Youth Sports (i.e. the thing we all loved which parents have now ruined)

There's a guy around here who's been shooting photos at my kids' high school football games for years. He and my dad were friends, and Dad was 81 when he died 10 years ago, so this guy is easily in his 80s. He got run over at a game last year, and I saw him at the grocery store a few months later rolling around in a wheelchair. I have not seen him at any games this season.

 

We have two boys playing travel baseball, and this weekend we were given the greatest schedule we've had with them. Playing at the same complex, one boy at 9 and 1, the other at 11 and 3. Naturally, that facility was the only one in the area to get rained out.

 

My kid made the middle school soccer team (grades 6-8) as a sixth-grader and I’m so proud I’m questioning my own sanity.

There are no cuts, but there were 28 who tried out and 15 made the “away team” (they can travel and play in road games, as well as home games) while the rest are on the practice squad.

My kid made the away team, which was a little bit of a surprise, not only because of his age, but he also injured his foot the day before tryouts and could barely put his cleat on his strong foot. But he played through it and made it.

I didn’t want to brag on FB and look like one of the parents we complain about all the time, so figured I would brag here.

 

I only have one who plays but I can only imagine the disappointment with this in so may ways. The only field getting cancelled alone would suck but with how the schedule was just ugh for you.

 

I know my kid has been graded at a few tryouts. Always wonder what they say, I have never really asked and they don't hand them out. Looks like he has a pretty solid standing on the team, although the hitting stuff kind of hurts. Not like it can't be worked on and obviously his defense is really good. The whole only play some in brackets is pretty dumb at 11 but that's just me.

 

We ranked kids before basketball season. They all show up and demo their dribbling, passing, footwork and shooting. We coaches rate them 1-10 on each, 10 being the best. The commissioner takes each kid’s scores and comes up with cumulative rankings, which he uses to set up the draft board.

But we keep all of our comments to ourselves. If any parent saw that stuff, they’d just see a bunch of numbers.

 

We won a tough one 8-6 on Tuesday - game was stopped early in the third by lightning. We self sabotaged on two drives in the first half.

Their TD came on a 48-yard run on their first snap, and included three bone-headed plays by our C-gapper, our OLB, and our safety, and a massive clear-as-day hold on our cornerback.

Guy I coach with is a noted tinkerer. ... and now he wants to totally revamp the defense. I'm like, "coach we gave up 12 yards on 11 carries, and 48 yards on one carry. Why would we make wholesale changes?"

Annoyed.

 

Definitely don't have a problem with ranking skills, just interesting that it was shared in this way. What does it accomplish? Other than maybe to give the kid a complex on his hitting and maybe even feeling he doesn't do enough otherwise? It seems like they overall like what he brings to the team, so work with him on the assumed shortcomings and keep it at that.

It is funny how different coaches and teams handle this stuff. My son's team had a player who had tremendous potential as a pitcher and his parents went and got a pitching coach on their own during season and it really irked our coach. A note like this screams get outside work done, but then how do they want it to happen and will they be happy with the results?

 

We coach on our Facebook group off of game clips. We'll post stuff, point out where we could have done better, and encourage parents to make sure their kids see it.

But I always start off the season with a speech - "It's never, ever a character judgement, and we're sure your kid is trying hard. We're just looking at what we did, and what we can do even better."

Couple years ago I had a mom who wanted to know why her little 60-pound 8-year-old wasn't carrying the football in a league of 8, 9 and 10s up to 110 pounds. I invited her to stand next to me at practice and we snapped Power to her kid two or three times in a row.

She didn't ask again.

 

Sneaky best thing about running the Single Wing in youth football? It is ridiculously easy to teach an offensive lineman how to catch the snap and run sweep. So here's our Offensive Tackle scoring his first touchdown ever last night.

 

Anti-climatic end to my kid's youth football career: He fell playing soccer in PE and will miss our last two games with an AC joint separation.

Damn it soccer. You have to ruin everything!

 

That stinks. I hate the thought of injuries for my sports kid. Hopefully he'll feel better soon and doesn't have to sit out of anything else.

My kid played tackle for the first time this year in middle school. My wife has never really been on board, but he did not transition to middle school well (they don't play sixth grade football here), and thought it could help him find his way at school.

It helped a ton. He has been a different person this year.

Of course, he got hurt in two games, one on the opening kickoff and didn't go back in. He didn't miss any full game, though.