Little League and parent arrogance

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I’ve coached baseball for years both rec and travel and adapted practices for each as well as age. Biggest challenge by far has been getting volunteer help - not so much travel because folks are invested. But in rec parents were always quick to be all over their kid for swing mechanics etc but couldn’t bother to volunteer for station help. Or when they saw I was solo with 12 8-year-olds. “I don’t know baseball that well” - did you see me lobbing balls underhand? did you see me putting balls on tee for tee work? It’s that simple and doesn’t take PhD in baseball to help…

This, although I will note that everyone weighing in on Vienna Little League, which OP specifically referenced, made it sound like people were tripping over themselves to coach. Honestly, that would be awesome. Typically the only way to get parents to help is to have a bad enough coach that parents give up and step in.

Yup, when I coached, I would just walk up to the folks sitting in the chair and ask "Do you mind lending a hand?"

If they said "I don't know baseball", they'd get a simple job like, place the ball on the tee and make sure the other kids don't get too close to the kid swinging

I coached for many years…I never had anyone sitting around watching practice to even ask. There were parents that agreed to help formally with the league and parents that opened the car door and were gone within 10 seconds. Maybe you get a small group showing up near the very end of practice for pick up.

Really? You never had a bunch of parents bring camping chairs and set up off in the distance to chat?

It literally has happened at every youth team I've been a part of (under 10, at least). For soccer, football, baseball, softball

Never…maybe this is urban LL vs suburban LL. Parents may live just around the corner so it’s a 2 minute drive vs 15-30 minutes each way (so a parent may decide it’s easier to just stay vs driving home just to have to leave to pick up the kid soon after).

By 10 years old you have kids that were reasonably close walking to practice together with no parents.

I think it’s weird for parents to just hang around a practice and do nothing. If I saw that I would also make them help in some way.

FWIW, they don't usually "do nothing." It's really not weird; they are usually socializing with other parents and enjoying a nice evening. I don't think there's anything wrong with it.

And even better, when the kids were a little older and I would work on situations, I would recruit those parents to be baserunners, with the kids always loved.

Yeah…it’s weird. Sorry, sitting around socializing is doing nothing. I didn’t literally mean they just sit there staring into space.

So, yeah I will make them help if they are sitting there and see there is only 1 or 2 adults managing a whole team that they don’t volunteer to help…yet they are coming to watch the practice? Why didn’t they volunteer to help if they were going to be there anyway?

That's probably a good way to make sure the parents drop off and leave. Not everyone is good with kids, wants to be involved, knows how to play the sport, or wants to run around. You volunteered, why did you sign up if you didn't really want to be there? I'm sure some will lend a hand but "make them help" is weird and aggressive.

That’s great for me…point being if you decided to come to just watch practice, that ain’t happening. You will be drafted to help.

However, this doesn’t occur in CapCity, NWLL, CapHILL etc when most kids can walk to practice with friends or parents live one minute away. There is no social scene around practice unless the league decides to hand out free adult drinks.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I’ve coached baseball for years both rec and travel and adapted practices for each as well as age. Biggest challenge by far has been getting volunteer help - not so much travel because folks are invested. But in rec parents were always quick to be all over their kid for swing mechanics etc but couldn’t bother to volunteer for station help. Or when they saw I was solo with 12 8-year-olds. “I don’t know baseball that well” - did you see me lobbing balls underhand? did you see me putting balls on tee for tee work? It’s that simple and doesn’t take PhD in baseball to help…

This, although I will note that everyone weighing in on Vienna Little League, which OP specifically referenced, made it sound like people were tripping over themselves to coach. Honestly, that would be awesome. Typically the only way to get parents to help is to have a bad enough coach that parents give up and step in.

Yup, when I coached, I would just walk up to the folks sitting in the chair and ask "Do you mind lending a hand?"

If they said "I don't know baseball", they'd get a simple job like, place the ball on the tee and make sure the other kids don't get too close to the kid swinging

I coached for many years…I never had anyone sitting around watching practice to even ask. There were parents that agreed to help formally with the league and parents that opened the car door and were gone within 10 seconds. Maybe you get a small group showing up near the very end of practice for pick up.

This is something I noticed as an urban parent whose child has played sports in DC but also joined teams in the burbs... urban parents stick around, suburban parents pull up in the SUV, dump the kids out and go back home. The seasons where my kid has practice in walking distance, I typically stick around, just because it's nice and I run into the neighbors (often teammates' parents) and the times it's at another park in another neighborhood, I just stay because the effort to drive east/west in DC, finding parking, etc. I might as well just stay for the 60-90 minutes and hang out. I don't hover, but I'm around. On the suburban teams, it's a bit bewildering because I don't want to be the overbearing parent, but it makes even less sense to drop them and run home.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Having a kid that is getting some interest from D1 schools in baseball, here is my $.02 on youth baseball:

1. I now appreciate the European soccer style of player development. They focus entirely on building fundamental skills until kids are like 13. They don't play any games, just do some scrimmages...often just internally, but sometimes against a different team. They don't keep track of score and may often stop the game in order to teach kids what they are doing right and wrong. Only at 14+ do they start playing real games.

2. Very few baseball coaches at any level try to develop players. I actually give credit to LL coaches (good ones)...they actually do try to teach some skills although their abilities may be limited based on their experience.

3. In my experience, travel coaches are just managers. They care far too much about winning games. Their teams may be different from season-to-season. My kid never played on a team that developed kids through the team...although the coaches were of course available for private lessons.

4. The older the kid gets and the better the travel team...the less any player development happens. At that point, you make the team because of your skills and coaches really only care about winning games and making sure college coaches scout and recruit from their teams. The best programs care more about the latter because honestly that is what truly matters. It is weird, but my kid is on a team where 2/3 of the team are D1 commits and their attitude is that once the college coaches are no longer at the tournament (those coaches tend to by 9-5 M-F people)...then they don't care much more about the tournament.

5. If you really want your kid to get better, find good private instruction and pay for that. It's harder to do than it sounds, but be picky. Try to find a flexible travel team that will let you play...again, just to see if your kid is getting better in true game day situations. Until your kid is 16, don't waste $$$s on travel programs that are going to crazy tournaments...unless it is one of these premier national teams...in which case, your kid is so good that these teams find your kid.

It is hard to go against the prevailing sentiment...and can't say I abided by my lessons above all the time...but I tried.

Why would you think European kids don’t play soccer games and keep score? Here is a link to Barcelona youth academy 9 and 10 year olds playing a match against another club.
https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=-3B9IQDfD7A&pp=ygUJQmFyY2EgdTEw

And youth academy soccer is subsided by professional clubs.

I will admit, I remembered the article differently for kids 12 and under.

NY Times Article on Ajax Soccer Club in the Netherlands:

"Americans place a higher value on competition than on practice, so the balance between games and practice in the U.S. is skewed when compared with the rest of the world. It’s not unusual for a teenager in the U.S. to play 100 or more games in a season, for two or three different teams, leaving little time for training and little energy for it in the infrequent moments it occurs. A result is that the development of our best players is stunted."

“As soon as a kid here starts playing (in the US), he’s got referees on the field and parents watching in lawn chairs,” John Hackworth, the former coach of the U.S. under-17 national team and now the youth-development coordinator for the Philadelphia franchise in Major League Soccer, told me. “As he gets older, the game count just keeps increasing. It’s counterproductive to learning and the No. 1 worst thing we do.”

During training sessions at Ajax, I rarely heard the boys’ loud voices or laughter or much of anything besides the thump of the ball and the instruction of coaches. It could seem grim, more like the grinding atmosphere of training for an individual sport — tennis, golf, gymnastics — than what you would expect in a typically boisterous team setting. But one element of the academy’s success is that the boys are not overplayed, so the hours at De Toekomst are all business. Through age 12, they train only three times a week and play one game on the weekend. “For the young ones, we think that’s enough,” Riekerink said when we talked in his office one day. “They have a private life, a family life. We don’t want to take that from them. When they are not with us, they play on the streets. They play with their friends. Sometimes that’s more important. They have the ball at their feet without anyone telling them what to do.”

I think a big takeaway is that as damaged as the American youth sports development system is, everywhere else in the world is blatantly exploitative and miserable. In England, those 8 year olds are working at a job, not playing soccer.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I’ve coached baseball for years both rec and travel and adapted practices for each as well as age. Biggest challenge by far has been getting volunteer help - not so much travel because folks are invested. But in rec parents were always quick to be all over their kid for swing mechanics etc but couldn’t bother to volunteer for station help. Or when they saw I was solo with 12 8-year-olds. “I don’t know baseball that well” - did you see me lobbing balls underhand? did you see me putting balls on tee for tee work? It’s that simple and doesn’t take PhD in baseball to help…

This, although I will note that everyone weighing in on Vienna Little League, which OP specifically referenced, made it sound like people were tripping over themselves to coach. Honestly, that would be awesome. Typically the only way to get parents to help is to have a bad enough coach that parents give up and step in.

Yup, when I coached, I would just walk up to the folks sitting in the chair and ask "Do you mind lending a hand?"

If they said "I don't know baseball", they'd get a simple job like, place the ball on the tee and make sure the other kids don't get too close to the kid swinging

I coached for many years…I never had anyone sitting around watching practice to even ask. There were parents that agreed to help formally with the league and parents that opened the car door and were gone within 10 seconds. Maybe you get a small group showing up near the very end of practice for pick up.

Really? You never had a bunch of parents bring camping chairs and set up off in the distance to chat?

It literally has happened at every youth team I've been a part of (under 10, at least). For soccer, football, baseball, softball

Never…maybe this is urban LL vs suburban LL. Parents may live just around the corner so it’s a 2 minute drive vs 15-30 minutes each way (so a parent may decide it’s easier to just stay vs driving home just to have to leave to pick up the kid soon after).

By 10 years old you have kids that were reasonably close walking to practice together with no parents.

I think it’s weird for parents to just hang around a practice and do nothing. If I saw that I would also make them help in some way.

FWIW, they don't usually "do nothing." It's really not weird; they are usually socializing with other parents and enjoying a nice evening. I don't think there's anything wrong with it.

And even better, when the kids were a little older and I would work on situations, I would recruit those parents to be baserunners, with the kids always loved.

Yeah…it’s weird. Sorry, sitting around socializing is doing nothing. I didn’t literally mean they just sit there staring into space.

So, yeah I will make them help if they are sitting there and see there is only 1 or 2 adults managing a whole team that they don’t volunteer to help…yet they are coming to watch the practice? Why didn’t they volunteer to help if they were going to be there anyway?

That's probably a good way to make sure the parents drop off and leave. Not everyone is good with kids, wants to be involved, knows how to play the sport, or wants to run around. You volunteered, why did you sign up if you didn't really want to be there? I'm sure some will lend a hand but "make them help" is weird and aggressive.

That’s great for me…point being if you decided to come to just watch practice, that ain’t happening. You will be drafted to help.

However, this doesn’t occur in CapCity, NWLL, CapHILL etc when most kids can walk to practice with friends or parents live one minute away. There is no social scene around practice unless the league decides to hand out free adult drinks.

If you say so. I've been doing this for years and nobody has ever forced me to help. Luckily my kids are now past an age that this would ever come up, my oldest is a teen, my middle doesn't play in a sport at a park, and my youngest is a swimmer now. But I sat on many a park chair watching other kids, chatting to other parents, sometimes dropping off, but never conscripted into duty.

[Anonymous]

My favorite fact about Little League is that just 64 players who ever appeared in the LLWS wound up in the MLB.

If you envision baseball stardom for your kid, LL is not the way to go!

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I’ve coached baseball for years both rec and travel and adapted practices for each as well as age. Biggest challenge by far has been getting volunteer help - not so much travel because folks are invested. But in rec parents were always quick to be all over their kid for swing mechanics etc but couldn’t bother to volunteer for station help. Or when they saw I was solo with 12 8-year-olds. “I don’t know baseball that well” - did you see me lobbing balls underhand? did you see me putting balls on tee for tee work? It’s that simple and doesn’t take PhD in baseball to help…

This, although I will note that everyone weighing in on Vienna Little League, which OP specifically referenced, made it sound like people were tripping over themselves to coach. Honestly, that would be awesome. Typically the only way to get parents to help is to have a bad enough coach that parents give up and step in.

Yup, when I coached, I would just walk up to the folks sitting in the chair and ask "Do you mind lending a hand?"

If they said "I don't know baseball", they'd get a simple job like, place the ball on the tee and make sure the other kids don't get too close to the kid swinging

I coached for many years…I never had anyone sitting around watching practice to even ask. There were parents that agreed to help formally with the league and parents that opened the car door and were gone within 10 seconds. Maybe you get a small group showing up near the very end of practice for pick up.

Really? You never had a bunch of parents bring camping chairs and set up off in the distance to chat?

It literally has happened at every youth team I've been a part of (under 10, at least). For soccer, football, baseball, softball

Never…maybe this is urban LL vs suburban LL. Parents may live just around the corner so it’s a 2 minute drive vs 15-30 minutes each way (so a parent may decide it’s easier to just stay vs driving home just to have to leave to pick up the kid soon after).

By 10 years old you have kids that were reasonably close walking to practice together with no parents.

I think it’s weird for parents to just hang around a practice and do nothing. If I saw that I would also make them help in some way.

FWIW, they don't usually "do nothing." It's really not weird; they are usually socializing with other parents and enjoying a nice evening. I don't think there's anything wrong with it.

And even better, when the kids were a little older and I would work on situations, I would recruit those parents to be baserunners, with the kids always loved.

Yeah…it’s weird. Sorry, sitting around socializing is doing nothing. I didn’t literally mean they just sit there staring into space.

So, yeah I will make them help if they are sitting there and see there is only 1 or 2 adults managing a whole team that they don’t volunteer to help…yet they are coming to watch the practice? Why didn’t they volunteer to help if they were going to be there anyway?

That's probably a good way to make sure the parents drop off and leave. Not everyone is good with kids, wants to be involved, knows how to play the sport, or wants to run around. You volunteered, why did you sign up if you didn't really want to be there? I'm sure some will lend a hand but "make them help" is weird and aggressive.

That’s great for me…point being if you decided to come to just watch practice, that ain’t happening. You will be drafted to help.

However, this doesn’t occur in CapCity, NWLL, CapHILL etc when most kids can walk to practice with friends or parents live one minute away. There is no social scene around practice unless the league decides to hand out free adult drinks.

If you say so. I've been doing this for years and nobody has ever forced me to help. Luckily my kids are now past an age that this would ever come up, my oldest is a teen, my middle doesn't play in a sport at a park, and my youngest is a swimmer now. But I sat on many a park chair watching other kids, chatting to other parents, sometimes dropping off, but never conscripted into duty.

I guess parents in DC have a life such that they don't just sit around watching practices.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:My favorite fact about Little League is that just 64 players who ever appeared in the LLWS wound up in the MLB.

If you envision baseball stardom for your kid, LL is not the way to go!

There is nothing wrong with LL- but the LLWS is mostly about which team has the highest number of kids who hit puberty super early. Not much else.

Nearly every kid starts out playing LL or a similar rec organization, and most of the kids will never even play in high school (much less anything beyond that) regardless of where they play.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:My favorite fact about Little League is that just 64 players who ever appeared in the LLWS wound up in the MLB.

If you envision baseball stardom for your kid, LL is not the way to go!

There is nothing wrong with LL- but the LLWS is mostly about which team has the highest number of kids who hit puberty super early. Not much else.

Nearly every kid starts out playing LL or a similar rec organization, and most of the kids will never even play in high school (much less anything beyond that) regardless of where they play.

Tell that to literally anyone involved with NWLL where parental/coach obsession with LLWS has ruined the whole system.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Having a kid that is getting some interest from D1 schools in baseball, here is my $.02 on youth baseball:

1. I now appreciate the European soccer style of player development. They focus entirely on building fundamental skills until kids are like 13. They don't play any games, just do some scrimmages...often just internally, but sometimes against a different team. They don't keep track of score and may often stop the game in order to teach kids what they are doing right and wrong. Only at 14+ do they start playing real games.

2. Very few baseball coaches at any level try to develop players. I actually give credit to LL coaches (good ones)...they actually do try to teach some skills although their abilities may be limited based on their experience.

3. In my experience, travel coaches are just managers. They care far too much about winning games. Their teams may be different from season-to-season. My kid never played on a team that developed kids through the team...although the coaches were of course available for private lessons.

4. The older the kid gets and the better the travel team...the less any player development happens. At that point, you make the team because of your skills and coaches really only care about winning games and making sure college coaches scout and recruit from their teams. The best programs care more about the latter because honestly that is what truly matters. It is weird, but my kid is on a team where 2/3 of the team are D1 commits and their attitude is that once the college coaches are no longer at the tournament (those coaches tend to by 9-5 M-F people)...then they don't care much more about the tournament.

5. If you really want your kid to get better, find good private instruction and pay for that. It's harder to do than it sounds, but be picky. Try to find a flexible travel team that will let you play...again, just to see if your kid is getting better in true game day situations. Until your kid is 16, don't waste $$$s on travel programs that are going to crazy tournaments...unless it is one of these premier national teams...in which case, your kid is so good that these teams find your kid.

It is hard to go against the prevailing sentiment...and can't say I abided by my lessons above all the time...but I tried.

Why would you think European kids don’t play soccer games and keep score? Here is a link to Barcelona youth academy 9 and 10 year olds playing a match against another club.
https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=-3B9IQDfD7A&pp=ygUJQmFyY2EgdTEw

And youth academy soccer is subsided by professional clubs.

I will admit, I remembered the article differently for kids 12 and under.

NY Times Article on Ajax Soccer Club in the Netherlands:

"Americans place a higher value on competition than on practice, so the balance between games and practice in the U.S. is skewed when compared with the rest of the world. It’s not unusual for a teenager in the U.S. to play 100 or more games in a season, for two or three different teams, leaving little time for training and little energy for it in the infrequent moments it occurs. A result is that the development of our best players is stunted."

“As soon as a kid here starts playing (in the US), he’s got referees on the field and parents watching in lawn chairs,” John Hackworth, the former coach of the U.S. under-17 national team and now the youth-development coordinator for the Philadelphia franchise in Major League Soccer, told me. “As he gets older, the game count just keeps increasing. It’s counterproductive to learning and the No. 1 worst thing we do.”

During training sessions at Ajax, I rarely heard the boys’ loud voices or laughter or much of anything besides the thump of the ball and the instruction of coaches. It could seem grim, more like the grinding atmosphere of training for an individual sport — tennis, golf, gymnastics — than what you would expect in a typically boisterous team setting. But one element of the academy’s success is that the boys are not overplayed, so the hours at De Toekomst are all business. Through age 12, they train only three times a week and play one game on the weekend. “For the young ones, we think that’s enough,” Riekerink said when we talked in his office one day. “They have a private life, a family life. We don’t want to take that from them. When they are not with us, they play on the streets. They play with their friends. Sometimes that’s more important. They have the ball at their feet without anyone telling them what to do.”

I think a big takeaway is that as damaged as the American youth sports development system is, everywhere else in the world is blatantly exploitative and miserable. In England, those 8 year olds are working at a job, not playing soccer.

The takeaway is that it is fairly blunt who has a future in the sport and who will just play for fun. You don't have parents wasting thousands of $$$s on mediocre travel teams just to finally be told at 16 or 17 that your kid never had a chance to get recruited for college.

Notice how the article said these teams encourage kids 12 and under to just meet up as friends with no parents or leagues, and just play. You don't see that much anymore in youth sports in the US.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:My favorite fact about Little League is that just 64 players who ever appeared in the LLWS wound up in the MLB.

If you envision baseball stardom for your kid, LL is not the way to go!

There is nothing wrong with LL- but the LLWS is mostly about which team has the highest number of kids who hit puberty super early. Not much else.

Nearly every kid starts out playing LL or a similar rec organization, and most of the kids will never even play in high school (much less anything beyond that) regardless of where they play.

Tell that to literally anyone involved with NWLL where parental/coach obsession with LLWS has ruined the whole system.

Oh I know. I’d love to see them do away with LL all-stars altogether (and my DSs always made the teams, not sour grapes). It creates so much drama in most leagues (and that is putting it mildly). I’d rather see leagues asking who wants to play over the summer, forming new teams and playing a summer season.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:My favorite fact about Little League is that just 64 players who ever appeared in the LLWS wound up in the MLB.

If you envision baseball stardom for your kid, LL is not the way to go!

Right. But that has as much to do with how difficult it is to get to Williamsport, for a variety of reasons. And, not every town has little league. Some towns have Pony, Dixie, Ripken, etc.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:My favorite fact about Little League is that just 64 players who ever appeared in the LLWS wound up in the MLB.

If you envision baseball stardom for your kid, LL is not the way to go!

The problem is that there are probably 50 teams in Southern CA that could all beat the team that does the worst at Williamsport due to the formula for qualifying.

Same for FL, GA and TX teams. Any number of teams that didn’t win their region could beat the team qualifying from New England or Pacific NW (understanding once every decade thiose regions produce a decent team).

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:My favorite fact about Little League is that just 64 players who ever appeared in the LLWS wound up in the MLB.

If you envision baseball stardom for your kid, LL is not the way to go!

The problem is that there are probably 50 teams in Southern CA that could all beat the team that does the worst at Williamsport due to the formula for qualifying.

Same for FL, GA and TX teams. Any number of teams that didn’t win their region could beat the team qualifying from New England or Pacific NW (understanding once every decade thiose regions produce a decent team).

That doesn't help, but also, the larger point is: having an overbearing parent who plays politics to manipulate your team into LLWS doesn't equal Major League Baseball stardom. But also, the surest indicator of future MLB success is being closely related to a current or former MLB player, so I dunno... maybe people should stop hanging so much importance on their 11yo kid's athletic accomplishments?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Having a kid that is getting some interest from D1 schools in baseball, here is my $.02 on youth baseball:

1. I now appreciate the European soccer style of player development. They focus entirely on building fundamental skills until kids are like 13. They don't play any games, just do some scrimmages...often just internally, but sometimes against a different team. They don't keep track of score and may often stop the game in order to teach kids what they are doing right and wrong. Only at 14+ do they start playing real games.

2. Very few baseball coaches at any level try to develop players. I actually give credit to LL coaches (good ones)...they actually do try to teach some skills although their abilities may be limited based on their experience.

3. In my experience, travel coaches are just managers. They care far too much about winning games. Their teams may be different from season-to-season. My kid never played on a team that developed kids through the team...although the coaches were of course available for private lessons.

4. The older the kid gets and the better the travel team...the less any player development happens. At that point, you make the team because of your skills and coaches really only care about winning games and making sure college coaches scout and recruit from their teams. The best programs care more about the latter because honestly that is what truly matters. It is weird, but my kid is on a team where 2/3 of the team are D1 commits and their attitude is that once the college coaches are no longer at the tournament (those coaches tend to by 9-5 M-F people)...then they don't care much more about the tournament.

5. If you really want your kid to get better, find good private instruction and pay for that. It's harder to do than it sounds, but be picky. Try to find a flexible travel team that will let you play...again, just to see if your kid is getting better in true game day situations. Until your kid is 16, don't waste $$$s on travel programs that are going to crazy tournaments...unless it is one of these premier national teams...in which case, your kid is so good that these teams find your kid.

It is hard to go against the prevailing sentiment...and can't say I abided by my lessons above all the time...but I tried.

Why would you think European kids don’t play soccer games and keep score? Here is a link to Barcelona youth academy 9 and 10 year olds playing a match against another club.
https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=-3B9IQDfD7A&pp=ygUJQmFyY2EgdTEw

And youth academy soccer is subsided by professional clubs.

I will admit, I remembered the article differently for kids 12 and under.

NY Times Article on Ajax Soccer Club in the Netherlands:

"Americans place a higher value on competition than on practice, so the balance between games and practice in the U.S. is skewed when compared with the rest of the world. It’s not unusual for a teenager in the U.S. to play 100 or more games in a season, for two or three different teams, leaving little time for training and little energy for it in the infrequent moments it occurs. A result is that the development of our best players is stunted."

“As soon as a kid here starts playing (in the US), he’s got referees on the field and parents watching in lawn chairs,” John Hackworth, the former coach of the U.S. under-17 national team and now the youth-development coordinator for the Philadelphia franchise in Major League Soccer, told me. “As he gets older, the game count just keeps increasing. It’s counterproductive to learning and the No. 1 worst thing we do.”

During training sessions at Ajax, I rarely heard the boys’ loud voices or laughter or much of anything besides the thump of the ball and the instruction of coaches. It could seem grim, more like the grinding atmosphere of training for an individual sport — tennis, golf, gymnastics — than what you would expect in a typically boisterous team setting. But one element of the academy’s success is that the boys are not overplayed, so the hours at De Toekomst are all business. Through age 12, they train only three times a week and play one game on the weekend. “For the young ones, we think that’s enough,” Riekerink said when we talked in his office one day. “They have a private life, a family life. We don’t want to take that from them. When they are not with us, they play on the streets. They play with their friends. Sometimes that’s more important. They have the ball at their feet without anyone telling them what to do.”

I think a big takeaway is that as damaged as the American youth sports development system is, everywhere else in the world is blatantly exploitative and miserable. In England, those 8 year olds are working at a job, not playing soccer.

The takeaway is that it is fairly blunt who has a future in the sport and who will just play for fun. You don't have parents wasting thousands of $$$s on mediocre travel teams just to finally be told at 16 or 17 that your kid never had a chance to get recruited for college.

Notice how the article said these teams encourage kids 12 and under to just meet up as friends with no parents or leagues, and just play. You don't see that much anymore in youth sports in the US.

I’d love to do more sandlot style games, the problem is that most fields are in use in fall and spring or permit only.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Having a kid that is getting some interest from D1 schools in baseball, here is my $.02 on youth baseball:

1. I now appreciate the European soccer style of player development. They focus entirely on building fundamental skills until kids are like 13. They don't play any games, just do some scrimmages...often just internally, but sometimes against a different team. They don't keep track of score and may often stop the game in order to teach kids what they are doing right and wrong. Only at 14+ do they start playing real games.

2. Very few baseball coaches at any level try to develop players. I actually give credit to LL coaches (good ones)...they actually do try to teach some skills although their abilities may be limited based on their experience.

3. In my experience, travel coaches are just managers. They care far too much about winning games. Their teams may be different from season-to-season. My kid never played on a team that developed kids through the team...although the coaches were of course available for private lessons.

4. The older the kid gets and the better the travel team...the less any player development happens. At that point, you make the team because of your skills and coaches really only care about winning games and making sure college coaches scout and recruit from their teams. The best programs care more about the latter because honestly that is what truly matters. It is weird, but my kid is on a team where 2/3 of the team are D1 commits and their attitude is that once the college coaches are no longer at the tournament (those coaches tend to by 9-5 M-F people)...then they don't care much more about the tournament.

5. If you really want your kid to get better, find good private instruction and pay for that. It's harder to do than it sounds, but be picky. Try to find a flexible travel team that will let you play...again, just to see if your kid is getting better in true game day situations. Until your kid is 16, don't waste $$$s on travel programs that are going to crazy tournaments...unless it is one of these premier national teams...in which case, your kid is so good that these teams find your kid.

It is hard to go against the prevailing sentiment...and can't say I abided by my lessons above all the time...but I tried.

Why would you think European kids don’t play soccer games and keep score? Here is a link to Barcelona youth academy 9 and 10 year olds playing a match against another club.
https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=-3B9IQDfD7A&pp=ygUJQmFyY2EgdTEw

And youth academy soccer is subsided by professional clubs.

I will admit, I remembered the article differently for kids 12 and under.

NY Times Article on Ajax Soccer Club in the Netherlands:

"Americans place a higher value on competition than on practice, so the balance between games and practice in the U.S. is skewed when compared with the rest of the world. It’s not unusual for a teenager in the U.S. to play 100 or more games in a season, for two or three different teams, leaving little time for training and little energy for it in the infrequent moments it occurs. A result is that the development of our best players is stunted."

“As soon as a kid here starts playing (in the US), he’s got referees on the field and parents watching in lawn chairs,” John Hackworth, the former coach of the U.S. under-17 national team and now the youth-development coordinator for the Philadelphia franchise in Major League Soccer, told me. “As he gets older, the game count just keeps increasing. It’s counterproductive to learning and the No. 1 worst thing we do.”

During training sessions at Ajax, I rarely heard the boys’ loud voices or laughter or much of anything besides the thump of the ball and the instruction of coaches. It could seem grim, more like the grinding atmosphere of training for an individual sport — tennis, golf, gymnastics — than what you would expect in a typically boisterous team setting. But one element of the academy’s success is that the boys are not overplayed, so the hours at De Toekomst are all business. Through age 12, they train only three times a week and play one game on the weekend. “For the young ones, we think that’s enough,” Riekerink said when we talked in his office one day. “They have a private life, a family life. We don’t want to take that from them. When they are not with us, they play on the streets. They play with their friends. Sometimes that’s more important. They have the ball at their feet without anyone telling them what to do.”

I think a big takeaway is that as damaged as the American youth sports development system is, everywhere else in the world is blatantly exploitative and miserable. In England, those 8 year olds are working at a job, not playing soccer.

The takeaway is that it is fairly blunt who has a future in the sport and who will just play for fun. You don't have parents wasting thousands of $$$s on mediocre travel teams just to finally be told at 16 or 17 that your kid never had a chance to get recruited for college.

Notice how the article said these teams encourage kids 12 and under to just meet up as friends with no parents or leagues, and just play. You don't see that much anymore in youth sports in the US.

I’d love to do more sandlot style games, the problem is that most fields are in use in fall and spring or permit only.

It's basically impossible to get organized time on a ball field in NW (thank little league and DPR) for that, but the fields are often empty... Both Turtle Park and Stoddert are open for most hours — Stoddert in particular has quite a bit of neighborhood kids playing all kinds of sports. But I agree, it would be great if ALL of our public rec space was more efficiently used and made available for public use.