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kjtvc

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About kjtvc

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  1. There's no accounting for some coaches' actions. There was a similar game in our league where the first place team was winning 30-4 or something like that, and the winning coach kept his starters in, even as HIS OWN TEAM'S PARENTS yelled from the sidelines to put his other girls in the game. It happens. It shouldn't, of course, but it happens. The team he was playing spread his playing time out evenly (not that it would affect the game), simply because that's his approach to the game. He taught his girls one thing, and the other coach taught his girls something else. But both girls learned from the other coaches, too, whether they realized it or not. My own daughter played for a screamer coach for a year, and then she quit. He is a successful coach, and he's had teams play in Orlando for the AAU championships a couple times, but my daughter didn't value playing for a winning team over enjoying playing. She now plays for a parish team at a much lower level. Most of her former teammates still play for the screamer. Most of her new teammates cannot even make a proper layup. My daughter doesn't care. She enjoys playing with them. Everyone has to make their own choices. Your daughter has to decide what is important to her: enjoying the game, competition, winning, loyalty to you and your team, facing reality (meaning there are coaches like this, and she'll grin and bear it), etc. For some, the decision is easy. For others, it's not an easy call. Good luck. Kenny
  2. Any parents that go ballistic after the first practice are likely going to be problematic at every practice. You may want to recruit certain parents as assistants (assuming you need any) and then tell the rest that you may watch, but if you interrupt, you will not be welcome at practice. If they say you can't ban them, then you have a choice to make here: you either allow them to dictate prcedures to you, or you ask them and their child to leave. You might get lucky. The parent may realize they overstepped their bounds and take a step back. More likely, though, is they will take their child and go. Obviously, this is punishing the child for the sins of the parent, but you either punish that one family by kicking them out or you punish all your families by letting them stay. Coaching isn't fair. Then again, life isn't fair, either. BUT if you want to lead the rest of your girls through a season of softball, you sometimes have to do things like this. Good luck. Kenny
  3. By the way, perhaps the reason you haven't gotten responses before is you posted this under "Softball." Maybe you could check the soccer boards for the same topic. Kenny
  4. Four years old? I assume you've tried taking him to a game. If not, that's probably the best place to start. Otherwise, let him choose when he's ready. When he's ready, he'll let you know. Also, take a moment to step back and evaluate your own ambition. Perhaps he senses your desire to see your son play, rather than your desire to see him play, if you know what I mean. Kids can sense this at the earliest age. Kenny
  5. "Can anyone give me six qualities of a good coach?" Just curious, but why six? An old saying goes, Anybody can teach Xs and Os, but a great coach inspires. That should be number one on any list. Caring is important. You cannot lead a team if you don't care about them. Not about their play, but about them as people. Not caring too much. If you care more about winning the game than they do, perhaps you need to revisit your priorities. (I once witnessed a coach screaming at his crying third graders, "I WANT THIS GAME!" It was shameful.) Know the game. Simply put, you cannot teach that which you do not know. Preparation. A modestly intelligent coach with a plan is vastly superior to an intelligent coach with no plan. The first coach may cram as much teaching into one practice as the second teaches in four. Preparation is the key. Thick skin. Parents will argue with you, refs won’t see things your way, and you can never please everyone. You need to accept this from Day One. As the saying goes, If you can’t take the heat, then get out of the kitchen. IMHO. Kenny
  6. You wrote, “I also agree that you are handling correctly, there is no reason that the girls should not be disciplined. I don't understand the attitude with sports that it should all be about fun and that nothing should be expected of the children. Teachers wouldn't allow it.” Yes, but they aren’t in class. If it weren’t for our desire to see them in a structured environment, they would be playing out in the driveway, or down at the schoolyards. But that is no longer acceptable. Now they must be categorized and scheduled and so on. So instead of playing basketball in the driveway or at the schoolyard, they are working basketball for an age-group team. Whose game is it anyway? Is it for their benefit, or for their coach’s and parents’ benefits? As I wrote earlier, some coaches are already stressing college scholarship value to elementary school kids. What is that about? Let the kid fall in love with the game, and he or she may pursue it to that degree. Put that pressure in the kid at age seven, and there will never be love for the game--only a payoff. You also wrote, “If they were paying for piano lessons for their children and they showed up and just chit chated and pounded on the keyboard during practice would the parents and the assistant just stand around and allow it?” Piano practice is usually 30-60 minutes. Any longer and the average kid loses focus. Even in that hour, a good piano instructor will allow for some chitchat and personal time. The instructor expects attention, yes, but within limits. Bball practices are usually longer than a piano lesson. Focus is a problem with kids. Coaches need to accept this and manage it without taking the fun out of it. “Training for youth sports is no different other than the fact that the youth coach is not getting paid $50 or $60 per half hour to teach the kids to play basketball.” Ahh, I sense a touch of inequality there. True that. I used to grimace every time I had to pay my daughter’s tennis coach, knowing I was a better team sport coach than he was a tennis coach, but since I had no tennis background, I couldn’t teach her the game. Well, he knew the game, but he couldn’t coach well, and after a couple years, she quit tennis altogether. A good coach is worth his or her weight in gold. But then a bad one is even more costly. Kenny
  7. Adding fun breaks in the form of competition is a great idea. I try to incorporate a competitive game every fifteen or twenty minutes, right before a water break: knockout, king of the hill, even dodgeball (great for teaching them to catch passes). My girls know about seven or eight of them, and they're often requesting and voting on which ones they want to do that practice. It's also helpful if you can find drills that favor different strengths, so you don't have the same girls winning every competition. Sure, there may be a girl or two who never seem to win anything, but sometimes you can find something that seventh or eighth girl can succeed in, and then you've won her over for the year. Kenny
  8. You wrote, “These girls are at the age where they need to show respect to their coaches and teamates by working hard, paying attention and at the same time have fun.” That may be true for older girls, but fifth-graders? We have to remember how much we’re pushing the envelope here. When I was a kid, we only started little league in fourth or fifth grade, and it was mostly fun for a couple years. We didn’t get serious until 7th grade or so. Nowadays, we’ve got THREE-year-olds going through drills! That’s insane. Is it any wonder three-fourths of all kids quit team sports by age 12? My daughter played AAU bball in third grade, and the coach was already stressing college scholarships! The pressure was ridiculous, and the fun was gone. She quit after one season. Why? It wasn’t fun. This is a girl who practices piano and can do scales for an hour, or can take batting practice until her arms ache, all without complaint, so it’s not that she didn’t want to do the work--she wanted to play. To PLAY. Consider it this way: if we weren’t around, and if the kids were just playing bball in their driveway (like many of us did years ago when there weren’t “playdates” and overscheduled lives), they would learn the game by playing the game. They would match up and scrimmage without adult supervision. Add our supervision, but don’t let it override their sense of play. They will show respect and pay attention if you guide them and allow them to enjoy the game. They’ll give you a far greater effort if you lead them than if you push them. Kenny
  9. You wrote: “I am there to teach them the game of basketball, and for them to get better. I am not there to babysit and let them goof off ... they are there to learn and I am there to coach them. I am supposed to point out the mistakes so that they learn from those mistakes.” That’s only part of what our job is. Somebody once said, Anybody can teach Xs and Os, but a coach also inspires. I would try a different approach. Frankly, if it isn’t fun, they aren’t going to keep playing. After all, it IS called “playing” basketball, and if they quit because I took the “play” out of it, then I failed them as a coach, not vice versa. For three years now, I’ve told my girls I have three rules: To have fun, To try your best, and To be a good sport. If it IS fun, then you’ll find they WILL try their best. There will be days when they may lose focus and chit chat, but then they ARE kids. (Mine are fifth graders.) Those days are trying, because I’ve got to walk that line between coaxing and punishing, but I try my best, for their benefit. To this day, I’ve never ordered laps or push-ups or any other punishment. (Btw, we’re tied for first place, so our time is fun AND productive.) If they’re chitchatting, rather than punish them, command their focus. For example, run a competitive drill where you keep score--so they must refocus themselves. Or put one of the talkative ones in charge of the drill with a challenge: if you can run this drill better than me, then you can talk all you want today; if you can’t, you can’t talk for the rest of practice. The team will love seeing this challenge play itself out. Our job is to educate them, yes. But it’s also to help them appreciate the game, enjoy the game, and stay in the game. If I keep most of them happily active in basketball through the years, that’s a greater success than leading a few of them to, say, AAU or high school success and driving the rest away from basketball. Few adults remember who won the seventh grade championship many years ago, but you’d be amazed to learn how many people never forget the coach who took the fun out of sports for them. Kenny
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