After barging into an online discussion and then not being able to pull away, I found myself in the very center of a long and intense exchange of opinions. I've decided on using a few of the quotes for discussion here, but the full discussion can be found on the attached pdf. The posts on this link are numbered to easily indentify the points if you’d like to discuss any of them in the comment section. As is my policy, I will not use names or locations. I have also removed any referrals to specific children as well as all identifying content. You will have to trust that I’ve taken good care in…
I think it would be fairly accurate to assume that most of us over the age of 40 did not wear cycling helmets as kids. And for that matter, how many of you remember riding in the back of a station wagon or even the backseat of a car without a seatbelt? Today most of us are fanatical in making both issues as natural an act for our children (and hopefully ourselves) as tying their $100 sneakers. We evolve. Research leads to new technology. Someone figures out that a fiberglass mask will stop a hockey puck from smashing facial bones. Or that a seatbelt will stop us from being launched through …
Your child’s team is on its way to an easy victory. It’s late in the game — the last couple of innings, the last quarter, or the final period. There’s no way the other team is going to come back and win. Yet the best players are still in the game. I don’t know about you, but this is very likely my biggest pet peeve of them all. So in a recent questionnaire, I asked local coaches their thoughts on the subject. Many parents complain that even when the outcome of a game has been determined, some coaches will still keep their stars in the game rather than clearing the bench in favor of the lesser…
Google gives 74,900,000 results when the phrase youth sports parents is entered. You can narrow it down to: 18,600,000 by adding violence; 5,180,000 if you replace violence with fighting; 3,090,000 by swapping fighting for out of control; 2,870,000 for trading your lack of control for guns; 2,720,000 means ditching the gun but adding pressure. Although not particularly scientific, it does indicate that a whole lot of people realize that we have some serious issues here in Youth Sport’s Land. Almost as scary are the people I’m finding who are in complete denial. With so much focus, and so …
“What the heck were you trying to do on that play?” “Next time keep running. The kid could have dropped the darn ball.” “You guys keep messing it up. Let’s do it again.” Those could be the words of any 6th, 7th, or 8th grader’s coach. Nothing wrong with it – right? Now replace a few words: heck with hell; darn with damn; messing with screwing. Some of you wouldn’t mind it, while others might do a double take. But if your kid is watching South Park or Family Guy or listening to Eminem — well, you know. Now replace those words with a variation of the F-word. Yeah, it’s not only turning your …
“Knowledge is power.” ~Sir Francis Bacon I spent a number of hours this past week looking through some of the most recommended and trusted youth sports websites. There are hundreds — if not thousands — more, but these contain important information and views and will lead you in any direction you wish to follow. So while this writer (oh, no — he didn’t just refer to himself in the third-person) uses the following week to take a deep breath and let the fast-twitch muscles in his typing fingers recover, please discover what others are saying about the present state of youth sports. If you have a…
Why is it that over half of you who send in responses need to do so under the cover of a fake name? That’s not meant to be a question as much as it is proof that many coaches and parents are afraid to let their real thoughts be known. And I know why. I know why, because so many of you have stated it in your emails to me. It’s the fear that there will be some sort of retaliation from leagues/coach/teammates/other parents/etc. I can only assume that it means having a little red X placed near your name for not being a team player — not feeding into the system. Don’t tell me what I don’t know. I’…
I get dozens of emails each month from parents and coaches who are frustrated with the direction that a particular sport or youth league in their town has taken. In 99 percent of these correspondences I’m asked to keep the specific details and the sender’s identity private. And I always do. You can bet Grandma’s inheritance on it. Often, however, I will draw examples and situations from that info (as well as my own experiences) so that I can make a point based on actual events. Here (based on an email and a conversation) is an example of why I think Select Teams (Travel Teams, Elite Teams, …
I hadn’t slept much. The fan was set directly in front of me for the night — for training purposes. My shower was a very cold one — for practice. In our home 58 is the new 68 — as in degrees — which was helpful in my preparation as well. The Boy had slept at a friend’s house so Wife and I had to leave a little early to pick him up. We learned shortly after he entered the car that he had not practiced the art of showering — cold or hot. But The Boy is a boy as is any other 13- or 14-year-old boy on the weekend. And just to prove he was serious, he skipped brushing his teeth as well. Beneath …
I’ve always wanted to be a music critic. I love exploring new music. I’m the guy that wakes up very early on Tuesday mornings so that I have time to look at and listen to the new CD releases of the week. The problem being that I don’t always understand what it is that makes certain music great and other music not. I don’t get Dylan at all. But the critics say that Dylan is brilliant and dump all over a guy like Billy Joel. I think Rush and ELO are incredible while the critics usually hammered them. I get the greatness of the Beatles but don’t know why Wings is often dismissed as lame. …
Last week’s column covered one of the questions that I asked on our Coaches Questionnaire and the comment section exploded with your responses. It made for a very constructive dialogue, and I thank you all for your input. My views and opinions are always evolving when it comes to what’s best for our kids on the playing field. Your comments have made me rethink my view on the handing out of participation trophies at the end of a season. Yup — guilty on all counts. I’ve always voted yes. But for many of the same reasons expressed by several of you and some of our coaches panel, I would now …
I have three wishes for the upcoming year. They will all follow the blueprint that I’ve shaped here with this column and will pertain to parents, their children, and the sporting landscape that they dabble in. Youth Leagues. If I’ve learned one thing from the comments and emails I’ve received since the birth of this column is that people are so often satisfied with “good enough” and “it’ll never change.” And quite frankly I’m amazed that so many parents are unwilling to try and fix something that they know is broken. Instead they’d rather complain, deny, ignore, or learn to tolerate the …
I'm on a mission. This winter I am in search of the close-to-perfect youth sports league. I've received a couple of emails from organizations within our listening area claiming to have possession of the ring holding the keys to such a place. While I’ll never give up on my quest to find perfection, it’s unlikely to exist as long as we continue to waste time and energy by arguing, choosing sides, and battling self-serving agendas (some would categorize this as a board meeting). I’ve often wondered if our kids would actually find it more enjoyable and therapeutic to get together at the field…
About thirteen months ago I was on the football field overseeing what we call The Big Game. It's the final flag football game of the season where the 5- and 6-year-olds get to play on the varsity field complete with bleachers, a concession stand, player introductions and play-by-play announcers. It's a way to get the kids and parents excited about moving up to the next level, which is tackle football. At game's end some of the parents walked out onto the field to greet their children and escort them over to an area where they would be presented with snacks and trophies. I happened to be …
What do you want from your child’s youth sports organizations? What do you want from your child’s youth sports coaches? Do you want them to prepare your kid for the next level? Do you want them to teach your kid good sportsmanship? Do you want them to place winning ahead of having fun? If your child is a below average player, do you want him playing as much as the team’s superstar? Is it fair that the coach’s kid is usually playing a premier position even though yours is obviously a much better player? Is it OK for the coaches to yell or would you prefer that they use the same tone as they …
I was thinking a lot this week about what I used to do on rainy days when I was a kid. Just about everything was related to sports right down to the board and action games I played. We even invented some of our own. Here are a few of my favorites. Electric Football I was obsessed with the game. If I couldn't find someone to play against, I'd take both sides. I collected different styles of green bases and ran tests to find the fastest and straightest. There were three types of bases that I can remember. The basic one had the little brushes in each of the four corners. Next there was the red…
Like many of you, I watched my child play in a sporting event over the weekend. For The Boy, it’s smack dab in the middle of football season. Football, probably more than any sport, requires a group of insiders to control elements of the game that only coaches, teammates, and the parents of those players can identify. They are much like the SPLAT of a paintball. They start off on the inside and, depending on the force of contact, either remain where they fall or get squeezed out and splashed on the field just outside of the initial splotch. These players line up two inches from their …
So this week I'm going to write one of those columns where the columnist lists mostly unrelated and random thoughts. Some very famous and popular writers have made careers out of using this style. It works especially well for me today because, for various reasons, it's been the type of week where I've barely been able to connect the dots to my laptop let alone write a complete column on one subject. I guess I’ll need a name for this ... something clever … witty. How about: The Week in Bits and Pieces. Well it’s not as clever as I’d hoped but let’s see if Madame Editor likes it. Ready? Here we…
It was just before practice on Friday evening and the last few parents were walking across the practice field toward our small group. Coach Frank’s team had already gone through its stretching routine and had left to run their lap before the real work would begin. Frank is the kind of coach that you'd send your kid to when he doesn’t quite understand why he needs to work just as hard in the classroom as he does on the field. He's the coach who will teach your child why it's wrong to harass another child. He’s the coach who will always follow up with a phone call. As he looked around to begin …
The summer is putting up a good fight but will lose out soon to falling leaves and sweatshirts. So let’s take a little break and revisit a few of the issues from last week and have a little fun while doing it. Each year in my youth football newsletter I take the opportunity to interview myself. There is not a good reason on this earth to do such a thing except to further prove that I need a good therapist. There are no guidelines. I have not set any limitations on the subject matter that I can ask myself. So unless the editors of the Patch find the line of questioning to be too bizarre or…
