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

Got certified to be a referee for our town’s basketball program. Figure that it will keep me somewhat involved in youth sports now that my kids have aged out and are not going to play any competitive sports.

And if you think youth sports parents are bad, my 13 year old son is doing acting/musicals with a regional theater. The moms of some of these girls make baseball dads seem sane.

 

Probably just selective memory but while wearing a uniform was fun, 4 hours of playing with buddies on the school diamond on a summer Sat. under our rules, pitcher's hand, right field is closed, calling "runners on 2nd and 3rd" while going back to bat, that was more fun.

 

I wish you good fortune in the wars to come.

 

I love coaching football for the football part of it. I hate the rest.

So we had a positive covid test and so did two or three other teams in our org, so everyone shut down for 10 days. We started back up yesterday, and we have our first game in four days.

Three players didn't show up, because they all had conflicts. Thanks moms and dads! One kid showed up without his pads ("Left them at grandmas ...." nevermind that we haven't had practice in more than a week).

And then .... two more Covid positive reports via text, so those kids are out for a while.

 

Friend of mine is in charge of the house league program for our local baseball organization. Lots of hassles - but nothing like overseeing hockey in this area - but he's the perfect guy for it, really patient, never loses his cool, great at talking crazy parents and coaches off the ledge.

He loves helping give young kids a chance to learn the game but said by far his fave day of the week is when he goes to watch the games in the Challenger program which was started here a couple years ago for kids and young adults with mental and physical challenges. (The Blue Jays have been very involved in this program across Canada, helping to refit diamonds and providing uniforms.) They don't keep score, those involved just love having the chance to play and their parents are thankful for the opportunity. He said everyone goes home happy and there are no emails waiting for him when he gets home. There would be enough of those every other day of the week.

 

Amen.

Just...Amen.

 

Finally got to scrimmage another team ... even though we're pretty short handed out. Four players out (representing seven starting spots), including our best lineman, best outside linebacker, and best overall player.

Nevertheless I think we looked pretty good. Here's this kid's first ever football carry against another team.

 

When I was a HS senior, our city rec department somehow came up with the idea that seniors coach the city elementary school flag football teams (K-6 then). So my buddies and I signed up. Wow, what an introduction to parents. I remember at 18 calling each house and hearing the range of stories; "Jimmy likes to play ..... and should be there"; "Billy needs to play....." but the best was a mother who said "Danny needs to get his a** kicked, do what you need to do."

I didn't know what real coaching was. I thought coaching meant winning, which meant getting the best players in the best position to win. So naturally I ran the QB Option (remember this is 1980) and put the best two players at QB and RB. Had a blast but looking back, I wasn't a very good coach, but what do you expect from a HS Sr. right? It was great connecting to youngsters in my town.

 

If there's a harder team sport than football to coach, I don't know what it is. ....

And the problem is compounded by a whole bunch of dads who played in high school, watch college and the NFL, and think that's all it takes. They're going to install whatever schemes, and they don't actually understand the nuance it takes to run any particular scheme. Hell - they don't even understand that they don't understand the nuance it takes to run any particular scheme.

 

In my boy's final LL season, he was drafted by a guy that in the prior year I thought was too intense and was only about winning. Little did I know that he showed me what true coaching was. Yes he favored his boy and the other "star" from his traveling team. But what was eye-opening was seeing him spend the same amount of time and putting the same expectations on the 12th player as the stars. He demanded that each player know exactly what they were supposed to do in each situation and execute mentally. Physical limitations were a given, but I loved seeing how each player challenged themselves to be in the right place at the right time on every pitch and how that was the direct product of his coaching. For the prior years, I had seen one coach after another be nice to the lesser players, give them a few "attaboys", then concentrate on how the "stars" were going to lead the team to the win. Yes, I was one of those guys. I'll never forget what Mark taught me and every time I see him, I tell him, and I tell everyone in my town too (people still think he was all about winning, but ignore the process.)

 

Great anecdote.

Tons of "travel" football coaches recruit elite talent, and then pat themselves on the back for being hero coaches and stringing it all together when their athletically superior team beats the little guy. Show me a coach who gets the most out a marginal athlete - those are the guys doing it right.

And yeah I'm not intense about winning, but I am intense about holding players to a high standard, especially for the non-athletic kid. The least athletic kid on your football team can make a good three point stance if you coach it and hold them accountable for it. And knowing who to block and the path to take to block them is a non-athletic thing that can be taught to non-athletic kids. I try badly to focus on "did you go to the right opponent and try to block them in the right way," and ignore, "yeah that kid out-athleted you and that's why you lost."

 

As much as I disdain the Patriots (been a Dolphins fan since buying my first Scholastic poster of Csonka in '72) and Belichek (smug doesn't begin to describe that guy), I greatly admire "The Patriot Way", which as I understand it, is simply "Do your job." If only our fellow citizens in the US would do so as well.