drive or ambition to actually be out there. This is a good-sized kid, but he regularly gets knocked around in blocking drills by kids that he's got 20-30 pounds on, and despite our nearly constant reprimands, he tries to tackle every kid from the shoulders up. He's a good kid, and one of my son's best friend's on the team. But I've told him that I can't put him out on defense until he starts tackling better. This kid has an older brother who was a heck of a high school football player, aggressive as all get out, and very coachable. He's playing at a state DIII school now. I think that part of the problem is that our under-aggressive 7th grader has always been compared to his older bro.

 

Ultimately our head coach calmed the situation down. But just fair warning to you sports parents out there ... if you want to see your kid get more playing time, calling the head coach a (poop) coach is definitely not the way to accomplish that. Instead, try contacting the coaching staff and find out how you can help your kid improve.

[OldSchoolSnapper]

I'm a head coach for soccer. A bit younger than yours. I do play everyone at least some time every game. But my first season, I went in trying to divide the PT all equally. I learned quickly it just doesn't work; I have 4 kids that could play 40 minutes but the rest are just cashed at 20, tops. I wish I could explain this to the parents, but the "advanced" kids are playing more simply because the other ones just start laying on the grass and doing circles if I play them beyond a certain point. It's a waste of time, and the kids who work really hard deserve those precious minutes against other kids that want to compete.

 

I'll gladly play lesser players if they are putting in the effort and playing the sport, but I won't waste that time with disinterested kids while another one is begging me to go back into the game. Managing all of that stuff is definitely a lot more challenging than I'd ever imagined.

[stoutdude04]

My 2.5 year old daughter asked me for hockey skates. Guess we are going to Pure Hockey before the Badger game Saturday.

[CheezWizHed]

I'm a head coach for soccer. A bit younger than yours. I do play everyone at least some time every game. But my first season, I went in trying to divide the PT all equally. I learned quickly it just doesn't work; I have 4 kids that could play 40 minutes but the rest are just cashed at 20, tops. I wish I could explain this to the parents, but the "advanced" kids are playing more simply because the other ones just start laying on the grass and doing circles if I play them beyond a certain point. It's a waste of time, and the kids who work really hard deserve those precious minutes against other kids that want to compete.

 

I'll gladly play lesser players if they are putting in the effort and playing the sport, but I won't waste that time with disinterested kids while another one is begging me to go back into the game. Managing all of that stuff is definitely a lot more challenging than I'd ever imagined.

 

This reminds me of my nephew playing soccer. He wasn't interested nor overly talented. The game I saw, he was goalie and spent most of his time throwing grass into the air to watch where it landed and giving a "where did that come from?" look when a ball whizzed past him into the goal. He was about 10-12 at the time.