we had a group of Dad's we referred to as the "Super Fans" This group mostly firemen, cops or other city jobs would be at every practice. They put an immense amount of pressure on their kids to preform because when they didn't dad would be there to give them shit.
By the time we were seniors the "Super Fans" were down to like 2 dads because the rest of them had their sons quit. Kids have a real tough time dealing with that kind of pressure. I think we started freshman football with about 60 guys and finished with 20 seniors on varsity.
I talked my 10 year old son, i have 9 and 7 year old boys too, into quitting competitive gymnastics after his 1st year - he won states, won gymnast of the year for his area. But he was working out 3 days a week for 5 hours each day and injuring his body. He also plays baseball and is on our local golf and swim teams. He excelled at all of it, but he was burning himself out. He's also in the gifted and talented classes - so he has a ton of homework.
The problem is these coaches see these kids that just naturally can do anything and they work them hard. The gymnastics coaches would brag to everyone about him. They wanted him to go big in a fast way. Baseball coaches were the same way, I won't let him pitch too often because they will have him catch most games too.
So I agree with the article..he's much happier with just one sport per season and we are taking the winter off.
When I was a kid, you played T-ball at ages 6 and 7, and didn't start facing pitching until you were 8. All of the leagues around here, both LL and Babe Ruth, have T-ball at 4 and 5 now, and use a pitching machine for ages 6 and 7. Most of these kids just flat out aren't ready to hit pitching yet. Why the rush?
and I coached little league for years prior to travel and that article was more the exception than the rule - at least in my experience. Perhaps its because I set the tone early in our seasons, but I never tolerate negative comments from parents.
As for coaching styles, there are a few assholes but most of us approach the game with a firm but supportive stance. That's pretty true for all of the teams we've faced from Pa. to Central NY.
I've lobbied to have my kids picked by certain coaches Â
because there are some coaches who just run overly competitive teams and have parents that follow them around who match. But my kids aren't talented athletes. They're kind of at the bottom of the travel ladder or just below it. Scrappy kids who love to play and practice and have fun. Perfect to me.
I have a friend who is trying to get his 8 yr old kid into AAU ball. He's a good ballplayer but I just don't know about that.
Around the teams I played on. We had the same core group all 6 years of football (Modified to Varsity) and the parents were all incredibly supportive and never negative. This was late 90s-early 00s.
Of course, we blew as a football team, so maybe we could have used hardcore dads barking at the coaches and players. LOL.
I did play organized Little League as a kid, but at the risk of sounding like a rejected plot line from The Sandlot, I had more fun when a bunch of friends and I spent one summer carving our our field out of a vacant lot and playing our own games. The Little League started locking their gates to keep us from playing on our own, so we made our own field. It was a great summer.
Parents pressuring their kids isn't new. To suggest it has developing is odd, since this generation could be characterized more by everyone getting a medal or ribbon. Working in a college, I'd say the impact of that is even more unhealthy.
Also it's strange to connect academic success and sports. One has a fairly direct impact on your life success. The other, not so much.
I like what he was trying to say but it seems scattered and only tangentially connected to some of the other things he brings up.
and I coached little league for years prior to travel and that article was more the exception than the rule - at least in my experience. Perhaps its because I set the tone early in our seasons, but I never tolerate negative comments from parents.
As for coaching styles, there are a few assholes but most of us approach the game with a firm but supportive stance. That's pretty true for all of the teams we've faced from Pa. to Central NY.
Phil what age group are you coaching now? I coached softball for 12 years traveling all over the country. The last 2 years I've dialed it back some and just do hitting lessons as my daughter moved on to college. I'm seriously looking at getting back to coaching, not sure if I'll do 16's or 18 Gold, but I'm starting to get the itch to get back into it.
That being said I'm not sure I agree with the premise of the article. It seems that it was written by a whinny parent. It's easy, if you don't want to spend the time and money in your child playing sports then don't put them in it. No one is forcing you to do it.
"It sucks for parents, many of whom do not have the time and resources to keep one child in such a system, never mind multiple athletes. There are no more family trips or dinners, no time or money to take a vacation."
Really??? It's called making sacrifices. Every family in this country has to make sacrifices, this isn’t an ABC Disney Family movie for crying out loud! You have choices in life...no one is putting a gun to your head and making spend your time and money on your child's extracurricular activities.
From a personal perspective, my daughter wanted to go to college and play softball so we as a family sucked it up and made a gazillion sacrifices to make it happen. No one put a gun to my/our head and made us do it, but we weighed the positives and the negatives. I can't tell you how much money we spent, it was a lot, but for me it was worth every penny.
Now my daughter and I joke about her lack of a social life while growing up all the time. But she will first to tell you she wouldn't trade it for a second. I ask her all the time how's the dream going?....cause she is living it. Now that doesn't mean she didn't work her ass off, and still is, to get where she's at in life. But it's those life lessons that will hopefully help her one day when she's in the real world. Which is funny....I tell her all the time the real world is around the corner and it will be here sooner than she thinks. She doesn't want to hear that though....lol
We had crazy parents back in the 70s and 80s. It may even have been worse back then because there were so few organized sports so all focus was on only a couple of sports. There was much less, if any, stigma to freaking out on your kid.
In te hend, the good to great athletes all stuck with it because they were good and liked to be good and play regardless of their parents. This is because you generally stick with things you are good at.
The mediocre to bad athletes/players slowly weeded themselves out due to lack of playing time and just not being that good.
I believe despite the hsitronics regarding supposed overbearing parents and coaches, it is still the same. If you can play, you play. If not, you go home.
I will also say that my little league and high school coaches were light years tougher and more unforgiving and more "abusive" than what I see now. I have three kids and 7 nephews so I see a lot and it is more gentile these days.
but their was no pressure at all. I was good in football and sucked in baseball and hockey. There was no pressure either way, he just wanted to see me play.
I can understand adults organizing competetive sports for kids Â
since kids seem to be so few and far between. When I grew up there was a mob of kids on each street. Organizing baseball and football games for our selves was easy. We learned to adjust the rules for specific conditions and to keep the games balanced to keep all the kids interested.
I also got more playing time in one day of playground ball than in all my time in organized little league and varsity sports. My proposal, let the adults organize kids sports but let the kids run it.
every day and play football for 2 hours after school with the local neighborhood kids. I chose this house hoping upon hope that they would discover that field holds more promise and adventure than any 20 video games combined. The best memories of my life were playing dawn to dusk in the glass strewn public school yard across the street from my apartment building. I drive my boys back to see that tiny little school yard and they shudder at the desolation and lack of greenery but I wouldn't give up those memories for anything. Here's hoping they have the same glorious memories to look back on in their late middle age when their knees have finally betrayed them. I played all kinds of organized sports, won high school and travel tournaments but the memories I come back to are the ones forged in that school yard, because it was just carefree fun with my friends in the hot sun on days that seemed to never end.
1) specialization both in choosing 1 sport and in choosing one specific position in a sport is actually hurting youth sports. Most professional athletes will tell you that. So, I'm not sure why parents, coaches, and even scouts are pushing it.
2) I have been an assistant coach on my son's Little League team for each of his 5 regular seasons and 2 summer seasons. When we practice, we work on fundamentals above all else, always building on previous skills, working up to age appropriate things. We limit our pitchers, although we have begun narrowing down who we allow to catch. We tell parents not to coach their kids from the sidelines and not to yell at them. We stress fun, yet we are very competitive. We ask them to be committed to their team, but there is no way we would limit a kid and tell him not to play on another team/sport.
3) I absolutely hate the leagues that don't keep score. There are lessons to be learned from both winning and losing. That said, above all else, organized sports should be fun for kids under before they get to high school and play on school teams. Even AAU, travel teams, etc. should be stressing learning and fun. Any adults that do otherwise are assholes and ruining these kids.
4) On my JV baseball team in HS, we lost our best player (SS, pitcher, great hitter) after one season. He was already burnt out from coaches and parents pressuring him and baseball just wasn't fun for him anymore. That was sad.
and I coached little league for years prior to travel and that article was more the exception than the rule - at least in my experience. Perhaps its because I set the tone early in our seasons, but I never tolerate negative comments from parents.
As for coaching styles, there are a few assholes but most of us approach the game with a firm but supportive stance. That's pretty true for all of the teams we've faced from Pa. to Central NY.
Phil what age group are you coaching now? I coached softball for 12 years traveling all over the country. The last 2 years I've dialed it back some and just do hitting lessons as my daughter moved on to college. I'm seriously looking at getting back to coaching, not sure if I'll do 16's or 18 Gold, but I'm starting to get the itch to get back into it.
That being said I'm not sure I agree with the premise of the article. It seems that it was written by a whinny parent. It's easy, if you don't want to spend the time and money in your child playing sports then don't put them in it. No one is forcing you to do it.
"It sucks for parents, many of whom do not have the time and resources to keep one child in such a system, never mind multiple athletes. There are no more family trips or dinners, no time or money to take a vacation."
Really??? It's called making sacrifices. Every family in this country has to make sacrifices, this isn’t an ABC Disney Family movie for crying out loud! You have choices in life...no one is putting a gun to your head and making spend your time and money on your child's extracurricular activities.
From a personal perspective, my daughter wanted to go to college and play softball so we as a family sucked it up and made a gazillion sacrifices to make it happen. No one put a gun to my/our head and made us do it, but we weighed the positives and the negatives. I can't tell you how much money we spent, it was a lot, but for me it was worth every penny.
Now my daughter and I joke about her lack of a social life while growing up all the time. But she will first to tell you she wouldn't trade it for a second. I ask her all the time how's the dream going?....cause she is living it. Now that doesn't mean she didn't work her ass off, and still is, to get where she's at in life. But it's those life lessons that will hopefully help her one day when she's in the real world. Which is funny....I tell her all the time the real world is around the corner and it will be here sooner than she thinks. She doesn't want to hear that though....lol
Damdevs
Sorry it's taken so long to get back to you and your excellent observations. I'm fully in your camp and I agree 100%.
Right now, I'm coaching two 12U travel teams through the winter but I'll only coach one during the season next year. That's down from four teams last summer.
I've got two daughters that pitch - one who is twelve and has the potential to be very good - maybe college material. My little daughter is 10, playing up to a new B/C level 12U team where I'm coaching the pitchers through the winter. She's got twice as much arm talent as her sister but a tenth of the discipline, so who knows?
I'm probably going to stop after this next season because I'm a good but not great coach at the travel level. When my oldest goes to 14U, I'm probably going to move the team to a higher level coach - I'll never be able to take a Gold team. I'm very good at teaching the basics of fastpitch but too many of us overestimate our abilities to the detriment of our daughters.
Sounds like you're a gold level coach and I can readily see why you want to get back into it. I know a guy who's daughter is a college freshman and he's itching to get back in the game. He's currently working with one of my players.
I don't see it as a sacrifice as much as I view it as a choice - a very good choice for some of us. I don't relate to girl stuff but I know baseball/softball and my girls love having me coach them. After this season, I'll probably limit myself to working with them individually.
As for the real world, I think softball is preparing them more than anything. My oldest has learned to deal with pressure, how to take advantage of opportunity, and how to handle setbacks with grace and dignity.
The negative elements are always there but the coaching ranks are populated by some of the most caring, decent individuals I've had the privilege of meeting. Sounds like you're one of them.
my personal opinion…... variance in sports keeps the body balanced and produces despite the fatigue that multiple sports may cause actually less injuries.
Like sports such as gymnastics and perhaps ballet for a girl, I could see that as overworking a lady, focusing on certain muscle groups in the same ways. But diverse sports perhaps as soccer and gymnastics or baseball and karate…I can see that producing a protective effect as different muscle groups are used in each. Like as not the problem with injuries is a predominant overdevelopment of some muscles and a underdeveloped other consequent muscle set.
A person who only sprints for example, like in just football or sprint track….they overdevelop the quads and underdeveloped the hammies. You put that student in a sport which develops the hammies and you take care of the problem, perhaps basketball or soccer.
So I think it can be done so it assist not causes injuries. But of course there must always be time off from all sports and to much is to much.
For that reason I think we see many pro athletes in many sports in their collegiate career. WE think... no it is just that they are gifted. I say no the multiple sports is part of why they remained without major injury and were able to develop in each fully.
eventually most of us. Few of us are a Dion S or like person. But early on especially till before college, I think specialization is actually a negative for the bodies development.
Because parents see the money these pro athletes make. At the very least pushing a kid hard in sports st an early age could get them a scholarship. I'm sure behind every pro athlete was a parent making sacrififes to get them to the point where they are today
but the chances of any of these kids making it to the pros is almost the same as winning the lottery.
It is really a shame I like sports and and that and went to all my kids games but if we devoted say a third of the time to staying with them doing their homework and similar things….we could virtually guarantee a better outcome for them.
Sports is a throw of the dice pretty much. It helps character and that, but to my opinion is way way overboard compared to other things in academia.
playing several sports and having my children play several sports, I'd have to say this issue was MUCH worse when I was younger. The main difference as I see it is that parents today seem to act as if they know more than the coaches where coaches were more revered when i was growing up.
This generation is more centered around good feelings and ensuring fair play and that nobody gets their feelings hurt. Play every kid. Never say anything negative. Heck, don't even keep score sometimes.
For instance, on my son's travel lacrosse team this year, the coach put out an email to the parents saying that playing time was not guaranteed. Practices were important to build skills, especially for those not getting a lot of playing time. From the reaction of a lot of parents, you'd swear he had broken the spirits of their young ones.
My take is that aggressive parents today aren't doing it necessarily for the kid's good, but to make themselves look better instead whereas in my day, the parents were doing it to try and get their kids further to college and places like that.
Just came from watching a game Saturday. The parent next to me was yelling at the top of her lungs for the entire game berating her child for a lack of effort. I tried to counter that by also yelling (as my granddaughter asked me to) words of encouragement to all.
But clearly that woman had issues. The poor coach, one parent was complaining of high kicking(soccer) his kid gets hit in the face then by the ball….he says to the coach as he was walking over to her crying on the ground… he sort of yells….see coach you have to stop those high kicks….even though the ball hit his kid not a kick.
The coach is a real nice guy who is way above in understanding this level..his daughter is on the team.
People nowadays have issues and they like as not bring it to their kids games…usually I guess it is that they have low self esteem.
It sort of sucks. I hope it is better elsewhere but here..it sort of sucks parents act that way.
and the "bad parents" are by far the exception rather than the rule. I can't count the number of episodes on one hand, I can count them on one finger.
I do think the pressure to concentrate on one sport does come from the travel league teams, but even then, that involves sports that take place in the same season. When my son played sports, we encouraged him to play as many as he liked, but only one per season. It's not fair to the teams, teammates, and parents to try to do more.
playing several sports and having my children play several sports, I'd have to say this issue was MUCH worse when I was younger. The main difference as I see it is that parents today seem to act as if they know more than the coaches where coaches were more revered when i was growing up.
This generation is more centered around good feelings and ensuring fair play and that nobody gets their feelings hurt. Play every kid. Never say anything negative. Heck, don't even keep score sometimes.
For instance, on my son's travel lacrosse team this year, the coach put out an email to the parents saying that playing time was not guaranteed. Practices were important to build skills, especially for those not getting a lot of playing time. From the reaction of a lot of parents, you'd swear he had broken the spirits of their young ones.
My take is that aggressive parents today aren't doing it necessarily for the kid's good, but to make themselves look better instead whereas in my day, the parents were doing it to try and get their kids further to college and places like that.
Yes and no. I find the no score, play everyone attitude on the younger levels, for early elementary school aged kids. AS they get into adolescence, you get the more cut throat parents, the strong push for specialization from coaches and parents alike, the nut jobs who ask for preemptive Tommy John surgery, etc.
My son's soccer team has a coach who is too passive. Â
The parents aren't aggressive or bossy, but yet he still seems very unwilling to discipline any kids on the team, in the context of the game of course. There is one kid, in particular, who happens to be excellent at dribbling and getting the ball upfield. Every game, without fail, he will dribble up the side ignoring teammates wide open for a centering pass and either lose the ball as he gets himself into the corner, or get off a very difficult shot. He scores on some of them, so the coach doesn't say much. But, this kid has ignored the few times the coach has asked him to play his specific position and to look for teammates.
He pushes the ball the entire length of the field when playing as a defender, he goes to the ball on either side of the field as a forward and he crosses well past mid field as a forward. He does this out of selfishness to get the ball himself, not because the team is lacking the skilled players to play D. It has cost us some opportunities when he is nowhere near where he should be once the ball is cleared.
Most parents have said nothing to the coach, but I know of a grandparent who is an avid soccer fan who complained. Personally, if I was the coach, I would play him on D until he plays the right way and pull him from the game when he ignores instruction.
This is a team of 9-10 year olds, by the way. So, it is not quite at the learning ages, but not quite advanced either. And it is not a traveling team.
What you describe at that level should never be tolerated. It is bad for the one kid and about as bad for the team.
That to my opinion is a bad coach he should not be coaching at all or coach at a younger level perhaps entry level. Entry level that may work that type of coach. I'm talking 6-8 year olds. Second level…no he sucks.
Yes and no. I do agree that his handling of this situation is more appropriate for the entry level team, where is is hard enough getting enough kids to play and even harder to actually organize them. My son started out playing like that on an entry level team (different coach) that played 3 on 3 on a small field. As soon as he moved to a much larger field, he played within the expectations for the position he was playing. Of course, some of that is because I also stress to him to play within the position.
This coach does a good job in other aspects, like instruction and practice ahead of games. It is with this one kid that he is failing. Some of the kids don't mind because I think they know they aren't scoring anyway and this kid keeps us in games. But, other kids, my son included, are beginning to get very frustrated running up the middle of the field with noone around them and never receive one pass. And, I'm talking about some of the better players no the team.
Come to think of it, there is one other player that does this. He is extremely fast with the ball, but not skilled handling it. He also plays out of position and dribbles up the entire side if he can. The difference is, he doesn't score. This kid also constantly tries to dribble through traffic when playing defense. He gets "reminded" but neither are ever pulled off the field.
Now I am starting to get annoyed with the coach. He is very nice and, as I said, in some ways very good. But, this is not serving these kids or the rest of the team well.
In contrast, we had another kid come to the team after the first two games. His father is the assistant coach. His first game he played forward and was doing a lot of the same thing. After one talk from the coach, he began playing as expected for a given position.
as I am not. But that level second up is all about knowing your position and responsibilities of that position. Going up in age and skill level their outstanding skills at this level will become quite equal to a larger number of others.
So the coach then seeing them undisciplined rather talented but undisciplined will not play them And likely he she will not have the time to correct the discipline issue. So the kid ends up not playing not really knowing why and ends up eventually as they get discouraged out of the sport.
No at that level that should not happen My kid I would get him on another team.
That is my opinion though I am no expert as stated.
I'm not worried about my son because he already knows where each position should be and his responsibilities. He is pretty good at all positions, although he is really taking a liking to goalie this year, which he hated previously. But, this is likely his only season on this team. Ad he moves up, he will be fine.
I wouldn't even say anything to him I would just move my kid out not a word spoken. At that level they need to know that part of the game it is essential, more so than any handling skills.
But if your kid Matt is firm in his position knowledge and discipline I agree with your decision. he could stay there with no damage whatsoever. The worst damage is as I mentioned, is with the perceived star or stars.
Later on with HS and all they will be only one of many with skills. The others will however be disciplined. So the stars of today undisciplined will not play tomorrow. At that level the coaches job(customarily they get 2 k or more additionally to coach outside normal school hours in public schools) depends on winning or at least putting up a team that is competitive.
I figured as much. I ended up coaching four teams last year because I knew that if I didn't take a part, I ran the risk of having both daughters pitch too much. It's not that the other coaches were overly competitive, it's that I knew few really understand the physical limits for fastpitch as they don't have pitch counts like in baseball.
On that I agree. This kid is likely to eventually hit a wall in his game because as he moves up, he will be able to rely less and less on the ability of dribbling 3/4 of the length of the field and scoring on poorly angled shots because of inexperienced defenders and goalies.
Besides my comment on my son's understanding of the game, with half of the season gone, I would accomplish only one thing by pulling him from the team. He would be done with soccer for the season. This is worse than him being frustrated by one or two teammates, as he genuinely loves soccer.
By the time we were seniors the "Super Fans" were down to like 2 dads because the rest of them had their sons quit. Kids have a real tough time dealing with that kind of pressure. I think we started freshman football with about 60 guys and finished with 20 seniors on varsity.
The problem is these coaches see these kids that just naturally can do anything and they work them hard. The gymnastics coaches would brag to everyone about him. They wanted him to go big in a fast way. Baseball coaches were the same way, I won't let him pitch too often because they will have him catch most games too.
So I agree with the article..he's much happier with just one sport per season and we are taking the winter off.
As for coaching styles, there are a few assholes but most of us approach the game with a firm but supportive stance. That's pretty true for all of the teams we've faced from Pa. to Central NY.
I have a friend who is trying to get his 8 yr old kid into AAU ball. He's a good ballplayer but I just don't know about that.
Of course, we blew as a football team, so maybe we could have used hardcore dads barking at the coaches and players. LOL.
Also it's strange to connect academic success and sports. One has a fairly direct impact on your life success. The other, not so much.
I like what he was trying to say but it seems scattered and only tangentially connected to some of the other things he brings up.
As for coaching styles, there are a few assholes but most of us approach the game with a firm but supportive stance. That's pretty true for all of the teams we've faced from Pa. to Central NY.
That being said I'm not sure I agree with the premise of the article. It seems that it was written by a whinny parent. It's easy, if you don't want to spend the time and money in your child playing sports then don't put them in it. No one is forcing you to do it.
"It sucks for parents, many of whom do not have the time and resources to keep one child in such a system, never mind multiple athletes. There are no more family trips or dinners, no time or money to take a vacation."
Really??? It's called making sacrifices. Every family in this country has to make sacrifices, this isn’t an ABC Disney Family movie for crying out loud! You have choices in life...no one is putting a gun to your head and making spend your time and money on your child's extracurricular activities.
From a personal perspective, my daughter wanted to go to college and play softball so we as a family sucked it up and made a gazillion sacrifices to make it happen. No one put a gun to my/our head and made us do it, but we weighed the positives and the negatives. I can't tell you how much money we spent, it was a lot, but for me it was worth every penny.
Now my daughter and I joke about her lack of a social life while growing up all the time. But she will first to tell you she wouldn't trade it for a second. I ask her all the time how's the dream going?....cause she is living it. Now that doesn't mean she didn't work her ass off, and still is, to get where she's at in life. But it's those life lessons that will hopefully help her one day when she's in the real world. Which is funny....I tell her all the time the real world is around the corner and it will be here sooner than she thinks. She doesn't want to hear that though....lol
We had crazy parents back in the 70s and 80s. It may even have been worse back then because there were so few organized sports so all focus was on only a couple of sports. There was much less, if any, stigma to freaking out on your kid.
In te hend, the good to great athletes all stuck with it because they were good and liked to be good and play regardless of their parents. This is because you generally stick with things you are good at.
The mediocre to bad athletes/players slowly weeded themselves out due to lack of playing time and just not being that good.
I believe despite the hsitronics regarding supposed overbearing parents and coaches, it is still the same. If you can play, you play. If not, you go home.
I will also say that my little league and high school coaches were light years tougher and more unforgiving and more "abusive" than what I see now. I have three kids and 7 nephews so I see a lot and it is more gentile these days.
I also got more playing time in one day of playground ball than in all my time in organized little league and varsity sports. My proposal, let the adults organize kids sports but let the kids run it.
2) I have been an assistant coach on my son's Little League team for each of his 5 regular seasons and 2 summer seasons. When we practice, we work on fundamentals above all else, always building on previous skills, working up to age appropriate things. We limit our pitchers, although we have begun narrowing down who we allow to catch. We tell parents not to coach their kids from the sidelines and not to yell at them. We stress fun, yet we are very competitive. We ask them to be committed to their team, but there is no way we would limit a kid and tell him not to play on another team/sport.
3) I absolutely hate the leagues that don't keep score. There are lessons to be learned from both winning and losing. That said, above all else, organized sports should be fun for kids under before they get to high school and play on school teams. Even AAU, travel teams, etc. should be stressing learning and fun. Any adults that do otherwise are assholes and ruining these kids.
4) On my JV baseball team in HS, we lost our best player (SS, pitcher, great hitter) after one season. He was already burnt out from coaches and parents pressuring him and baseball just wasn't fun for him anymore. That was sad.
Quote:
and I coached little league for years prior to travel and that article was more the exception than the rule - at least in my experience. Perhaps its because I set the tone early in our seasons, but I never tolerate negative comments from parents.
As for coaching styles, there are a few assholes but most of us approach the game with a firm but supportive stance. That's pretty true for all of the teams we've faced from Pa. to Central NY.
Phil what age group are you coaching now? I coached softball for 12 years traveling all over the country. The last 2 years I've dialed it back some and just do hitting lessons as my daughter moved on to college. I'm seriously looking at getting back to coaching, not sure if I'll do 16's or 18 Gold, but I'm starting to get the itch to get back into it.
That being said I'm not sure I agree with the premise of the article. It seems that it was written by a whinny parent. It's easy, if you don't want to spend the time and money in your child playing sports then don't put them in it. No one is forcing you to do it.
"It sucks for parents, many of whom do not have the time and resources to keep one child in such a system, never mind multiple athletes. There are no more family trips or dinners, no time or money to take a vacation."
Really??? It's called making sacrifices. Every family in this country has to make sacrifices, this isn’t an ABC Disney Family movie for crying out loud! You have choices in life...no one is putting a gun to your head and making spend your time and money on your child's extracurricular activities.
From a personal perspective, my daughter wanted to go to college and play softball so we as a family sucked it up and made a gazillion sacrifices to make it happen. No one put a gun to my/our head and made us do it, but we weighed the positives and the negatives. I can't tell you how much money we spent, it was a lot, but for me it was worth every penny.
Now my daughter and I joke about her lack of a social life while growing up all the time. But she will first to tell you she wouldn't trade it for a second. I ask her all the time how's the dream going?....cause she is living it. Now that doesn't mean she didn't work her ass off, and still is, to get where she's at in life. But it's those life lessons that will hopefully help her one day when she's in the real world. Which is funny....I tell her all the time the real world is around the corner and it will be here sooner than she thinks. She doesn't want to hear that though....lol
Damdevs
Sorry it's taken so long to get back to you and your excellent observations. I'm fully in your camp and I agree 100%.
Right now, I'm coaching two 12U travel teams through the winter but I'll only coach one during the season next year. That's down from four teams last summer.
I've got two daughters that pitch - one who is twelve and has the potential to be very good - maybe college material. My little daughter is 10, playing up to a new B/C level 12U team where I'm coaching the pitchers through the winter. She's got twice as much arm talent as her sister but a tenth of the discipline, so who knows?
I'm probably going to stop after this next season because I'm a good but not great coach at the travel level. When my oldest goes to 14U, I'm probably going to move the team to a higher level coach - I'll never be able to take a Gold team. I'm very good at teaching the basics of fastpitch but too many of us overestimate our abilities to the detriment of our daughters.
Sounds like you're a gold level coach and I can readily see why you want to get back into it. I know a guy who's daughter is a college freshman and he's itching to get back in the game. He's currently working with one of my players.
I don't see it as a sacrifice as much as I view it as a choice - a very good choice for some of us. I don't relate to girl stuff but I know baseball/softball and my girls love having me coach them. After this season, I'll probably limit myself to working with them individually.
As for the real world, I think softball is preparing them more than anything. My oldest has learned to deal with pressure, how to take advantage of opportunity, and how to handle setbacks with grace and dignity.
The negative elements are always there but the coaching ranks are populated by some of the most caring, decent individuals I've had the privilege of meeting. Sounds like you're one of them.
Like sports such as gymnastics and perhaps ballet for a girl, I could see that as overworking a lady, focusing on certain muscle groups in the same ways. But diverse sports perhaps as soccer and gymnastics or baseball and karate…I can see that producing a protective effect as different muscle groups are used in each. Like as not the problem with injuries is a predominant overdevelopment of some muscles and a underdeveloped other consequent muscle set.
A person who only sprints for example, like in just football or sprint track….they overdevelop the quads and underdeveloped the hammies. You put that student in a sport which develops the hammies and you take care of the problem, perhaps basketball or soccer.
So I think it can be done so it assist not causes injuries. But of course there must always be time off from all sports and to much is to much.
For that reason I think we see many pro athletes in many sports in their collegiate career. WE think... no it is just that they are gifted. I say no the multiple sports is part of why they remained without major injury and were able to develop in each fully.
It is really a shame I like sports and and that and went to all my kids games but if we devoted say a third of the time to staying with them doing their homework and similar things….we could virtually guarantee a better outcome for them.
Sports is a throw of the dice pretty much. It helps character and that, but to my opinion is way way overboard compared to other things in academia.
This generation is more centered around good feelings and ensuring fair play and that nobody gets their feelings hurt. Play every kid. Never say anything negative. Heck, don't even keep score sometimes.
For instance, on my son's travel lacrosse team this year, the coach put out an email to the parents saying that playing time was not guaranteed. Practices were important to build skills, especially for those not getting a lot of playing time. From the reaction of a lot of parents, you'd swear he had broken the spirits of their young ones.
My take is that aggressive parents today aren't doing it necessarily for the kid's good, but to make themselves look better instead whereas in my day, the parents were doing it to try and get their kids further to college and places like that.
But clearly that woman had issues. The poor coach, one parent was complaining of high kicking(soccer) his kid gets hit in the face then by the ball….he says to the coach as he was walking over to her crying on the ground… he sort of yells….see coach you have to stop those high kicks….even though the ball hit his kid not a kick.
The coach is a real nice guy who is way above in understanding this level..his daughter is on the team.
People nowadays have issues and they like as not bring it to their kids games…usually I guess it is that they have low self esteem.
It sort of sucks. I hope it is better elsewhere but here..it sort of sucks parents act that way.
I do think the pressure to concentrate on one sport does come from the travel league teams, but even then, that involves sports that take place in the same season. When my son played sports, we encouraged him to play as many as he liked, but only one per season. It's not fair to the teams, teammates, and parents to try to do more.
This generation is more centered around good feelings and ensuring fair play and that nobody gets their feelings hurt. Play every kid. Never say anything negative. Heck, don't even keep score sometimes.
For instance, on my son's travel lacrosse team this year, the coach put out an email to the parents saying that playing time was not guaranteed. Practices were important to build skills, especially for those not getting a lot of playing time. From the reaction of a lot of parents, you'd swear he had broken the spirits of their young ones.
My take is that aggressive parents today aren't doing it necessarily for the kid's good, but to make themselves look better instead whereas in my day, the parents were doing it to try and get their kids further to college and places like that.
Yes and no. I find the no score, play everyone attitude on the younger levels, for early elementary school aged kids. AS they get into adolescence, you get the more cut throat parents, the strong push for specialization from coaches and parents alike, the nut jobs who ask for preemptive Tommy John surgery, etc.
He pushes the ball the entire length of the field when playing as a defender, he goes to the ball on either side of the field as a forward and he crosses well past mid field as a forward. He does this out of selfishness to get the ball himself, not because the team is lacking the skilled players to play D. It has cost us some opportunities when he is nowhere near where he should be once the ball is cleared.
Most parents have said nothing to the coach, but I know of a grandparent who is an avid soccer fan who complained. Personally, if I was the coach, I would play him on D until he plays the right way and pull him from the game when he ignores instruction.
This is a team of 9-10 year olds, by the way. So, it is not quite at the learning ages, but not quite advanced either. And it is not a traveling team.
What you describe at that level should never be tolerated. It is bad for the one kid and about as bad for the team.
That to my opinion is a bad coach he should not be coaching at all or coach at a younger level perhaps entry level. Entry level that may work that type of coach. I'm talking 6-8 year olds. Second level…no he sucks.
This coach does a good job in other aspects, like instruction and practice ahead of games. It is with this one kid that he is failing. Some of the kids don't mind because I think they know they aren't scoring anyway and this kid keeps us in games. But, other kids, my son included, are beginning to get very frustrated running up the middle of the field with noone around them and never receive one pass. And, I'm talking about some of the better players no the team.
Come to think of it, there is one other player that does this. He is extremely fast with the ball, but not skilled handling it. He also plays out of position and dribbles up the entire side if he can. The difference is, he doesn't score. This kid also constantly tries to dribble through traffic when playing defense. He gets "reminded" but neither are ever pulled off the field.
Now I am starting to get annoyed with the coach. He is very nice and, as I said, in some ways very good. But, this is not serving these kids or the rest of the team well.
In contrast, we had another kid come to the team after the first two games. His father is the assistant coach. His first game he played forward and was doing a lot of the same thing. After one talk from the coach, he began playing as expected for a given position.
So the coach then seeing them undisciplined rather talented but undisciplined will not play them And likely he she will not have the time to correct the discipline issue. So the kid ends up not playing not really knowing why and ends up eventually as they get discouraged out of the sport.
No at that level that should not happen My kid I would get him on another team.
That is my opinion though I am no expert as stated.
But if your kid Matt is firm in his position knowledge and discipline I agree with your decision. he could stay there with no damage whatsoever. The worst damage is as I mentioned, is with the perceived star or stars.
Later on with HS and all they will be only one of many with skills. The others will however be disciplined. So the stars of today undisciplined will not play tomorrow. At that level the coaches job(customarily they get 2 k or more additionally to coach outside normal school hours in public schools) depends on winning or at least putting up a team that is competitive.
Besides my comment on my son's understanding of the game, with half of the season gone, I would accomplish only one thing by pulling him from the team. He would be done with soccer for the season. This is worse than him being frustrated by one or two teammates, as he genuinely loves soccer.
Next year I would go somewhere else, if he is still in the same age group.