Quote:
Originally Posted by Iowanian
When I've coached younger age groups, I've had 3 rules that I tell the kids and make them repeat at practices or before games.
1. have fun
2. do your best-try as hard as you can
3. If you do 1 and 2, good things will happen.
Some of the things above are not age appropriate, and that stuff is problematic.
I'm still on the fence about the value of the "highly competitive" travel stuff for kids under 10. It puts a lot of pressure on these kids and probably takes the fun out of it....and we wonder why there is such a drop off in participation when the kids get to the age to compete for their schools.
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I agree with all of this. And I have told my son from day 1 that if you want the most or more playing time you have to earn it. But there is a difference between lesr playing time and no playing time and how you go about it. My general concern, however, is not about playing time but how the guy coaches overall. My son can play pretty much anywhere you put him. I would say at this point he is a bit of a jack of all trades, master of none, type.
But when you have 4 kids on the bench, 3 go in as a sub and 3 come out and the 3 that came out go back in and 1 kid is still sitting there never seeing any time it starts to approach the bullshit level. At that point you aren't being a coach of a little league team. You're just being a dick. And to be bluntly honest, while my kid is one of the slowest, he is also one of the most disciplined, one of the best with his foot skills, one of the best passers, never gets in trouble for goofing off at practice, always listens and rarely gets yelled at in a game for being out of position or not knowing what to do.