Reply to Discussion: What actually matters to you about your club and coaches?

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[quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous]Just for reference. I’m a local coach. I make no money from coaching. The majority of our players are undersized, technical kids. Most of them minorities, a lot from low-income families. We help them with rides, try and figure out ways for them to pay or get assistance. Everybody gets to play, because they bust their butts at practice and deserve to. They’ve earned this opportunity, no one’s given the anything.

I’m sorry if you’re having issues with your own situation or your kid is being unfairly benched/blackballed, but like I said you need to take that up with the coach, club leadership, find a new team or simply drop to rec if you want guaranteed playing time. Just because I’m playing devil’s advocate and not blindly taking up your position, does not mean that I play politics with youth players. Best of luck and hope you and your player can figure this out. [/quote]

Coach, thank you for your clarification. My level of disgust with club philosophies is not specific to my own player.  If you coach a team of minority and often low income families,you will understand why, regardless of my own kid's playing time, I don't want to be part of a club with coaches who roster kids for out of town tournaments, some of them who are from low income families, and then refuse to give those kids any playing time at all in a weekend long tournament.  These families make sacrifices to travel and get hotel rooms and it is not right for them to play maybe 5 minutes of garbage time at most in a weekend long tournament.  That's my opinion, even if you think it is "soft."

The other thing that happens commonly (it has happened to us at two clubs) is that side arrangements and politics often dictate playing time or team assignments, rather than a player's commitment and work ethic.  A club will bring over a group of players from another club, and suddenly they are playing over the old bench players, even though they seem to be on par with or below the level of the existing players. It happens all the time. It actually undermines a kids's motivation, because if he is working hard and has never been told anything negative by the coach, his logical conclusion is that he isn't good enough. Because, how did those kids who showed up for one practice earn the right to play over someone who has been at every practice  working hard all season long?

Since 6th grade, our parenting philosophy has been to tell our son to speak directly to the coach about any issues.However, if year after year the answer is always "you are doing great. Keep up the good work" and playing time is still limited, we will ask questions directly.It is easy to say "find a new club" but you would be surprised how difficult it is to find the right club that balances competition with player development.

Also, who is "undersized" is relative, but the issue is often more one of late puberty than size. A 5 foot tall Hispanic kid whose father is 5'2 likely is developmentally further along than a 5 foot kid whose parents are 6 footers. Unfortunately, U13 and U14 is usually when coaches start significantly limiting playing time for the less developed kids, so by the time they are U15 or U16, when the top players would be expected to play the entire game, those kids are at a disadvantage even if they are growing.  And trust me, it isn't sour grapes based on my own kids' situation.  He ha been hanging in with the big guys for years and I  can see him getting "better" as in stronger and more physical, as he approaches puberty. But he is still up against players who reached puberty years ago. The sad thing is that most of the kids we have known in our son's situation, those smaller, more technical players, have quit soccer entirely.

It sounds like you are doing a great job with the kids you coach  Too bad there aren't more of you!

[/quote]

You made some sensible points, I was referring more to the Soccer culture in the US in general being soft, not you per se. Sorry if I didn’t express myself properly. As for playing against manchildren, I get it. 12 of our players are playing up 1 age group. 7 are playing up 2 age groups. It can be a struggle. Just keeps believing in them, things balance themselves out in the end.[/quote]

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