On Youth Sports

I read, with great interest, a rebuttal letter from a Youth Football coach to a woman who asked if the coaches are coaching just to win. I coached youth sports for more than 15 years. I have great admiration for any men and women of integrity who donate their time and assume the responsibility for preparing our youth for athletics and mentoring them on teamwork, discipline, and the value of hard work. However, with all due respect, I do have some issues with his letter.

Firstly, the families of young athletes are making the same sacrifices, traveling to games and waiting for practice to end. They are dealing with the same re-heated dinners, invested time and money, and trying to balance sports with everything else going on in their child’s life. You may not be there for the families, but they are there supporting their child and the team. They deserve more than condescension.

Secondly, I take issue with the very last sentence.

"Which team they play on and how much they play is up to them."

I have never coached football, but I have experience with the factors that determine playing time and whether a player even makes a team. Speaking only of my experience with boy’s sports, in every town in this country, an athlete’s playing time can be determined by such things as who his mother or father is, who his older brother is, who else plays the position, their current size, petty politics, personal feelings toward parents, laziness on the part of coaches, to name a few; none of which are in the athlete’s control. Talent and hard work do not always determine who will be starting and playing. Coaches do. This is true in in every town, in every state.

A parent wanting their child to play a sport should start making connections early. The very young teams are collections of athletic kids organized by mostly well-meaning coaches. Playing time is usually not an issue, but you will find coaches who favor players for reasons, legitimate or not, who will give them the best chance of winning the game. That’s the point of playing any game, after all.

The rest of the story goes like this. If it's determined early in their career that your child will never be more than a backup, be prepared for years of watching them stand on the sidelines or sit on the bench except for garbage time. The pipeline to varsity sports is based on a network of coaches promoting players primarily based on the word of the coach at the level below.

It’s rare for a coach at the highest youth levels to make changes based on your input. Certain high school coaches will laugh in your face. Your child could put countless hours and hundreds of dollars into weight training, camps, and clinics. They could pass all physical and mental challenges asked of them, be attentive, coachable, hard-working, and respectful. It matters very little. The bottom line is, if your son or daughter is a backup as a developing child, in most cases they’ll be a backup when they are teenagers working their tail off for a chance to contribute.

Ask any young man or woman in any sports program if they would have more fun playing in the game than standing on the sidelines. They aren’t working hard at every practice because they want to stand on the sidelines for a couple of hours and go home disappointed while the kid who peaked at eight years old is still getting all of the playing time, years later.

In football, there are stars and there are kids who would be at risk of serious injury. In between, there are kids that are growing and learning as they compete for a limited number of spots on the field. Sometimes kids fall through the cracks. Their families want them to be rewarded for their efforts. Personally, I can empathize because I know what it feels like to be happy for my son’s friends when they celebrate a win and at the same time be angry seeing my son’s pain when he doesn’t get the chance to contribute on the field after all the effort he's put in.

We all know that life isn’t fair, but let’s not pretend that mistakes are not made and preferential treatment is not given when it comes to who plays and who doesn’t. You’re coaching dozens of kids who are dreaming about scoring a touchdown, intercepting a pass, or pancaking an opponent. They’re all out there to win, yes. They also want to be more than just an afterthought for a few plays when a game is out of hand. If they make it through the grueling weeding out process, they really want to play. At every level, you’re responsible for making every one of them better players. How much they improve, which team they play on, and how much they play is all up to you, the coach.