Coaches Moving Up With Kids...Pro or Con?

[Anonymous]

So I just found out that my son is likely to have the same coach for the third year in a row.
He's has never really clicked with the coach, and is a perpetual back-up...I was really hoping for a fresh start with a new coach, but now it seems I'd have to drop down to a lower team to get that.
What do people think of coaches moving up worth the players? What are the pros and cons?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:So I just found out that my son is likely to have the same coach for the third year in a row.
He's has never really clicked with the coach, and is a perpetual back-up...I was really hoping for a fresh start with a new coach, but now it seems I'd have to drop down to a lower team to get that.
What do people think of coaches moving up worth the players? What are the pros and cons?

Well, you just listed the first Con of keeping the same coach for several years.

[Anonymous]

Don’t go on to a third year with something you’re unhappy with. Find a new team

[Anonymous]

We had that happen and left the third year.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Don’t go on to a third year with something you’re unhappy with. Find a new team

+1
We are not in the DC area anymore, and there’s one large club in our city and a couple of smaller options as well. We left the big club last year after it became obvious that they were never going to look at my sermon objectively, and he would’ve been with the same coach for the third year in a row. There were plenty of players who like that coach but it just wasn’t a good fit for my son, he was never able to effectively communicate what he wanted out of him. Our son started practicing with a team from another club with a different coaching style and it clicked immediately—he said he learned more in on practice than he had the previous season. His old coach didn’t even realize that my son (who has a September birthday) was going to be starting high school last fall!

We are currently debating whether he should try out for the ENCL team with the old club (this was their first year with ENCL) now that it’s been a year, and DS has grown a lot. Still prefer his new coach but the current club doesn’t have the connections with college recruiters that the more established club does—a former teammate is already talking to a college coach as a freshman.

[Anonymous]

Great question. I was curious how other clubs handled this. Our club is small. The coaches seem to stay with the teams. My son's coach is average, but my son seems to love him, his teammates, and does seem to be improving. I wonder each spring if I should consider moving him so he can have the experience of a different coach.

[Anonymous]

Well, if it's a good coach and the kids enjoy the team chemistry then coach moving up is a good thing. With that being said, at some point it is good to get different coaching styles in to keep the development process going. Our club has a 2-3 year cycle which is a good rhythm IMO.

[Anonymous]

Two years max with one coach I think has worked for us. You need a fresh set of eyes on kids and also different training techniques that other coaches will see that the current one may not.

[Anonymous]

I think 2 years max is a good rule generally, but there are a few coaches we would have been thrilled to have for longer. I know a couple of top area teams where the boys have had the same coach for their whole youth career. Those teams tend to play very well together because everyone learns the coach's system and the teammates generally have very strong on-field chemistry. But the players can have a rough adjustment if they switch teams.

[Anonymous]

It really depends, doesn’t it? Brian Kleiban’s players seem to have done fairly well.