<p>My daughter plays a sport. The last organization we were with all but folded because most of the coaches played extensive daddy or mommy ball and even if a child wasn’t that coach’s kid if they were a coach’s kid they were ranked way above their playing ability and got way more playing time than deserved. If you questioned it your child was insulted for ever more, both to you and to their face. So most of us left for another organization. Similar major problems. The organizations are for junior high and high school players. My daughter has a talent for the sport and many more years to go, but these environments are so toxic. Is this the norm for youth sports?</p>
<p>That’s why I love running as a sport. If you’re the fastest, you’re varsity. In most races, everybody gets to run, 9th grade slowpokes along with senior standouts. No politics at all. Typically, in 9th grade our cross country team picks up several soccer players because they’re disgruntled with the sport. Additionally, during XC races, parents usually cheer for everyone, even the kids on the arch rival team. It’s a wonderful sport.</p>
<p>Hasn’t been our experience at all. We have been truly blessed with the activities/coaches/families, our kids have been involved with, especially younger Ds athletic teams.</p>
<p>Both girls are now runners- oldest doesnt compete but youngest is in training for a marathon next spring and raced a 5mile trail today.
( they both were in track in high school- but neither was very speedy- youngest sure is now!)
I’m a fan of lifetime sports, running, swimming,skiing…</p>
<p>Switch to fencing. Problem solved 
Very few favors, if any, in scoring or ranking.</p>
<p>Well maybe my question should be what other sports someone with my daughter’s physical makeup is good at. Maybe a sports that is more objective like some of you are speaking of. She’s tall for her age but not sure how tall she will get, stocky and strong but not obese, good at basketball but but not softball ( the fast small ball coming at her seems to scare her and throw her off), coordinated in basketball, and keeps her cool in games. She tried swimming and was fairly successful but not to
the extent she is in basketball and didn’t love it like she does basketball.</p>
<p>Perhaps if she shifts to a sport for which there is no youth league, just the school team? Could that work?</p>
<p>In the rec league that I’m on the board for (and that I played for over 10 years for, coached multiple years for, and where I was the VP of one of the sports for a while), you’re required to play everyone an equal amount of time in the youngest two divisions (usually around 8/9 and under depending on the sport). Above that, you have to play everyone and sit everyone at least one quarter/inning/etc but other than that, it’s fair game. We keep a pretty tight leash on our coaches to not show favoritism based on favoritism and try to always keep in mind that we are a REC league. </p>
<p>In more competitive leagues (I played basketball for over ten years, up through varsity basketball in high school and in many different rec and competitive leagues), it was not the norm to play your child the most if he/she wasn’t the best. Winning was more important and you would lose your coaching position very quickly if you weren’t playing the best to win.</p>
<p>If you can find a sponsoring organization or club in your area, cycling is one of the best youth sports around primarily because a fundamental purpose of organized youth cycling is to enable kids to be lifelong cycling enthusiasts. At the recreational level, it’s all about safety, good riding skills and camarderie. At more competitive youth race team levels, even those who are not superstars can still race and often there is a focus on teamwork where those who don’t have the talent to win a race are still important and valued team members in the team effort needed to assist the designated team leaders to win.</p>
<p>How about crew?</p>
<p>To expand a bit on romanigypsyeyes post, from a parental point of view (with three kids, two of which are now in college, one still in high school, who participated in a variety of sports from running to team sports, and at competitive levels ranging from county run recreational leagues to competitive travel club teams, with a few high school state championships along the way.)</p>
<p>Individual sports, such as running, that are scored in the most objective ways are the least prone to the politics and “playing time” issues that plague team sports.</p>
<p>With team sports, IME, the more “elite” the club team, the less your particular kid matters to the coach. Club/travel teams are, after all, a business. The players are in it for a variety of reasons, but the clubs exist for reasons that include expanding their reputations. Elite coaches have personal agendas that do not necessarily include doing what is best for each kid on the team. Elite coaches are hoping to expand their own reputations, hoping to be hired by a “better” club, or by a private school, or by a college. Or they may be jockeying to start their own club team, or expand their own business as a private coach. </p>
<p>All of which means that when you move your kid into an elite trave club team, you need to go into it with wide open eyes, and a clear sense of how much time and money you are willing to invest. Clubs and coaches need paying players, not all of whom are going to get significant playing time. When your kid, you, and your entire family stops enjoying the sport, start doing some hard thinking about long term best interests of your child and your family.</p>
<p>I saw that here in both girls and boys sports that started young and had youth leagues. (in soccer, softball & baseball). My area is notorious for it and every parent thought their child
was the next P</p>
<p>Parent involvement is indeed a norm for youth sports. Some parents try to ‘live’ through their child doing the sport, too many think they know more about sport than the kids’ coaches, some try to push their own kid ahead of other kids. Doesn’t matter if it is a team or an individual sport–some parents butt in too much. On swim teams, parents will complain about relay team selections, cross country in high school–some parents will complain about kid not being in first seven…doesn’t matter which sport…parents can be a problem with youth sports. Parents pick up the tab for most youth sports expenses, so I guess there isn’t much to do about overly involved parents other than ignore them and grin and bear it. When a kid finally gets to college level sports–parent involvement pretty much ends because the college picks up expenses and college coaches run the show, not parents. One of the best things about college sports is that parents finally don’t have to do anymore fundraisers!</p>
<p>My 12yo daughter loves basketball. She currently plays for her school, town travel and town rec ball. Off season she plays AAU. In Sept we switched AAU teams because of poor management with her team. We knew we wanted to try to get D on another AAU team last spring so my H watched coaches from during games, talked to parents with kids on other teams, and spoke to refs til we found a team he liked and felt would help D grow and improve her skills. We are very happy. </p>
<p>I have found that starting about 6th grade on the travel, school and rec teams the kids get playing time according to their level of play. And it can very from one game to another. If the player is not doing well they are taken out. Many of the teams my daughter plays on have parent coaches, some do not. I really haven’t favortism being played because the coaches want to win. </p>
<p>If this is an AAU team your daughter is playing on, find another one (there are plenty out there) and have her try out for that team. Do your homework, does that team need another player like your D? Are the parents happy, talk to the refs, what teams do they like? Good luck</p>
<p>Many parents think their child is better than they really are- both those parents who coach and those parents who watch.</p>
<p>I have been around the sports world for a very long time as a player, coach, parent, spectator and I can tell you that in 99% of the cases the parent is wrong and that they either just don’t understand the the game or are just that clueless about their child. There is often a very good reason your child isn’t playing and usually it’s because they just are not that good. Your opinion of your child’s ability isn’t usually correct in a team sport.</p>
<p>Yes, sometimes some players get favored over others for many reasons, it happens at all levels, not just youth sports. There are a lot of things that need to happen in order to make a team successful. Too many parents look at only one aspect of that, usually how many points/goals a kid scores. Sometimes there are players on a team that just make things happen. They aren’t the leading scorers but they help others get to that level. Sometimes it’s just team chemistry and some kids work better together on the playing fields than others.</p>
<p>Sometimes it’s player attitude. I’ve had plenty of very talented players sitting on the bench next to me because of their attitude–either they don’t work hard enough in practice to earn the game time, they aren’t team players or whatever. I kicked my top player off my team one year because if his parents. They were rude and obnoxious and I was just done dealing with them. Yes, the child suffers but sorry, I don’t need to be sworn at because your child didn’t score 20 points that day.</p>
<p>My advice to you is to take this up with your CHILD. Your child needs to work in the off season to improve skills, work harder in practice or whatever it is that is causing your child not to play. You also need to look objectively at your child and see what a coach sees. I had one parent yelling at me after cuts because her daughter was cut from the team. Her argument was “but she is the tallest girl here”–sure, she was but she has ZERO athletic ability, NONE.</p>
<p>One thing I said I would never do was to coach my own children. I ended up doing that 2 times. Both times it was a case where either I coached or they didn’t have a team. In both cases my children were heads and tails better than their teammates so it was easy to start them in the games and have them play in most of the games. </p>
<p>From the parent side of things, we have run into the coach favoritism over the years and after saying all of the above, this was one case where the coach was in the wrong. It was for an individual sport where our D consistently out performed the coaches D. It’s tough to deal with and at times very trying–heck, we are still dealing with it after the coaches D has been gone for 2 years. D was practicing yesterday and the coach happened by (off season). She made a couple comments about what she was doing and one was “well, if she does this, she will be a good player”. She has been his top player since 7th grade, he just can’t seem to grasp that…her state tournament appearances don’t seem to count I guess :D.</p>
<p>In the end, everyone knows what is going on and we just laugh about it as it happens.</p>
<p>Has she tried volleyball? In our area, at least, it seems a bit more civilized than other team sports.</p>
<p>Thanks for everyone’s input. SteveMA this isn’t only about my daughter. All the parents in the organization left except the coaches. And some of those kids were seniors and were getting top playing time but those parents had integrity and didn’t want to be part of an organization that treated children so unfairly in such an obvious way and also objected to children regularly being insulted. For example the varsity coach’s 8th grade daughter was put on varsity and he regularly announced he had to put her on varsity so he would have enough skilled players while obviously more skilled junior and senior grade players sat the bench. The team’s record last year was 3-25 so it wasn’t like this was a great coach who had a lot of insight into players and how to put together a team.</p>
<p>I have seen crew mentioned on CC before and it caught my eye as possibly being a good sport for my daughter. Can anyone tell me about crew? We live in the south in a large city so I would guess there would be teams here.</p>
<p>I have tried to get her to play volleyball and she doesn’t want to, but maybe I should make her try one season on a rec type team. Her brother suggested water polo but I don’t know much about that. Guess I need to learn about some other sports!</p>
<p>Mamom, I have thought about looking around at aau teams - you have some good ideas about looking extensively before joining. Thank you.</p>
<p>Romanigypsyeyes, thank you for relaying your experiences. It gives me hope that we are just running into the bad apples all at once, and that there are some good apples out there.</p>
<p>I would love to hear of the experiences of some others.</p>
<p>My kids tried TONS of sports… and we have seen drama/frustrating things in almost all of them. Your D does sound like she might have the build for volleyball. Here are some of the things we dealt with:</p>
<ul>
<li><p>Soccer - When she was 6, D1 had a coach who was from an eastern European country (not sure which one). His son was on the team, and this coach harangued the six year olds like crazy. Coach’s son was very good, better than the rest. But he was pretty awful to the kids. D1 did not go on in soccer after that year, as it was no fun at all.</p></li>
<li><p>Volleyball - D1 took it up in fifth grade and played through senior year of HS (captain of varsity team). Played some JO leagues, but not the highest cost/most intense ones. In our city there were a lot of different levels of commitment and cost to choose from. Her school was not a very competitive one (60 kids per graduating class, sort of a liberal arts school). So she could get playing time without a big outside commitment. However… her sophomore year they got rid of the easygoing varsity coach that the kids loved (due to complaints from a parent who wanted their kid to play at least DII college volleyball) and brought in a woman who reminded D1 of Dolores Umbridge in the Harry Potter books. Looked sweet on the outside, but very hard on the kids. All about winning, which really isn’t the culture for our kids school. By the time she graduated, D pretty much hated volleyball.</p></li>
<li><p>Cross country skiing - Great sport, D1 skiied on the school team for four years. Even with an intense coach one year (former Olympic skiier), she was able to just work on improving her own skills and times. D2 tried it, but it was too cold for her, she only did one season. This sport may not work for your D, since you live in the south. :)</p></li>
<li><p>Fencing - D2’s favorite. My favorite, too. Very flexible schedule (kid is sick? Okay not to go to practice, honestly, no one even notices! Speech tournament? Okay to skip practice, no one even notices!). At our club, the coaches will work with athletes as hard as they want to work and as far as they want to go (coach and a club member won bronze at the Olympics this year, so this is not just talk). But for a kid who wants to treat it more casually and just get exercise and have fun, that is fine as long as they are focused in class.</p></li>
</ul>
<p>I think you get a LOT less drama in the more individual sports (cross country, track, skiing, fencing, etc.) than in team sports. There is a little, but it is not the craziness in team sports these days.</p>
<p>So much depends on the league.</p>
<p>My youngest son played soccer on a team that was hard to get on, and played in a league in which a team had to qualify to be in. Some parents might have tried to play politics, offering to be “team parent” or whatever, but it came down to what boys got it done on the field. The team travelled all over the country and no one was promised playing time. It was very hard to get used to.</p>
<p>However, the coaches were excellent and the boys were very tight. They learned a lot of life lessons. Coaches demanded the boys keep their grades up…boys were required to produce their report cards regularly. There were mandatory study halls when on the road, and the coaches arranged for tutoring by parents or other team members if a student was struggling.</p>
<p>It was a hard system to get used to, for a lot of the parents. The coaches were available and personable, and would talk to the parents (who paid hefty fees, although there were scholarships available) about anything except their sons’ playing time or position. Those topics they would discuss directly with the player at any time, with very honest critiques. They were very open to listening to players’ ideas as to strategy, formations etc.</p>
<p>Parents did have the opportunity to be involved with the team, for example, the coaches might delegate making travel arrangements for tournaments, ordering uniforms or other equipment, arranging for fields, fundraising, etc. However, at least from what I could tell, taking on these tasks did not result in favoritism on the field for a helpful parent’s son.</p>
<p>If a player did not experience success on the team, or was unhappy for another reason, at the end of the season, the coach would help the player find another team to play on. But all players knew they were replaceable at any time, should a more talented or harder working come along.</p>
<p>I would not have wanted to play on this team. But my son did. Actually, he thrived. He has developed an incredible work ethic, time management skills, an ability to get along with peers in a competitive environmnet, and an awareness that there are always people out there who are better than you, and whom you can learn from.</p>
<p>My son also played on his high school team–a lot of the boys on the high school team also played club soccer, and from talking to parents in the stands, it seemed that there was actually quite a bit more parent politics/favoritism in lower level clubs. The clubs with parent coaches seemed to have the most problems, and the more independent the coaching from the parents, the fewer the problems.</p>
<p>We all want to see our kids get to do their a activities as much as possible. The reality is that at ALL levels of sports or any other activity, there is a level of subjective judgement on the part of the coaches.</p>
<p>The BEST day of our sports lives with our kids was when the soccer league here barred parents from sitting on the same side of the field as the coaches and teams…both for practices and games. It made going so much more pleasant.</p>
<p>If your kiddo has encountered the same coaching “favoritism” in more than one venue, perhaps an individual sport would be a better choice. </p>
<p>Also, you might want to look into some of the summer camp type programs in basketball…away from home.</p>
<p>I second the suggestion of playing school teams only…not the elite leagues.</p>