WWYD: youth sports coaching question
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Anonymous
The point of practice for a team sport is to practice working together as a team. How hard a kid works at their travel team practice is not relevant. Lots of kids on travel teams do outside individual training and work hard there. Doesn’t mean they don’t have to show up for practices with their team. Missing practice sometimes for a conflict is different from saying you won’t ever be at a single practice. Even if your kid is the star, it’s not fair to just plunk them in at games. The other kids deserve to learn how to play with all of their teammates in a practice setting. |
Anonymous
It’s a nightmare no matter what you do. So it’s better to handle the requests and conflicts *before* making the rosters and practice schedules, than to get a bunch of emails after teams have been put together and schedules made, with people saying their kid can’t practice on this or that day and need to switch teams. |
Anonymous
This 100% I’d kindly offer them to switch to a different team with a different practice day. My kid does 3 dufferent sports right now ( travel soccer, rec basketball, school basketball) and some days I feel like I’m just ubering everywhere. I would never outright say we’re not doing any practices. |
Anonymous
+1 |
Anonymous
That kid will probably be your best player. |
Anonymous
Who cares? Its rec. If the child doesn't want to fully participate, she can sit on the bench and play the minimum time. |
Anonymous
| Quick two cents: I agree with the other posters about playing the travel player the minimum amount of time. Not out of spite like most posters, but because that travel kid is getting PLENTY of playing time outside of the rec league (likely year round too), and you don't want to take away from the kids for whom this is their only team and only season of year. |
Anonymous
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That may be your best player. You may have a ringer there. 95% of what you are teaching, that kid is probably already learning in club practice.
I’ve had kids that don’t show up to practice that are very unskilled players. Then they show up to games expecting to play. And the rec league will have some rule guaranteeing the kid 2 quarters of playing time or something. Atleast the kid you are talking about is working on their game. |
Anonymous
On the flip side of that, I've always had issues where it's really hard to enter basketball at later ages. In soccer there are more regulations where travel players can't play in rec leagues. But we know many aau basketball players who play on three or four teams a season, with one of the teams usually being a rec team. It makes rec leagues and teams very high level and hard for first time or beginner players and teams to compete in. Rec leagues should be set for beginners or players who are just playing for fun or want to try it out. I get it that some aau players want to play on the same team as their friends. So the team/coach has to kind of decide what their goal is. Is it just for a bunch of friends playing together? Is it to develop and have the players and team get better and become good basketball players? Or do they just want to win regardless if the win is a result of their players and team getting better throughout the season or it's because they have a ringer show up to the games? For some of the rec kids, the rec league is all they have in terms of getting to play organized basketball. |
Anonymous
| I allowed a player on my team last year who missed just about every practice due to conflicts with another sport. For a new player I'd have said no, but I knew the player well and was happy to accommodate. It wasn't ideal because there were things I wanted to work on, but it's rec league. |
Anonymous
For rec league I kept spreadsheets to make sure that all players got an equal number of minutes. That alone might weed out a travel player. |
Anonymous
It’s not an administrative nightmare if you have even one adult who possesses basic competence with a program like Excel. Don’t be dramatic. |
Anonymous
It’s not “spite” - it’s FAIRNESS to all the other kids who don’t think they’re too good to show up to practice. Signing up for a team with absolutely zero intention of participating in anything other than the fun parts (games) is unbelievably entitled behavior (and of course I blame the parents, not the kid). |
Anonymous
Many of the house leagues don’t have a practice or participation requirement other than guaranteed 2 quarters per game. If I was coaching, I would play the kid who doesn’t come to practice the minimum, but if this player is helping the team when needed, they may get more time. One time I coached and 2 parents had an altercation at my first practice. One of the parents was my best player and the second parent had a mediocre player. The rec league found out and removed the mediocre player,but the next player to sign up would be assigned to my team. The next player assigned was absolutely awful, he did absolutely nothing. Probably the worst player I’ve coached ever as far as contribution. Attitude wasn’t bad. He just didn’t help the team. I would gladly take the kid that can play, but can’t make most practices in house league. |
Anonymous
| I coached a Rec team for 5 years - it was mostly my kid’s friends from school but we would include anyone who wanted to play as long as we didn’t reach roster capacity. Everyone is so over scheduled these days and I had to pick days and times that worked with the majority of schedules (including my own) and because of permitting, I didn’t have a lot of options for practice times and days either. My rule was basically to choose a practice day and time with the understanding that it wasn’t going to work with everyone’s schedules, in which case, practice was encouraged but not mandatory. |