Home Forums Gear Free Classifieds Anyone here ever coach a sport for kids?

I have continuously coached at least one HS sports for the past 37 years. Football, basketball, cross country, nordic skiing, and track. Have had my greatest successes in cross country including two state championships. I have had great kids to coach who have made me look like I know what I am doing, wish I could say the same for their parents. I made a concerted effort to never coach a sport where subjectivity by me determined who plays. In track, cross country and nordic skiing the clock determines the starters, eliminates drama.

Coached little league baseball, basketball, and football. Parent will drive you to jacking off.

I coached both of my daughters in rec. basketball from 2nd grade through 6th. When I coached 2-3 grades, all kids on the team got equal playing time and I had no set starters. I rotated every game. These kids are just learning the game so it is important to develop skills and to have fun. At the next grade level 3-4, I would start the kids that made every practice to reward them for their commitment to the team but everyone got equal time on the court. During 5-6 grade, I started the best 5 and finished the game with the best 5 unless we had a big lead or were getting blown out. In that case the kids that needed the most work were on the court to get better. But whatever grade, I tried to keep playing time even among all players. In my area, there are plenty of "Travel" teams that parents can pay big $ for their kids to play on if the parents think their kid is better than average.

My wife and I made the ill fated decision to volunteer for our community youth football program as the coordinators. What a miserable experience! We did our absolute best to split the teams up as evenly as possible. Gave each team some bigger kids, some smaller kids, and some in between. We worked this every way possible. We really tried to split them up evenly. These were all kids playing football for the first time-9 and 10 year olds. Of course, our son ended up on the team that won the "championship". We were openly accused of "loading" that team. As a sidenote, we were new to this community and knew NONE of these kids. We got calls from parents after 10 p.m. on several occasions to "discuss" coaching, playing time, and team formation. It was just nuts. You'd think these kids were all vying for an NFL contract.

I also coached my daughter for several years in fastpitch, which is a whole 'nuther story. Luckily, I was the assistant coach, and worked mostly with the pitchers and catchers. Every head coach I worked with had his fill of overbearing parents. Our daughter started getting scouted when she played up to 16U as a 13 year old. All most every time a scout showed up to watch her, other parents would try to get the scouts to look at their daughters. It turned into a circus sideshow. Ellie had two different head coaches that did it the best. All parents were told that no discussions on playing time, position placement, or game strategy would be had with parents at the field. They had to make appointments and discuss this in person with the coach at a time convenient to him. It's my experience, that it's not the kids that are the problem-they are very teachable. It's the crazy parents who all think they're kids gonna win a Heisman or a Cy Young award.

I Coached Rec League U-6's soccer, in a far North Dallas suburb, as a start after completeing the required Coach's Licensing course for my youngest at age 5. Had a few problem parents along the way but not many, Came back for couple years in the Rec League program switching back and forth coaching the 3 year older son too, still in age appropriate City Rec Leagues with no real problems. I always had the Loudest Voice. and never had to "drop" a child, but did refeer my Spv'r to 4-5 parents over the 5/6 years in the City League Rec Program. for a "conversation".

Pop Warner baseball was a totally different story, with helicopter parents common and a major problem, including breaking up a fist fight with one father taking a baseball bat after another father on Home Plate over a strike call, and went to jail for the weekend to cool off. Dropped both of my boys out of Pop Warner at year end and got them into an age appropriate Competitve League Soccer sponsered by a local Chamber of Commerce, using paid coaches. In the Comp League Soccer program sponsered by a local Chamber of Commerce, had only one set of parents who were problems, and had more than a couple NFL player parents on several teams over the 6 years we were involved as team mgr's and sponsers. Some of the ex Pro Football & Basketball Players were great, but a couple were avoided, and their child usually flamed out too early from problems at home. We raised our kids in Far North Dallas, and all that that location had to offer was utilized any way we could.

Young son played High School Soccer and the problem parents showed up again, and even cost the team the 5AAAA level (schools with over 2000 students) Texas State Championship with the demands to play certain kids from the problem parents, with 6 USFA Rgl & Nat'l U18's team players on our HIgh School team, and the *&^%$ DA Wide Receivers football coach who was assigned to the Soccer Team was waay over his head in not being able to tell the parents to get a life, as well as not having any Soccer Coaching training. except by reading a book once upon a time, according to him. Only State Level Trophy in the case is our RunnerUp Soccer Trophy too 25 years later.

Makes a world of difference if your child is being coached for fun in Rec Leagues or for progress in skill levels by a trained coach. One of our Cof C Comp League coaches was a former German Nat'l Team captain & USFA Rgl Director & later a USFA Nat'l Officer, He had been a German World Cup Team Captain too but could not qualify for a High School Coach's job without a college degree and many other Cof C Comp League coach's were former college level players, teaching U-14's and up. Our U-14 team coach did such a good job the team was invited for a 15 day all expense paid trip to Brazil as guests of the Brazilian Gov't and Pele with a Reception at Pele's home, played several age appropriate "friendlies' in front of pro team games with crowds of over 125 thousand people.

Of the 18 players on my young son's last Comp League team, 14 played college soccer, with more than a few on scholarships from D2 colleges up to a pair of our players who went to Notre Dame on full rides. One of that last U-18 team became the head coach at UNC Greensboro,and another coach out of that program later coached at Duke, after his Womens U-18 team competed in the Nat'l Final 4...all from starting like I did. My youngest son is now a middle school teacher in a Far North Dallas area suburb and has volunteered to coach soccer again, after coaching High School as a volunteer ass't in the SF Bay Area, near his college program.

It all depends what you want out of a Youth Sports program. Parents are a PIA at all levels of youth sports, the good parents will learn to understand the team youth sports game, and raise the most successful young players though...'cause these are TEAM SPORTS. Golf and Tennis is another world though. Tiger Woods never played for anyone but his father. A NFL HALL of Fame father's who's son played soccer with one of the teams my youngest son was on in High School, played College BASEBALL and almost made it into the Big's....and was by all accounts a better than average father, who never raised his voice except positively about the way his son was treated by a Comp League youth league coach in the 4 years they were around my family.
Ron

Being a former coach of my kids baseball and softball teams, I view this dilemma as primarily that of the coach. Be selective of both players and player's families when building your team is the first and likely most important step. Try your best to not bring in problems from the start and let the families and players know your expectations up front. We would also always have a formational meeting with players and parents where we told them how we would run the team and lay down the ground rules - basically, that we our primary goal was to make the experience enjoyable for the kids and that we would not tolerate bad behavior from the players or their parents. Those two steps generally made the experience a good one for everyone involved. I also tried to be as transparent as possible with sharing the stats/data that I used to make decisions around battings orders and fielding lineups. On the rare occasion that that did not work, I let the parents know that they should find another team after the season at hand ended. My personal experiences with the teams that I coached were positive and the parents (as well as the kids) appreciated the low-drama environment that we worked hard to create.

Likewise, if your kid is on a team experiencing problems, I would ask the coach to take care of it. And if you find that you're on a team where that is not effective, I would find another team.

As Ron pointed out, once you get to "select" team sports, all bets are off. You have entered a realm that is inherently full of drama - and I would recommend that you avoid it if at all possible. Most of those teams are built around a handful of players that have a ton of potential and the rest are essentially financing their endeavor, at least in my own experience. Don't relive your sports career through your kids hoping that they will develop into something well beyond their God-given gifts - if they are not pulling for the "select" experience, it is usually best to leave them in a situation that is enjoyable.

Several pieces of excellent advice from AG91 right there...especially the last line.

The CofC Comp Soccer League we played in had annual tryouts for all players, where the scouting and offers for a place on the teams were open to all and restricted to a tightly controlled time frame. We had more parental politics in the Carrollton Rec Leagues in those sports than any place else. IMO Rec Teams are for having fun and the best place to learn the basics, if there is a mandatory Coaching School requirement.Untrained coaches without any Certification are best restricted to the very youngest teams, and not allowed in Little League teams. Comp League Teams are for learning how to compete to the players highest ability, and maybe earn an advanced scholarship that is a 1 in a thousand or bigger chance at best.

Clint Dempsey lived in deep East Texas, and commuted 6 hours round trip to North Dallas 3 times a week for years to play in the same CofC Comp Leagues my sons played in, and had - a very rare for an American- career in Europe as a successful pro player and as a World Cup player for the US Team. Adrian Peterson played football at Palestine HS and made a legendary college and pro career for himself ....neither of them wanted to play for fun...but they are a tiny tiny %'age of the kids that want to just play sports for fun and those kids deserve that opportunity that can only be given by families and fathers who get involved in Rec Leagues. Find your childs spot and make sure it's alway about having fun until it's not, and leave the parents ego's out of it.
Ron

My 15 year old daughter has played softball on 6 teams this year.
Travel, 14u just finished, played 16u last weekend
School, then school district Rec.
Different 14u travel fill in, in league play.
Fall Rec. for neighboring school district.



Yep, I saw some crap this year.

Funny thing though.
The travel ball crowd seems better than the school crowd.
I expected the opposite.

My Dad had a meeting before the season where he told parents if they wanted to coach he could steer them to the right person. But that this team was his to coach. Any interference, screaming at him, the other Players, the opposing team, the umps, begging, swearing, etc. and he would bench their child. He was clear, the meeting was mandatory. No real problems ever.