yes, another kids coaching story (Update: 2016-17 edition)

For most leagues, the primary goal is maximum overall participation.

If whatever your policy is has resulted in a large number of quits/walkoffs you probably better reassess your thinking.

If you got a huge number of requests to play for certain coaches or with friends, apparently that's what most (or certainly a significant number) people want to do.

Yeah, you'll probably end up with a couple of loaded-up superteams and a couple of bottom-feeders bringing up the rear.

That will probably happen anyway even if you go through a complete tryout-evaluation-draft process; in kids basketball whoever has the best player in the league is almost always going to be the dominant team.

If parents (or kids) care enough to request to be on a certain team, it may be that playing with that group of friends is more important to them than winning, so might as well just let them do it.

 

Also, if you allow open requests, you're pretty much putting the talent distribution burden on the coaches. Those who really care about winning will get busy and recruit a roster with a well functioning team in mind. If they recruit 8 of their kids' dorky friends instead, that's their decision.

Again, the 2-3 parent/coaches with the dominant superstar daughters will probably have the best teams no matter what you do.

 

My son's teeball team won the league championship. The head coach had triplets, who played 1b/2b/ss. My son played third, because he could make the throw to first. The triplets all played pretty well, and a 3b who can throw to first is a huge advantage in teeball. There were a lot of frustrated coaches who were used to telling their players to hit it down the third base line to get on and advance on the overthrow to first. The other team in the championship game had by far the best player in the league, but he couldn't carry the whole team.

 

Teeball/baseball/softball is different -- one player can't control the whole game, except for a lights-out pitcher (obviously no factor in teeball).

You could have Babe Ruth's 8th great grandson, and he could hit a home run every time at bat, but that's still only going to produce maybe 10 runs depending how many are on base. And in teeball, 10 runs may not be enough to win.

And, while he didn't win the championship, obviously the league-MVP kid was pretty dominant if he led his team to the championship game.

 

When my son was doing Little League there were a couple of teams led by pretty serious coaches (a single coach on Team X, a pair of brothers of Team Y). Year in and year out, these were the teams to beat.

Lots of the kids on either of those teams had been kinda, sorta handpicked by their respective coaches. But because there were newcomers (from parts unknown) coming into that league, there was also a pre-season draft to fill out rosters. There was some sort of iron-clad rule prohibiting any scouting of possible draftees.

Anyway, came time for the draft, and the brothers got first pick. With that pick they chose (let's call him) Joey.

The other coach erupted in a rage, screaming that they were clearly in violation of the scouting rule (turns out Joey was pretty damn good).

The brothers asked, "Why do you say that?"

"Because he's the best player in this draft, and the only way you'd know that ..."

"Yes?"

 

Well, the iron-clad no-scouting rule is just stupid.

If you care enough about winning to worry about that stuff, then scout the players yourself. And if you don't care enough, who cares?

Probably some kind of open-tryout session where the kids come and work out in full view of the coaches is the best answer. Then, of course, you get problems with sandbagging.

 

Point is, the coach raising the fuss had scouted the kid. He was just pissed off because they had too.

 

Along with Random Images, this is my favorite thread on Anything Goes. I've sworn off even looking at the Trump thread, so here's where I come to get my politics fix. Thanks, folks.

 

All the other coaches in the league just loved this exchange, I'm sure.

If they were smart, they'd have piped up to the league commissioner and said, "hey it's obvious both these teams have violated the no-scouting rule. As a penalty for this misconduct, I move that their teams be dropped to last in the draft order."

Then just draw Joey out of a hat or draw random numbers for him or something.

 

A part of me was ever so glad that my son turned out to have the baseball skills of ... me. Which is to say that he had none. I thought to myself, "Wow, I can avoid all of that travel-team nonsense and politics."

Then DaughterQuant turned out to be a pretty damn good volleyball player. Shit!

 

The no-scouting rule is idiotic anyway on almost every level. Where do you draw the line as to what is or isn't "scouting?"

If the coach himself watches the kid play in several games or conducts an organized workout, obviously that's "scouting."

If your kid mentions, "hey, I heard there's a new kid in school and he's a pretty good basketball player," is that "scouting?" Probably not.

If your kid says, "there's this new kid, Howie Hotshot, he's a real fast guard, hes maybe 2 inches taller than me, he's a great dribbler, he's got a great jump shot from the left side and the baseline," uhm, that's probably "scouting."

Probably 80% of your cases fall somewhere in between there, so where do you draw the line?

 

It's been awhile ... shit, my son's 19 now, so it's been 7 years! ... so I may be murky on the details. Maybe it was a no-tryouts/workouts rule ... regardless, both sets of coaches had clearly gone to more trouble than they were supposed to to find out the kid was good.