I'm posting this topic for two reasons. First to vent, and second to hopefully get some advice. I am a JV coach in a small school district. We have a no cut policy, and we have small squads for both the JV and Varsity Levels. We average 8-10 players each squad how can contribute to the team. Consistently, every year we get 1 or 2 students who decide they are going to play basketball, and join the team in this more advanced level. There are other players who play every year, but only show up in october, then disappear when the season is over. Then these students parents get upset when they don't see playing time till the end of the game. Of course we get all the normal comments, about how we are unfair and they won't get any better if they don't play.

At the same time, we normally have a core group of dedicated players who work all year round, and have done so since elementary school. These players are the ones who naturally develop faster, and become competent players.

So my question is this, "How can you justify taking time from players who work hard and produce in games, to players who only show up when they have to or have just started playing? Doing this only because you feel pressured to give playing time?"

Personally, I feel that in teaching a selfless "team first" philosophy cannot include a selfish attitude that my time on the court is more important than the betterment of the team. If I am not getting the time that I need, I should look at bettering my own game so I can contribute. Instead, the coaching is wrong and I should play just because I put on a uniform and a pair of sneakers.

Often times, I feel that this is more of a parent issue than a player, and parents only see the game through a view of their own child's needs. They don't see the team, or the other young people that are working to win games. They only want to see their own children on the floor no matter what happens.

Now, for perspective, I also coach youth (elementary) basketball. Part of that program is to ensure that in the overall youth program all players get a chance to play equally. I feel that is important. Junior High School (or Middle School) has an A and B team to allow for all skill levels to get playing time. When a youth reaches 9th grade and moves to JV, I think this is the time to expose a bit of reality to a student. That they will need to work to get the playing time. This is not just a athletic lesson, but a life lesson. The advancements that we make in life are not handed to us, and work is needed to acquire them.

Thanks for the vent. Does anyone else have any advice or opinions on this topic?

Thank You

I agree with what you are saying... young players should get to play and then in high school it's more based on winning and learning those life lessons. Seems like a good balance because you learn by playing and you learn by not playing because of performance. Lots of life lessons.

I think there are times when a coach needs to give players a chance at the high school level. Some of those kids are still growing and just mature late. I was only 5-2 when I was a freshman and was 6-1 when I was a senior. You just don't get that size, strength, and athleticism until you hit puberty.

So I think there is still a small balance you take at 9-10th grade. I know that I give players a chance knowing that it is not the best decision when it comes to winning the game. But for the most part, we are trying to WIN with the 9-10th graders and give out playing time based on performance and based on who earns it.

Every high school coach deals with parents unhappy about playing time. There are lots of ways to deal with that. Some ideas are here:
https://www.breakthroughbasketball.com/coaching/dealing-with-parents.html

We have a policy where the player must first talk to the coach if they are unhappy about playing time. We won't talk to parents until that happens first. Then if the player did not communicate a sufficient answer, we will talk to the parent. If it came to that, I would know exactly what to tell the parent and give them the exact reasons this player is not out there (they forget the plays, don't listen during practice, get out of defensive position, turn the ball over too often, etc, etc). It's almost always skill related. I also have stats to back that up and use the VPS score to rate players. The players with high scores pretty much always get playing time unless they have behavior problems or refuse to play team defense.

In my opinion, small schools should be giving playing time to everybody at the lower levels (junior high, freshmen, JV). My opinion is that those levels should be used for the growth and development of players, both fundamentally and in-game situations.

If your practices are focused on fundamentals and player development then on the average those incapable players should become at least somewhat serviceable at some point. At least to the point where you can start playing them a few more minutes each game. When you scrimmage in practice, don't just put the starters against the reserves. Mix up the lineups in practice so the lesser players can play alongside the stars and find out if they can raise their game enough to stay on the court with them without looking foolish.

Another point: do these kids that just show up for the season have legitimate reasons for doing so? Small school district, so I assume small town. Are these kids working jobs? Do they have academic obligations that the other players might not have? Or are they just lazy kids that don't want to put in the offseason work? Are they being shutout from those offseason activities that the other kids are doing? Are those other kids developing a "clique" mentality, making the lesser players feel unwanted?

An example: my son is in 7th grade. He tried out for travel in 5th and 6th and got cut. The team was established in 4th grade and the same kids all played football together and the same dads always coached. My son is not a superior athlete, but he's pretty good. On their team of 8-9 players, I'd say he's about middle of the pack, skillwise and towards the bottom in aggression due to lack of competitive experience. Those same travel kids have some parents that seem to go out of their way to make sure ONLY THEIR KIDS are taking part in offseason workouts and clinics. They do not spread word to anybody when they find out about such events. In doing so, they have ostracized a good part of the community and earned a bad reputation in the process. My tried out for the 7th grade team and he made it. They had a "neutral" coach who is a new teacher, but some parents could always be seen talking to him and low and behold those were the kids that played the overwhelming majority of minutes, regardless of size, performance, matchups, etc. Again, I don't want my son to play every minute of every game. But he has a very good skill set and would greatly benefit from more gametime experience, playing against a fullcourt press and all that stuff.

Lastly, do you hold a parent/player meeting in the preseason where you discuss your philosophy on playing time and everything else? These can go a long way in quieting some of the parents who feel like it's their job to complain. I do this every year and it includes a handout with everything we talk about. I've had two parents ask about playing time in 2 years and each time I'm upfront about how their kid can earn more and then I refer them back to the things we talked about in our meeting prior to the season and that our policies are included in the handout they received.

Sorry if this seems like a rant!

Thank you for the replies, and you have all had valid points. Lets hash out some of the factors.

I agree with both of you that JV still needs to be somewhat developmental, but let me ask you this "what stage of development?" Time in practices are limited, 2 hours tops. More often practices are 1:45 minutes, we normally have 3 games a week leaving 2 maybe 3 days to practice. About half of a practice is set aside for fundamental drills, but I would say more game fundamentals: defensive position, rotations, offensive shells, passing-cutting, shooting drills, rebounding. Normally, about 4 topics can be covered in a night. The rest of the practice MUST be game situation, offensive/defensive live. If this is not the case then the team will be overwhelmed in the game situation. I don't care how good your fundamentals are, if you can't play as a team than a team will be beaten badly. That isn't good for morale, character, energy, or the team in general. With two coaches and 18 players, there is not the ability to take a few players and work on individual skills. In a perfect world assistant coaches could take some of the load off, but none of us live there.

So my point is this. There is a time for players to work on individual skills and to better themselves as a player. That is off season, with open gyms, optional team workouts, team camps, individual camps, even one on one workouts if someone asks. All opportunities given in our program. Both of you are correct, players can make a turn around, I strongly believe in that, "I was one of those players". That turn around needs to start with the player though wanting to improve, and taking personal time in the off season. Even in the evenings on off nights, with ball handling drills while watching TV (for example). Seasons and practices are too short to realistically develop individual skills beyond a certain point.

Why do the players not work on off season, there are some legitimate cases. We are a small school, so athletes are shared among the other sports. There is also cases of players away at times during the offseason. There are also others that could be lazy or just disinterested offseason development.

All players are welcome to offseason team open gyms, varsity players are invited to open gyms to play with alumni. Youth players have their own offseason open gyms. We also offer strength training once a week ( to help them start their own program ). We try to give ample resources for players, and I will personally meet a player at the gym to help them improve.

My point still stands, why should playing time be taken away from players who work year round because of a no cut policy allowing any student to just put on a uniform. It doesn't make sense to me.

I agree about the preseason meeting. That is something that we lacked this year, but in the prior years when we held a meeting the same parents always attend. Those are not the parents that we have issues with though. You cannot force parents to come to a meeting unfortunately... LOL

We did send home papers though, and we have started a facebook page for the team. The material has been posted there, but maybe that should be advertised better.

I guess it could be just a difference in the times. When I was in high school, and I wasn't playing like I wanted to, I took it upon myself to prove to the coach that I could do it. I went out of my way, and worked very hard. It paid off, I started as a junior and senior, I still wasn't the greatest player but that work ethic helped me develop into a college player after I started to mature. So I don't really have much sympathy for students with a sense of entitlement, unfortunately that seems to be the norm instead of the exception.

I think we really need to look into a point system for player ranking. It really seems like the only way to take opinions out of the matter, and prove to parents why a player is or is not playing.

Thanks for your replies.

As someone that came from a small town and was a mid-to-end of the bench player, I appreciate your situation. I think you should outline your expectations with players and parents early in the season, and explain how players can earn PT. If there are a handful a athletes that 'show up' and expect to play, they need to understand that won't be the case. Just because you are at a small school, doesn't mean you should have small standards. Another approach might be to expose the 'walk-ons' in practice. Not in a degrading way, just show them that they aren't capable yet of keeping up with the core group. If practices are open, invite the parents to attend and see firsthand why the kids isn't getting minutes. This is an eyeball test approach, but the VPS would work well, too.

I was a guy that was a marginally skilled HS player, only went to a handful of team camps over my HS career, and didn't spend time in the gym over the summer like our core players did. I still worked hard during our in-season practices, but never got any quality minutes as a senior. And that was on me. There were several guys on the team that were more skilled and played well with each other, because they had the reps over the previous 4 summers. Even at the time I understood that there were a number of guys better than me, so I never got too bent out of shape about playing time.

In the case of frosh/JV teams, there can be a little more wiggle room... But if you have kids that deserve to play, you shouldn't sacrifice their minutes for dudes that haven't put in the same sweat in the offseason. Explain that to the parents, and let them know that there is time to get on the right track in the off season, since the kids are still underclassmen. And I agree, this is often an issue with parents more than players. Good luck!

There are lots of reasons that a parent takes that step of engaging a coach on PT and unfortunately, those reasons are generally not with the benefit of the team or program in mind. Parents must understand that high school coaches are trying to develop and maintain a winning program. They must trust that coaches will find a way to utilize every player in the best possible way to achieve that goal. If a parent is willing to talk to you about playing time then either they don’t believe in team and the winning program approach (they care more about equal playing time and seeing their child in the game), they don’t think you are developing players or they believe you have incorrectly evaluated, overlooked or underutilized their child’s abilities (you’d be as or more successful with their child in the game). The latter two are actually about trust – or their lack of trust for the program, coaches and you. Build the trust of your players. Get your players to buy-in to the program, the team, team success and their role. Proactively talk to all the players about their abilities, their growth, their goals and their role. If the players have your back, the parent conversations will diminish.

And when you do have to talk to a parent do so in the environment of a formal meeting with player and parent present.

I will comment from a parent persepctive though some of the points are talked about.
My son is 6th grader and I'm preparing him for 7th grader school team. But if the school coaches behave like some of the league's coach, I will be really disappointed. With league, you can change team. But school, you are pretty much stuck.

My point is that if you think the player is not good enough, don't take him/her in. Keep the team small but with comparable skills and develop them all.

But that's not what's happening with leagues. Some coaches just like to start using players right away to produce. They don't develop players. they 'use' players for their own advancements (fame, money etc). I don't mean to criticize all coaches. I believe all coaches here are good and have good intentions. In fact, I learned so much about how leagues are broken from this website. That helped me start researching leagues and get involved. I realized that the fact your son is in a top team doesn't mean your son will get better with the team. I ended up observing every practice and game (most parents just drop off and pick up).


You can't ask for better commitments from parents and my son as a player like us. My son has private basketball skill coach and private agility training coach. He works extra hard.
He made to a select team. Individually his skills are at the top. He beats the best players (guards/forwards) hands down 1 on 1 during practice. The only problem is that he hadn't played select team before. He can be a guard because of great ball handling or forward/small forward because of height (or even post). He doesn't know team play that much. so he would cause some turnovers. But comparing to starters, he didn't cause more than the starters though. But his coach would take non-starter out for a single turnover yet turned a blind eye for starters no matter how many turnovers.

His coach only allowed him to play last 2 minutes at end of the halves. He was only allowed to be on court when there were 15-30pts lead. In practice, Coach would train starters together and let non-starters work together. Most of the time, he spent time with starters. Even in practice, non-starters were treated differently. Those starters had been on the team for many years and parents/coaches are very close. It's kind of hard to break in. Unless you are three times better, they are not going to displace the starters. In a nutshell, my son was never given a chance even with all the individual skills potential.


My son's previous coach must think he is 'God'. I tried to talk to him on how my son could improve (I wasn't even bringing up the topic my son didn't get to play). He put me on hold for 15 minutes without explanation. Then I had to hang up. He called me back and talked to me for one sentence. Then he put me on hold of another 15 minutes and I had to hang up. He didn't even have basic human decency to communicate.


After 3 months, I finally realized that they needed extra players to pay for fees and only need starters to play tournaments. We switched team. The new team just started practicing and hasn't played yet. His current team is horrible. But my son is the top dog here. I'm hoping he will be a starter and get play time. He just needs scrimmage and court time to horn team skills. Once his team skills get better, he can go to another better team. Basically he needs to 'downgrade' to get play time to get better. Good thing is that we have choice with leagues. We pay and we can fire. But for school, you are pretty stuck.

Sorry about venting. I know you guys are good coaches.

My point is that the team should be small and every player should be developed. If a player is good enough to make the team, he is good enough for coach to develop him. Just don't take him in if he is not worthy developing.

In reality, players develop skills outside the team and come to play games. I hope schools are not like that.