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[quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous]I've coached a girls rec league team the last couple of years. Ages 8 and 9.

Half of the players are motivated and eager to learn, and half are not (they have been forced to play by their parents).

It can be challenging to run a practice in which 50% of the kids are motivated and 50% are counting the seconds until the practice is over.

I'm curious to hear from other coaches in similar situations. What has been your approach for dealing with the disinterested half of the team? Do you invest extra time in them, trying to get them interested in the game? Or do you simply try to minimize the negative effect that they have on the positive half of the team?[/quote]

1.  Make sure your practices are very well organized.  Have a written plan of what you want to cover and make sure no single exercise lasts too long.  I would start at ten minutes per exercise and then adjust as necessary.

2.  Most exercises should be games with some element of competition.

Many exercises are naturally games - "sharks and minnows" for example is still a good exercise at this age.

You want to line your kids up on all four sides of a square to dribble through each other?  OK - but make it a competition - the first kid to get back and forth across the square ten times is the winner.  You can make the square into a rectangle with two sides longer than the others if you need to even out the competition.

I've seen coaches manage to turn a dribbling exercise into a team Xs and Os competition - where teams of three kids had to dribble the ball around the cone they wanted to cross off and drop their color pinny on the cone and then pass the ball to their teammate.  Kids loved it - all shouting at the kid with the ball which cone they should be aiming for etc.  This one is especially good because it lets the less skilled kids compete on a leverl playing field if they can think faster - it's surprisingly difficult to figure out which cone to aim for in a very short period of time while you are also dribbling the ball at high speed.

3.  Hand out (small) prizes if you think the kids will respond to them.  The dollar store is your friend.

4.  Frequent encouragement and praise.  Celebrate every small improvement.  Did a nervous kid go to make a tackle.  Celebrate it even if he/she didn't win the ball.  That was a big step up for that kid.

5.  And yes - if none of that works and the kid just doesn't want to play today, sometimes you have to ignore them and focus on the others.  I would, in a very friendly and non-critical way, discuss the situation with the parents though in case they have any ideas.  Take the approach that the fault is yours not the kid's and apologize that you haven't been able to get him/her as interested as you should have done.  This will also have the benefit of defusing any parental anger at a possible percieved slight to their child.[/quote]

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