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PostPosted: 28 Feb 2015, 15:51 

Posts: 20
Hello all,

We are at the end of my second season of coaching. It is the second season in which my team has lost badly. Also, we do not even look a small percentage organized compared to every other team in the league. So, I am hanging it up. I came to the conclusion that I either stink as a coach or the league is unfair with how they divide up the teams talent / height wise. I will not get into the specifics here ( I have another lengthy post on here about our 'offensive woes' if you want to search for that ). I actually got up and walked out of the game today because I felt it was so unfair to make these kids play against these other teams that crush us over and over. I can not handle it. Not for me, I am an adult and will be fine. I can not listen to my kids say "we are never going to win". Maybe I am not enough of an adult. I just really care about the kids I teach. I can not take it to watch them lose over and over and to know they are starting to notice and get upset about it.

The utmost respect goes out to you coaches that seem to have it figured out.


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PostPosted: 28 Feb 2015, 16:34 

Posts: 900
Would need more details to make any meaningful comments. A few questions?

1) Assume you're playing in a developmental/rec type league?
2) Are there play-time rules?
3) How are teams formed?
4) Are there different levels that teams can choose like level A being more competitive and B being more rec?

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PostPosted: 28 Feb 2015, 21:30 

Posts: 20
1. Yes
2. Not sure on play time rules. I try to play all my kids equally...I am glad you mentioned that because our tournament is upcoming and I thought the best way for us to compete is to run our subs like a college team...meaning leave your starters out there as long as possible. But, this really goes way against development for all players.
3. The staff picks them by testing results on drill day. I am not on the staff.
4. I do not think there are any different levels.


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PostPosted: 28 Feb 2015, 21:51 

Posts: 8
I've had similar woes. My team is very small and inexperienced. Every week, it seems like we play a team of kids who've been playing together for several years and are way more advanced in skill level than us. My rec league calls for all kids to play and it's definitely tough to put out a competitive team when 8 of your 12 kids are small, never played basketball before, and do not have basketball skills yet. I feel that I am a very good coach, but if every year, I'm getting a new batch of kids who are small, never played basketball, and do no skill development prior to basketball season, I don't think I will be able to produce a competitive team. Just to be clear, I love the game of basketball and love to teach it to kids. I don't get paid to coach. I do it because I enjoyed it as a kid and want to give the kids the best experience they can have. I just worry that many parents and kids are losing faith in the program and going to other organizations because they have a better collection of talent.


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PostPosted: 01 Mar 2015, 14:28 

Posts: 900
toolmania1111 wrote:
2. Not sure on play time rules. I try to play all my kids equally...I am glad you mentioned that because our tournament is upcoming and I thought the best way for us to compete is to run our subs like a college team...meaning leave your starters out there as long as possible. But, this really goes way against development for all players.
I'd check into the playing time rules. I'd be amazed if the league you're playing in doesn't have some type of play-time rule. Most rec leagues are pretty adamant about that.

Quote:
3. The staff picks them by testing results on drill day. I am not on the staff.
Do they assign players randomly to teams or does it appear that teams have kids who've played together before?

Quote:
The utmost respect goes out to you coaches that seem to have it figured out.
This is what worked for me and seemed to be a common practice at the lower rec levels. I began to build a team of like-minded parents and kids. We networked and actually sought out other parents who seemed like they would fit with our coaching philosophy. It started out with just a small group of friends playing together, but morphed into a core group that stayed together from season to season. We actually called these parents a month before the season was starting to see what they were doing for the upcoming season. It honestly took a lot of work at first.

I didn't have a bunch of elite players, just parents and kids who were like-minded and kept coming back for soccer, football and basketball. This allowed me to build on concepts from season to season and also have activities outside of the league. The core group formed over a couple of years. Some parents didn't dig my philosophy and moved on to more competitive teams. I had a core group of 5 that played every sport and then kids who would drop/add depending on the sport to make up the remaining team. We all became good friends and ended up having a blast.

For some reason the leagues allowed us to bring a group of 8 or so and then they'd add "free agents" to our team. I honestly don't remember how we fared from 1st - 5th grade with regards to W's and L's, but I know we weren't blowing out the other teams. It was more about goofy mascots, team cheers, and building upon concepts and fundamentals. I was fortunate to have that group of people who I'm still friends with today as our kids are all high schoolers.

Having said all that, where does that leave kids who don't have a team? Is it fair that leagues allow parents to request certain coaches?

The only answer I could see is some type of random lotto drawing based on ability. Then each team would get random players assigned and spread out the ability to bring more parity. What happens if a kid/parent lands on a team with a funky coach or a coach they don't get along with? The sports experience can become a bummer quickly for both parent and kid.

Here's a thought for rec leagues: take away the standings at the 1st-4th grade rec levels. Don't focus on the scoreboard. Give out weekly awards to the teams with the most passes, most ball touches, craziest socks, best sportsmanship, best team cheer, etc. Put the emphasis somewhere else besides the scoreboard. I think that is the biggest problem. Every rec league will tell you they want all kids to play, equal play-time, teach fundamentals, have fun and so on. But, the minute you add a scoreboard and standings, then tell them "not to pay attention to the man behind the curtain", all bets are off. It takes incredible fortitude to stick with your coaching philosophy of ball touches and passing when the other team is blowing you out in 2nd grade by 15 points.

If you have a team that's more competitive and everyone's on board, go play in a more competitive league with scoreboards and standings. I have no problem with that at all.

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PostPosted: 01 Mar 2015, 21:22 

Posts: 20
Equal playing time is required.

Players do end up on the same teams at times from previous years. Some randomness is also thrown in. That seems fair on the surface, but definitely did not look fair this year for us at least and even last year.

But, that's ok. I am sure some other coach can take these kids and teach them in a different manner. Maybe it will work out for the best that way. I will continue to coach my son, who can now dribble 2 basketballs at the same time at 7 years old, as he continues to grow anyways from home. I don't push him too hard either. I am really proud of him. I am just going to take a break from coaching and see how the next year goes. We most likely are trying a different league as well.


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PostPosted: 01 Mar 2015, 22:46 

Posts: 900
Taking a break can be a good thing. Sounds like you had a funky experience, which can definitely happen. Hope it doesn't deter you in the long run from coaching. From the sound of things, you must be doing something right if your son is already dribbling two balls at 7 yrs old.

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PostPosted: 02 Mar 2015, 06:54 

Posts: 20
Well, thanks for the advice and input anyways. I obviously do not want to quit coaching forever, or else I would not even have discussed this on here. Maybe I could even help in practice and then on game day stay out of the way...lol. what would be even better is to teach a basketball camp or clinic where no games are played at this young, developmental age. Hmm, things to ponder...lol.


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PostPosted: 02 Mar 2015, 20:42 

Posts: 20
So, for other coaches that come to the same place I have, I want to also post what just happened and something else I learned today.

When my son and I arrived at practice, I had already pondered making some small adjustments in preparation for Saturday's tournament game to give us a chance at being competitive But, then, I did not feel like being there since it seemed pointless to make adjustments. So, I started the kids in knockout and I joined them. It was fun and the kids had fun as usual. Then, when that was done I was going to teach them how to set picks. But, I ended up talking with my assistant and we sat down instead. This was the first time we did this all year. It was chaos. However, the played a little bit of knockout and some kids broke off and shot at the hoop on their own after being knocked out. I saw this happening, but just let it continue. What ended up happening is they basically got to experience an open gym, which they did not get to do all year. We always put them into drills and such, which was fine. By letting them do this, they all ended up making more shots than they did all year in practice. Then, they even asked to play our monkey in the middle drill where we line up in 5 out and play keep away until tagged, a bad pass is thrown or the pass is intercepted. Anyways, it was the most fun we had all year.

My conclusion to today was the following. The kids did actually learn something from me, even though we did not win a game. The kids enjoyed coming there. They enjoyed some of the drills since they even asked for their favorite, monkey in the middle.

I am not sure if some of the parents may have been upset at my method of teaching today. But, I saw them actually practice basketball and work together without my leadership. It was nice to see and nice to laugh with them.

One other thing I learned was that not all of the other coaches were playing all of their players equally. A text was sent out to all us coaches reminding us to play everyone equally. I wonder if when I walked out of the game this past weekend that something was said. So, I still have a lot to ponder about coaching next year, but the guy in charge is a really nice, caring guy. So, I would like to see what he says. I wish that we did not have to play games at all. I think it ruins their development. They have fun in the drills anyways. I guess the games give them something to look forward to though.

I guess to all of the coaches that gets disheartened, if you teach some type of drills they will learn something. If you keep it fun, they will enjoy coming there, even if you think you are not doing a good job coaching. I am still not thoroughly convinced of this myself, but after seeing what happened today, it is at least making me reconsider to something good came out of this year.


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PostPosted: 19 Mar 2015, 10:02 

Posts: 20
One other funny thing happened during our last 2 games in the tournament. In the first game, we played the team that ended up winning the whole thing. This outcome was the same as during the season since we lost our game by about 30 points again this time. This was the tallest team in the league by the way. The only thing they did in the half court was set a pick occasionally. So, they did not have it all figured out offensively. But, they cleared most defensive rebounds, scored a lot of fast break lay ups, had many offensive rebound put backs, and blocked several shots. These are all things related to how tall they were.

In the second game, a few of our players did not want to play in the consolation game. I don't blame them...lol. So, this left us basically with our taller players of our team because of this. However, this did not give us an advantage. We finally were even height wise with the other team. We actually won this game, our first win of the year, in our last game of the year. I am not saying that height is the only factor because i saw some smaller players on other teams dribble circles around our team. But, I did see first hand that when we ran with our tallest possible team, the outcome was much different for us.

I don't know how this changes my future personally, but I did want to post this for the coaches that come on here and wonder certain things about coaching second and third grade players.


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