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Newbie here. I am currently help coaching our 10U All-Star team. I did help coach my son's 10U Mustang Team as well for the first time and I have helped coach youth football for 2 years as well. I was never allowed by my father to play youth sports and wanted to give my son every opportunity to play whatever sport he was interested in. To me it is all about enjoying the game and learning about the game and not about winning or losing. It is about putting forth your best effort and everything will come together, but I am not so sure now. It does not matter to me if we win the game as a coach or the championship. Our football team won the conference championship last year, but I want to teach honesty and sportmanship.
However I have mixed emotions about youth sports. This year a coach in our house playoffs decided not to following the house rules of pitchers pitching a max of 4 innings in a week. We did on our team and everyone knew that when the pitcher came in for the 5th inning in the 3rd game of the week. I called him on it before the pitcher through his first pitch. I asked our manager for the an email for our division VP for tracking the pitchers and it did not have his pitchers listed. The other mgr ignored the fact that if you use a relief pitcher for 1 out or 1 pitch that it counts as an inning, but he pitched the next extra inning as well and pitched another 2 innings in his next game as documented on an email. The other mgr just said that his pitcher only pitched 1 inning in our first game. Out VP questioned him on it and stood by his story of 1 inning pitched. All of the kids on our team was saying how was this possible and allowed. I just had to tell them that sometimes in life some people choose not to play by the rules and the VP of our division said without videot that he would have to follow the "honor system" of the other mgr's word. THe VP did not talk to any parents/coaches or players. What answer did he think he was going to get? This team would win this game against us to advance to the champ game, but lose. I did not want to see us advance to the champ game on a forefit, replay the game just to have the mgr admit his error. It might have been just a misunderstanding or an oversight, but when he was further questioned it was deceitful since both pitchers used in the relief inning were coaches kids.
It is pretty sad. But, when you think about it, it is representative of the real world. I emailed the Little League board and it was ignored. This rule was put into place before the season and told to all coaches. I thought that mgrs would be honest, but apparently you need keep track of scoring pitchers.
In years past our little league would have the mgrs rate the players at the end of the season and the "successful" mgrs would purposely rate their good players low to increase their chances of retaining them the next season via the draft. I had heard this from numerous coaches. This season I was teamed up with a mgr that had never coached before as well and all the other coaches had multiple years experience and even had played in College. I was not able to attend our draft because of travelling for business.
In football my son's first year in a scrimmage game another kid (coaches kid) complained to his Dad about my son "holding" on the offensive line and after the play sent his kid to "lay out" my son when he was not looking before the next play. Our coach talked to this "Father" the next day and denied everything. I should have complained to the Football board.
Certainey has made me rethink values that are instilled in today's youth by playing sports. "It's not about winning or losing, but how you play the game."
However I have mixed emotions about youth sports. This year a coach in our house playoffs decided not to following the house rules of pitchers pitching a max of 4 innings in a week. We did on our team and everyone knew that when the pitcher came in for the 5th inning in the 3rd game of the week. I called him on it before the pitcher through his first pitch. I asked our manager for the an email for our division VP for tracking the pitchers and it did not have his pitchers listed. The other mgr ignored the fact that if you use a relief pitcher for 1 out or 1 pitch that it counts as an inning, but he pitched the next extra inning as well and pitched another 2 innings in his next game as documented on an email. The other mgr just said that his pitcher only pitched 1 inning in our first game. Out VP questioned him on it and stood by his story of 1 inning pitched. All of the kids on our team was saying how was this possible and allowed. I just had to tell them that sometimes in life some people choose not to play by the rules and the VP of our division said without videot that he would have to follow the "honor system" of the other mgr's word. THe VP did not talk to any parents/coaches or players. What answer did he think he was going to get? This team would win this game against us to advance to the champ game, but lose. I did not want to see us advance to the champ game on a forefit, replay the game just to have the mgr admit his error. It might have been just a misunderstanding or an oversight, but when he was further questioned it was deceitful since both pitchers used in the relief inning were coaches kids.
It is pretty sad. But, when you think about it, it is representative of the real world. I emailed the Little League board and it was ignored. This rule was put into place before the season and told to all coaches. I thought that mgrs would be honest, but apparently you need keep track of scoring pitchers.
In years past our little league would have the mgrs rate the players at the end of the season and the "successful" mgrs would purposely rate their good players low to increase their chances of retaining them the next season via the draft. I had heard this from numerous coaches. This season I was teamed up with a mgr that had never coached before as well and all the other coaches had multiple years experience and even had played in College. I was not able to attend our draft because of travelling for business.
In football my son's first year in a scrimmage game another kid (coaches kid) complained to his Dad about my son "holding" on the offensive line and after the play sent his kid to "lay out" my son when he was not looking before the next play. Our coach talked to this "Father" the next day and denied everything. I should have complained to the Football board.
Certainey has made me rethink values that are instilled in today's youth by playing sports. "It's not about winning or losing, but how you play the game."
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