Youth Football

My introduction in to coaching youth football was a few years ago and I coached for the last four years and it was the most amazing four years of my life and I will always cherish the time I was able to spend coaching, and teaching the 11 and 12 year olds, I was fortune it enough to be around, every little bit of football knowledge I have. I learned a lot from them and I hope they learned from me not only about football, but about hard work, adversity, winning with class and losing with class. The reason for this post is not to just talk about how much I enjoyed coaching, it is talk about and give my opinion about youth football that takes over the top coaching and wanting to win further than it should ever go.

For the record, I am not a fan of giving everyone a trophy or telling every kid that they can be an amazing great football player. I am a realist and there are kids who are good and great at football and have the possibility of being very good as they get older, there is potential in some but not in all. I know that kids can change and develop at older ages, I know this because I developed at two different stages, very young and after I got into high school. I watched everyone pass me through junior high. In saying all of this if your child is not playing a lot at the youth level by no means do not let them get discouraged, and make sure you let their coach know that you understand why little Johnny is not playing but ask them politely to help reinforce they should keep trying and playing because kids change from year to year. I have personally seen it happen and it truly is amazing to see a kid get hardly any playing time one year to become an essential part of your team the following.

Now to my point with this topic, over the top parents and coaches in youth sports. Yes part of this is referring to Friday Night Tykes, I watched three episodes and I was disgusted with it. First and foremost any child under the age of 11 in my opinion should not be wearing pads and hitting! The league I coached in had both 11 and 12 year old teams as well as 9 and 10 year old teams, I made it known on many occasions that the younger kids should not be hitting. Some of my reasoning is pretty simple, one they are so far from being developed and can seriously injure themselves or others. My second reason is because many of these kids are being introduced to football for the very first time and have no idea what it means to throw your body at someone else in order to tackle or block them. Many do not understand the game and therefore struggle to pick it up, especially when you throw wearing pads and having to hit and protect themselves. These children need to learn the game without hitting, understanding the correct ways to carry, throw, and catch a football. The need to understand concepts, ways to block, understanding what each position is and what they do. In the four years of coaching I had to explain so many simple concepts to kids that I know were told, but did not pick it up. I believe they did not pick it up because coaches are too busy putting in an offense and a defense, teaching them about how to run the Oregon spread offense. Trying to score as many points as possible and blow teams out, showing little sportsmanship at all. I coached with someone once that said I will leave my starters in and score as many points as I possibly can, if they can't stop us that is not my fault. One part of that statement is correct, if they cannot stop us that is not my fault. The rest of it however is some of the worst sportsmanship you could possibly have, well HELL no they can't stop you if your scoring at will on them! What kind of point is that making that you can continue to score on a team that has no chance on the first or last play of stopping you?!?! I have been on both sides of blowouts and it is both devastating, embarrassing, and disgusting, those emotions could be used for both sides of blowouts if you are displaying good sportsmanship. The bad thing is that winning has become so important at the youth level parents get into fights, it seems like weekly I hear about some youth parents or kids sometimes fighting. There is so much more I could say but the one and last thing I am going to say is this. Yes it is great to win, kids like to win at the youth level but they also like to just be able to play and learn, the last time I checked they did not have a youth sports hall of fame and they don't keep records of wins and losses in any record book I know of. So just relax a little and teach the kids the important things, like sportsmanship, and every thing you know about the sport they are playing.