I'm 17, and I coach a 4 and 5 year old team under i9 Sports. This season has been sort of, eh rough. I'm just trying to basically teach them the core concepts of the game, because I mean at that age there isn't a whole lot you can do. Their attention spans are so short. And yeah I know four and five years old is too young, I've seen it before in threads like these. I know, but that's how it is and I volunteered to coach it. I basically just run the same play over and over game. Had one kid snap, one kid was QB, and the other was the running back. This is 5 on 5. I would usually just rotate who did what, and everyone got a turn to run it a few times. Now a few weeks ago, I'd say about four, my one kid ran it and ended up falling on his hand. I didn't notice because the kid didn't say anything, but after that he didn't want to run anymore whenever I tried to give it to him. So I was like alright, you don't have to if you don't want to. During the week though I got an email from his Dad explaining that he feel on his hand, and it made him a little gun shy. So I tried to encourage him a little bit the following week. I brought stickers, and put it one on his hand saying it was magical and that it'd protect it. I'm not sure if he is four or five, but it didn't work. No matter how hard I tried the entire game, he wouldn't want to run. I asked him just about every drive we had. He was too gun shy. So after the game I told him to practice running it by himself at home, and we'll work on it. Finally the following week he seemed ready to run. He ran the ball first play, and seemed fine. I thought awesome we finally got past this, he won't be scared to do it anymore. But after he ran it that one time he just did not want to do it anymore. I praised him for fighting his fears and running it though, and told him next week I want to see if he can run it three times. So just this last Sunday now, I asked him if he was ready and how many times he was going to run the ball. He told me he was going to run it "199" times, haha. So I was like awesome. So first play of the game we're on offense, and I ask if he's ready to run it. No...he gets scared again and starts backing away. So I sigh, and move on. I kept asking him, and he said he still wanted to run it 199 times not just yet. Then towards the end of the game, he said he'd run it when we got down towards the other end of the field more. Towards one of the last plays I finally got him to run it. So he ran it once again. He's running it now, so I don't think it's because he's afraid of hurting his hand again. I don't know what is up he seems like he wants to run it, and then when I'm ready to let him run it he backs out. The kid is so fast, and every time he does run it he gets pretty far down the field every time. With i9 we only practice for about 35 minutes before each hour long game, so it's not like I have a lot of time to work with them. Any ideas as to why he's so gun shy about it? This Sunday is unfortunately our last week, but it would make me feel good if I was able to finally get him to run it regularly in our last game.
