Reply to 5th Grader DC's Coach Swears in Games

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[quote=Anonymous]

The KIDS should be having fun, learning a skill, practicing fair play and sportmanship.

It's ten year old KIDS you're talking about. Your mentality ruins sports for everyone and makes a kid's life miserable.[/quote]

No -- the kids should be trying their best to win the game by using their skills and athletic ability -- hopefully to the best of their ability.  The skills and athletic ability may be all over the board on a given team and that's okay.  John may be a kid who is not very athletic with no basketball skill at all, and as long as he tries hard using even those very limited abilities, John should have fun, and his parents and the coach should be very pleased.  One of the goals should be for the kids to learn that they can have fun and be pleased with their performance regardless of whether they won or lost if they tried their best.  The other side wants to win too, and sometimes they are just better.

In my view, at this age the coach's game time role would be to do what he can so that John and his teammates can play, have some fun, and hopefully continue to learn and use/improve their own skills.  If the team wins that's great, but not the key thing from a youth coaching perspective.  So, with the hypothetical John, who is not a very good player I would suggest that a coach should: (a) Make sure he plays the same amount of time as everyone else - or as close to it as possible.  Some leagues will have a min. play time rule, but I think you are much better off if everyone plays the same amount - recognizing that it is not an exact science as kids can get tired, hurt, or possibly foul out.  (b) When playing, try and put John into positions where he has the best chance of achieving some level of success.  For example, John could be assigned to guard the opposing team's worst player; (c) use the game as a teaching/learning opportunity when it is fresh.  Take a few moments when John is not on the floor to go over some of the good stuff that the coach saw John do, and, if appropriate, offer some direction on anything wrong that John might be able to correct when he goes back out on the floor.  The oreo technique is good with 10 year olds -- sandwich a correction between two compliments.

What the coach should not be doing is trying to set things up so that the best players play the most, or are the ones always on the floor at the end of the game, or are the only ones to shoot.

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