<p>When DD was in 7th grade she was on the school bb team. It was a catholic middle school, and the principal had a policy that anyone who goes out for the team gets to be on the team. But the coach let the starters play for 20-24 minutes of the 24 minute games, so the 10 non-starters got 30 seconds to 3 minutes each (most more like 30 seconds). The phys ed instructor made it clear that the policy was “play to win” even if it meant ONLY the starters got to play. Clearly, the policy of the principal and that of the league were at odds. Most of the other schools in the league only had 8-10 girls on their bb teams. </p>
<p>Fortunately, in 8th grade, they spread the playing time around a little bit more, so the 10 non-starters felt like they were actually part of the game. I never saw the point in treating it as if they were bound for the WNBA, since, obviously none of them were. Of the 15, it is unlikely any of them will even play in college. What is the point of treating it so seriously at the age of 12? Everyone thinks their kid is the next Lebron James. If that were true, the entire NBA would be made up of Lebrons. Not the case, peeps.</p>
<p>Re: playing time. Co-incidentally I picked my D up from her JV lacrosse game yesterday evening. They won 18 to 2. Coach did not go to the bench?! Not only did several girls have to sit on the bench the entire time. They get scolded if they are not actively rooting and cheering for their teammates on the field the entire game. Ordinarily, I would agree with this, but how disheartening to have to cheer, cheer, game after game after game. My D said if she wanted to be a cheerleader she would have become a cheerleader. </p>
<p>She didn’t get home until after 7 pm and was facing several hours of homework. If she had played it would have all been worth it. But has it stands I am not sure if I want her to go out for the team next year.</p>
<p>I’ve lived this situation many times. Am living it right now. After two kids who were athletic stars in high school, good enough to be on NCAA college teams, I have 3 who love sports but are not the caliber of starters. </p>
<p>My middle son was a 3 sport athlete who chose to play JV junior year rather than Varsity for football. He was moved up mid season to Varsity, where he sat on the bench for every single game. They just wanted him for the “scout team” at the practices. I wasn’t happy about that because he is not a big kid, and JV was much safer for him. He did play varsity his senior year, where he sat on the bench half the season, and played sparingly for the rest. Just the way it worked. He is playing club rugby at college now, and loves it. Plays every single game.</p>
<p>My junior has been sitting on the bench for most of his football career. He is on the “scout team” and accepts it as such. He understands that he is not big enough, quick enough, talented enough to play unless the coach decides to clear the bench which did not happen last year. He loves being on the team and will ask to manage or do stats if he is cut for Varsity this year, which could happen since there are a number of big JV kids at the school. I can’t figure out how he made Varsity last year. </p>
<p>My third one made the “A” team in basketball this year, one of the few 7th graders to do so, and with scant team basketball experience. It was a surprise he made JV last year, and he was a second stringer then. No one expected him, of all people, to make the “A” team. He would have been better off as far as playing time went to have made the “B” team. He sat on the bench most of the season, and was even an alternate during practice. Many of the kids who were on the “B” got much more play time and certainly a lot more practice time. They may well be picked for the Varsity A team next year over him which would be an ego blow to him.</p>
<p>Such is the world of sports. As one who played no sports and have little interest in even watching sports, it is ironic that I ended up with jocks as kids. I’ve watched more games, matches, you name it than most folks in just about every sport. There were years that I spent nearly every day watching a kid play a sport, and even then I did not make all of their games. In a sense, I was lucky to have my attitude because I don’t get the heart wrenching tears that some of the parents experience when their kid is cut or on the bench. Just not important to me. So the kids have tempered their attitudes accordingly, but they do love their sports.</p>
<p>Bhmomma, that is one thing I really don’t understand about some coaches. I think it is terribly unsportsmanlike to run up the score like many of them do. I deplore all the rules that have cropped up in kids’ sports making what used to be a pick up, fun thing into a rule driven competition but I wish there were rules that force the benching of starter and for all kids to play when the score discrepancy reaches a certain point. For younger kids and rec teams, in particular. How are kids supposed to get better if they do not get a chance to play? But I’m not even an athlete , and have not spent much time or energy on these issues and parents who are very involved have pushed this point and not gotten very far. Only on the very young rec level, are there equal playing rules. And it’s a danged shame they even need those! Benching 5 year olds indeed!</p>
<p>bhmomma - this type of “coaching” warrants a talk with the atletic director and/or principal. May not help your daughter now, but will hopefully help future players from being mistreated.</p>
<p>While I hate to sound like I’m on the side of a bad coach, let me add a comment that was true in my life, and may or may not be true in others’ lives.
When I wasn’t getting much game-time, naturally my parents thought I was being treated unfairly. I thought so too, but in a smaller degree. As i said before, I knew I wasn’t as good as the starters, but I did as much effort. I saw playing time as the reward- at least some playing time. Anyway, one of my parents eventually spoke to coach- calm, rational, and privately, and basically said- how do you know what the kid can do, if you don’t let him play? Coaches’ response was that he did see me play- 2 hrs a day, 6 days a week at practice with the other kids. Then asked my parent how many hours did they watch me play? That really made sense then and now.
While a bit of a tough lesson then, I got that not all who try are rewarded. Not all those that want to be the best will be. Those who are better, faster, smarter, prettier, often get more rewards. And similar lessons.
Many of today’s kids learn a different lesson. many now learn that everyone who competes wins a medal.(one example of a broad circumstance). It is the “feelgood generation” not wanting to hurt little Johnny’s ego. Personally I believe this is the wrong lesson.</p>
<p>I get your point, Younghoss, and that is certainly the case for teams that are the truly competitive teams. But for younger kids who are on teams where it is more a learning process, I cannot agree. Also, I have sat and watched some practices, and I can see that the starters are often the ones who get the planned workouts and the instruction. I saw that very, very clearly with my son’s team this year. As one of the second or even third string kids, the plays just did not include him. So the opportunity to learn to get better was compromised. </p>
<p>I can get this on a high school varsity team. Certainly won’t even make a murmur that college teams operate that way. Professional teams are truly that way. But for the younger kids who are not yet developed and are on developmental teams, rec teams, that is a whole other story.</p>
<p>Also one of the things that bothers some of us is the running up of the scores during lop sided games without playing the players on the bench. That is bad sportsmanship, in my opinion. Particularly with younger kids. </p>
<p>No, I blame the coaches.</p>
<p>Then you prob liked my previous post, cpt, when I gave my personal opinion on the degree of competition making the difference on playing time.</p>
<p>YH - I understand your point, but I don’t think it is relevant to bhmomma’s post. a couple of points:
- Even the highest level college and pro teams empty their benches in blowout wins. To have any non-injured, non-disciplanary, academically eligible player NOT play in an 18-2 high school game is just plain wrong and in my opinion cruel. I respect the right of the coaches to not play players in close games even if in my observations many would be better served if they used their bench.<br>
- High school sports are significantly different than club sports in that for the vast majority of the players they are stuck with whoever wants the stipend to be the coach. This means many HS teams end up with completely unqualified coaches. In club sports, you vote with your feet and find an appropriate place to play. High school sports coaches are just about the only leadership position I can think of that have this type of unfettered power. Students can typically change teachers, I can change jobs if I have a boss who I don’t mesh with, even spouses can move on if it isn’t working out.
- High school coaches are in theory teachers as well, so they have a responsibility to teach something. If my child were in a class and got a C, D or F entirely based on classroom observations, no tests, no exams, no opportunities at all, the student and I would have every right to be upset. If I did not expose this practice to a department head, counselor or principal, I would not only be doing a disservice to my student, but to all the students who came after and were unfairly exposed to a bad teacher.
- There is nothing else like representing your school in athletics. To wear the name of the school on you chest and represent your friends. It should be an enjoyable and memorable experience. Unfortunately, it appears that is all too often memorable for the wrong reasons. If it can be corrected, I see no reason not to try.</p>
<p>To My3 tiut- I agree it wasn’t relevant to Bmmom’s post. It wasn’t intended to be so specific. My specific experience wasn’t in an 18-2 game. I would agree their should be subs in an 18-2 game. It was intended to tell people here how one coach I had responded to the idea of -How do you know how they’ll do if you don’t put them in?</p>
<p>just an anecdote which may or may not be meaningless. D played club soccer at her college. fall and spring seasons. She didn’t play a lot, rode the pine most games and got just a few minutes when she did play.</p>
<p>She called me all excited on Monday to tell me that at the end of season dinner she was given a special award for her contribution to the team. Apparently her positive attitude, work ethic and dedication paid off.</p>
<p>I had a horrible time with it in high school when she was in a similar situation to your S both her Jr and Sr years but she continued and well there she is…</p>
<p>My3tuitions: I love your posts about how coaching should be and I totally agree with them. It is true and unfortunate that HS coaches have a tremendous amount of power and there isn’t a lot that can be done about that.</p>
<p>H and I did understand about allowing coach to run things as they chose to and have not met with ether the JV or V coach at all despite the situation. As I have alluded to S’s situation was unpleasant beyond only getting 21 seconds of play time the entire season. Our problem is that while we believe coach has the right and power to run the sport as he chooses. I don’t know that coach understands the ramiifications of his choices last year and that was one thing I wanted to discuss. The other is kids still have the right to make a choice and my kid chose no more. My problem now is that S has been led to believe next year will be a better scenario and that is why he wants in. As I sit and think about the lessons he could learn from believing one thing from his coach and then finding out its not that way I have a hard time seeing the good lesson in this. Then again coach may be being completely straight with him and in that case S would be getting the deal he expects. At that point even if he S is not happy with his experience he is getting what he bargained for. I guess I would like to hear the conversation my S had with coach. My conversation would be 2 fold to explain my S’s experience last year and also to ask him where he sees S in the Bball program. I think this would give me some insight into his regard for S and if he is likely to at least stick to the decision to allow S to try out for JV as well as some idea about what role he sees S in on that team. We completely understand that kids change over the summer and it is only the skill level at the time of tryouts that really matters but still it will help me understand coach’s vision of S. Why is that a bad thing?</p>
<p>It says a lot about the overemphasis of sports in US schools–unlike in the rest of the world–that it is common that kids can bust their tails for 4 years and never get a chance to play.</p>
<p>Too many HS principals believe school policies end at the playing field–coaches can scream harsh comments at players in public; arbitrarily (in sports not decided by a timer or head to head competition) deny them the opportunity to participate; or use them only for scut work.</p>
<p>Our HS basketball coach routinely does not go to his bench in games where the opponent is ahead by over 20 points or even 30 in the 4th quarter–what lesson does that teach?</p>
<p>After talking to my current HS player again today about her game last night, I have come to the conclusion that every kid needs to make their own decision and understand the consequences of their decisions. The focus of this thread has been on bad HS coaches. I have to believe there are just as many good coaches out there. From my own experience, I hated one of my HS head coaches, but had my position coach from that sport write my college reqs and had good relationships with my other HS head coaches. Coach-player is one of thousands of interpersonal relationships we have to deal with in our lives. Sometimes you just can’t get along with everyone. I just hope that the coaches that tend to be at the far end of the bad spectrum leave sooner rather than later. </p>
<p>I have one last bad coach story to tell (you can quit reading now as I am going to vent a little…or a lot). Last night, my kid’s lacrosse team played a clearly overmatched team. The coach is one who rarely subs although my player is one of the few who get on the field, sometimes for the majority of the game and sometime not at all, no apparent rhyme or reason. Last night, her playing time was about 75% of the game…however…the team won by 17 goals and 4 of the 19 players played less than 4 minutes each (there are 12 players on the field at a time in lacrosse). Playoffs start next week and rather than rest and protect the starters from injury the coach left 2 all-county players in the game until the final whistle. At about 5 minutes left with a 14 goal lead, the coach took one of them out, put in one of the unused bench players, gave the star a 1 minute water break and sent the player back in to score the final 3 goals to make it a 17 goal difference. I was sitting near the opponents parents and was very embarrassed at the lack of sportsmanship shown by the coach representing my Ds school. I was disappointed again on my walk through the parking lot to see some of the kids on the winning team very upset by the coaches actions (unfortunately a regular occurence). I have tried to disengage myself from the emotional aspect of the situation - my kid is getting a “fair” amount of playing time and enjoys the social aspects of being on the team. (As a parent, I am clearly biased and think she should play more, but she’s satisfied and so am I.) But, it hurts me to see the emotional pain the coach is inflicting on the unused kids who could actually contribute in a close game, but don’t even get to play in a blowout. The vengeful side of me hopes for some karma to come around when the coaches kids reach HS age, but that would of course mean that other innocent kids are being unfairly subjected to a negative environment. So, I guess I will have to completely disengage and let it go. Thanks for letting me vent.</p>
<p>I have kids at all levels of ability- relatively disinterested, HS varsity starter & played on the USA jr national team. We have seen a huge variety of coaching situations over the years.</p>
<p>My most athletic DD was a top player on a varsity team for a sport that was big in our area- there was actually a senior 1st/2nd/3rd team which all had playing schedules. There were about 3-5 seniors who were given the choice, mostly bench on the 1st team or starters & captains of the B team. Only one chose the A team, the rest had a great time on the B team. Each girl chose how I would have guessed based on personality & I was so grateful that the coaches were up front & honest. I wish more coaches would do that.</p>
<p>Another DD was a starter all though HS in her sport, but the varsity coach played a lot of games. Coach would take DD & one other girl out as soon as they made one error, the others stayed in no matter how many errors they made. Interestingly, DD & the other picked on girl were the two who were most emotionally sensitive. In her senior year the coach played another game with DD before the season began and she decided enough was enough and did not play senior year. I never said a word and several admins at school came up and complimented me on staying out of it.</p>
<p>The following spring (fall sport) I spoke to the administrator, told him what my real issue was with the coach and also, more importantly gave him some very specific & provable info about the coach. Guess who no longer coaches there. The school may choose to be responsive if you talk to the right person and give them solid provable info. But, that did not help my DD.</p>
<p>Before we moved my kids would have attended a powerhouse HS with amazing sports; when we moved they attended a much smaller school, but the experience, I am positive, was so much better than it would have been- just due to the parents & style of coaching & parenting in the different areas!</p>
<p>I dont agree with blow out games that don’t give the bench players a chance to play, but… I will offer this… </p>
<p>Sometimes the game before a big game offers the coach and starters a chance to run plays and develop a confidence that will be very well used in the “next” game. My sister was a lax coach for 12 years and while she tried very hard to use all her players in a game, sometimes it became important for the starters to transfer skills developed in practice to a game situation resulting in a few blow outs. In lax, as seen this weekend, leads can quickly disappear and momentum shifts, so she would rarely sub in before she had a 10 goal lead. Yes, parents complained but the truth is, if you don’t play the top competition throughout the season you have to build your skills where you can. So what if the defense wasn’t getting much action? You put in your subs on the attack and force the ball down to the defensive end. You risk getting scored on, but how else do you build game experience for the defense? If your kid is a defensive player, they will sit on the bench longer than those on attack. Just saying, most coaches aren’t playing their kids for one game but have a longer view of what’s next on the schedule… especially when coming into play offs.</p>
<p>I have never intervened or even talked to a coach about how he runs a team. Just not one of my priorities. There is a lot of unfairness and poor sportsmanship I have seen on the part of the coaches, both paid and volunteer. </p>
<p>Two of my kids were outstanding athletes who were NCAA D1 athletes. Two are bench warmers. The other is a mixed bag. And I’ve seen the same abuses with all of them. There were many times our kids benefited from the favoritism and unfairness of the coaches, and many times they did not.</p>
<p>One parent coach on a baseball team was so determined that his son was to be a great pitcher that he started him all of the time and took him out only when the kid was truly losing it. Then he would put in my son who could take the pressure and was clearly a better natural pitcher than his son. I never said a word about this, though other parents did back then. But the wife of the coach and coach constantly ranted about how he was a volunteer, the time and sweat he put on the team and the kids, when it was clear that developing his own son was the motivating reason. </p>
<p>Ah, another year of sports. Can’t wait.</p>
<p>Just a quick follow-up on my previous rants. My Ds lacrosse team lost over the weekend in the their first game of the playoffs to the only team that beat them during the regular season. It was deja-vu all over. It’s late spring and getting warmer here. Both games followed the exact same pattern. D’s team played only 13 players total in both games, only one sub made. Opponent used entire team throughout the game subbing regularly. With about 10 minutes left in both games, Ds team had 6 goal leads. Then the starters ran out of gas and the opponent was fresh and ready to win every loose ball, pressure defensively and attack with speed. You guessed it, 7 unanswered goals and season over. The really sad part was that the local paper even mentioned how the winning team had out worked the losing team in the final 10 minutes of the regular season game and had been able to use their superior fitness to finish off the game. It was apparently obvious to everyone but the coach. It was really poor coaching and all the girls suffered for it. The fact of the matter is that several of the girls on the bench who could have contributed and kept the starters fresh had played and contributed in tough games during the season when starters were sick or injured. They could play well, they just weren’t given a chance and the starters were left with a horrible memory of being the district favorite and losing in the first round because they didn’t have the stamina to keep up with players who had played half as much and were obviously fresh and ready to go. A real lose-lose situation for every kid on the team.</p>
<p>^^ Our soccer team this past fall was completely underrated. They were coming off a state championship and had graduated 14 seniors and the coach, a 30 year veteran, had retired. The new coach - a DI All American woman - took these younger boys and said, we might not be the best technically, but we’re going to be the best conditioned. And they were. AND they ended up taking that completely underrated team into the state playoffs. Their run ended there, but the moral of this particular story is that every team has the ability to make a great run if the coach has enough vision to see what’s before them. Currently there is a boys lacrosse team that has gone to the finals nearly every year, but they always lose (and will again this year as well) only because they do the same things over and over again. They don’t adjust their game to the talent they have on the team or the talent evolving from other teams. Their game plan is well known and they do absolutely nothing to change it. They count on the same players to shoot and score from the start of the season to the end and merely plug in a player to two so they can run the same exact plays. They get through the regular season because of their conference and sections, but when it gets to the end, everyone knows their story. And frankly, how it’s going to end… again.</p>
<p>There are not many more days till the end of the semester. S has decided to drop his AP class for bball since he is confident that he can be a contributer to the JV team. I have not brought myself to speak to coach even though I think he should know understand the effect of this past season on kids like my S. I’m really hoping he isn’t setting himself up for more disappointment and lowering his GPA in the process.</p>