To Specialize Or Not To Specialize.

[DBird]

How you dare you look out for the students best "interests" !!!

aka, what the kid would otherwise want to do if not for selfish-minded adults pressuring them for their own benefit.

p.s. well done, pushing back

Hey, I tried. You can only do your best though!! LOL

 

[DBird]

I'd play for you any day, Coach.

I'd play for you any day, Coach.

Run

 

[Hamdonger]

Run

Well I always did prefer up-tempo.

 

[RedbirdSoxFan]

I've interviewed a few coaches in the past. My first question was always the same. "How do you feel about kids playing multiple sports?" Unless they were a total dope they knew where I was going, so I would get the answer I expected. When the pressure started on Jimmy Pointguard to not play a fall sport I had that answer in my hip pocket.

Lincoln left the Central State 8 because they couldn’t win a football game in conference. The reason was because Coach Alexander did not allow his basketball players to play football. Will be interesting to see if that changes as Lincoln will be rejoining the CS8.

 

[Virginia Redbird]

Yep, it should always be up to the kid, though parents should certainly steer and guide the child along the way. It should always be about doing something productive with your time, getting exercise, being part of team, working hard, finding what youre good at and like, having fun doing it, etc. It can also be music, theatre, other social activity clubs at school or in the community. But exercise is important distinction when it comes to steering kids into sports .. many valuable life lessons can be learned thru sports while you are getting exercise.

You guestimated 1% may go Pro .. though not sure what level you were speaking to. Here is NCAA study from 2015 stats. Note, Basketball is 1% (M & W) and Football is 1.6% of college atletes will play Pro. The only reason Baseball and Hockey are so high is because they have minor league systems. Different study indicates that just 10% of minor league baseball players will make it to majors ... so Baseball at 9.9% getting drafted translates to just 1 % who make it to Majors .. roughly the same as Basketball and Football. I assume similar for Hockey.

Extrapolate that back to % of HS athletes that will play college .. that figure is just 7% of HS athletes will play college. So 1% of 7% of HS athletes will play pro's. So for every 1,000 HS athletes, 70 will play college, and 0.7 .. less than 1 per thousand will play pros. Basically if your school district has 1,500 HS athletes in a given graduating class .... 1 will play Pro on average.

View attachment 940

Unless of course you are a football player in Texas, California, Ohio or Florida. Maybe even in my area here in SE Virginia. Amazing how many football players those states generate that go on to higher levels. I will credit your math fourth. I had no stats just pulled a number out of the air. 1% sounded impactful enough. No doubt it is a very small number that will go pro in any sport.
BTW, be careful with the "parents should certainly steer and guide" comment. At a national soccer tournament I saw someone with a T shirt that was the most insightful I have ever seen. Blazoned across the shirt were the words, "The only thing wrong with youth sport is ... ADULTS". Some of those supposed adults turn into raving maniacal sports parents. I coached my son's U-12 soccer team quite a few years ago. Practice was right after school and I had a standing rule that for the first 10 minutes the kids could shoot at the goal, pass around among themselves and basically just have fun while my assistant coaches (all parents) shagged balls for them. That was their time and when we began practice it was time to focus and get to business. The kids blew off steam from being in class all day and were always ready to practice when their time was up. A couple weeks into the season I had a father come up to me and told me what a terrible coach I was and how badly I was negatively impacting his son. I was dumbfounded and asked why he felt that way (the team was 3-0 at that time). He proceeded to tell me how the 10 minutes I set aside for the kids at the beginning of practice was a total waste of time, built a lack of focus and discipline in the kids and lead to terrible mechanics and performance. I responded that I had been coaching for a few years at this low lever of soccer and never claimed to be a soccer guru (all coaches were volunteers). What I had found out was that these are young kids needed some time to blow off some steam so they could focus. I considered it a good exchange. 10 minutes for them and 50 minutes of their attention at practice. The father made a comment that I will not repeat verbatim in this message (probably against forum decorum rules) but at every practice after that he would not let his son participate in the 10 minutes session with his teammates. He took his son off to one side of the field and ran him through drills for the entire 10 minutes. An 11 year old playing recreational soccer with that kind of pressure from a parent! Fortunately most parents were great and were supportive. I still feel rather sad when I see in my minds eye that young boy going through drills off to the side while looking over at this teammates shooting at the goal. They always had trouble getting enough volunteer coaches, no idea why!

 

[isuquinndog]

Try being an official at those events with those parents. And then wonder why there aren't enough officials.

 

[Virginia Redbird]

Try being an official at those events with those parents. And then wonder why there aren't enough officials.

I was a certified soccer referee for one season. There is a reason it was only one season!

 

[fourthandshort]

Unless of course you are a football player in Texas, California, Ohio or Florida. Maybe even in my area here in SE Virginia. Amazing how many football players those states generate that go on to higher levels. I will credit your math fourth. I had no stats just pulled a number out of the air. 1% sounded impactful enough. No doubt it is a very small number that will go pro in any sport.
BTW, be careful with the "parents should certainly steer and guide" comment. At a national soccer tournament I saw someone with a T shirt that was the most insightful I have ever seen. Blazoned across the shirt were the words, "The only thing wrong with youth sport is ... ADULTS". Some of those supposed adults turn into raving maniacal sports parents. I coached my son's U-12 soccer team quite a few years ago. Practice was right after school and I had a standing rule that for the first 10 minutes the kids could shoot at the goal, pass around among themselves and basically just have fun while my assistant coaches (all parents) shagged balls for them. That was their time and when we began practice it was time to focus and get to business. The kids blew off steam from being in class all day and were always ready to practice when their time was up. A couple weeks into the season I had a father come up to me and told me what a terrible coach I was and how badly I was negatively impacting his son. I was dumbfounded and asked why he felt that way (the team was 3-0 at that time). He proceeded to tell me how the 10 minutes I set aside for the kids at the beginning of practice was a total waste of time, built a lack of focus and discipline in the kids and lead to terrible mechanics and performance. I responded that I had been coaching for a few years at this low lever of soccer and never claimed to be a soccer guru (all coaches were volunteers). What I had found out was that these are young kids needed some time to blow off some steam so they could focus. I considered it a good exchange. 10 minutes for them and 50 minutes of their attention at practice. The father made a comment that I will not repeat verbatim in this message (probably against forum decorum rules) but at every practice after that he would not let his son participate in the 10 minutes session with his teammates. He took his son off to one side of the field and ran him through drills for the entire 10 minutes. An 11 year old playing recreational soccer with that kind of pressure from a parent! Fortunately most parents were great and were supportive. I still feel rather sad when I see in my minds eye that young boy going through drills off to the side while looking over at this teammates shooting at the goal. They always had trouble getting enough volunteer coaches, no idea why!

Agree the notion of "steer and guide" is highly subject to misinterpretation by some parents.

 

[TIMMY]

"The only thing wrong with youth sport is ... ADULTS". How true that is.
The only youth sport I ever coached was my both of kids' little league teams. I never had a problem. I would head them off with a stern meeting before the season and a signed letter agreeing to my rules. No yelling at umps. No coaching from the stands and so on.

High school was a little different. You wouldn't believe how many kids my basketball coaches kept out of the NBA over the years. That's a joke but unrealistic expectations are at the heart of most of the problems.

This is my favorite story. I ran the triple option so my fullbacks always gained a lot of yards. The dive back on inside and outside veer is going to gain 1000 yards unless we're really bad. REALLY bad. I had a pretty good fullback whose mom worked in the school's cafeteria and I had known her for years. She caught me in the lunch line and told me in front of my peers that she was disappointed in me because her son wasn't getting "offers" from big schools like Notre Dame. She was serious. I said "Mrs. S., Larry had a great year and a great career. That's something you should be very proud of." I turned and walked away.

Larry was about 5'8" and 135 lbs.

Oh, and he was arrested for pilfering computers out of the lab. Never made it to college.

I won't get into the president of our athletic association standing up in the bleachers, screaming and flipping off a ref with both hands over his head during a basketball game. That went over really well.

 

[Hamdonger]

"The only thing wrong with youth sport is ... ADULTS". How true that is.
The only youth sport I ever coached was my both of kids' little league teams. I never had a problem. I would head them off with a stern meeting before the season and a signed letter agreeing to my rules. No yelling at umps. No coaching from the stands and so on.

High school was a little different. You wouldn't believe how many kids my basketball coaches kept out of the NBA over the years. That's a joke but unrealistic expectations are at the heart of most of the problems.

This is my favorite story. I ran the triple option so my fullbacks always gained a lot of yards. The dive back on inside and outside veer is going to gain 1000 yards unless we're really bad. REALLY bad. I had a pretty good fullback whose mom worked in the school's cafeteria and I had known her for years. She caught me in the lunch line and told me in front of my peers that she was disappointed in me because her son wasn't getting "offers" from big schools like Notre Dame. She was serious. I said "Mrs. S., Larry had a great year and a great career. That's something you should be very proud of." I turned and walked away.

Larry was about 5'8" and 135 lbs.

Oh, and he was arrested for pilfering computers out of the lab. Never made it to college.

I won't get into the president of our athletic association standing up in the bleachers, screaming and flipping off a ref with both hands over his head during a basketball game. That went over really well.

Good times!

 

[fourthandshort]

I was a certified soccer referee for one season. There is a reason it was only one season!

Little does Virgina know, I was one of the parents at his last game as a referee and took pictures. But not the one below, my wife took this one. I'm the guy in the middle in red with the chokehold on Virginia ... his bad calls cost my daughter a D-I full ride.

No hard feelings, I hope ???




ref

 

[Total Red]

I said "Mrs. S., Larry had a great year and a great career. That's something you should be very proud of." I turned and walked away.

Perfect response. I could never be that diplomatic in real time.

 

[Virginia Redbird]

Little does Virgina know, I was one of the parents at his last game as a referee and took pictures. But not the one below, my wife took this one. I'm the guy in the middle in red with the chokehold on Virginia ... his bad calls cost my daughter a D-I full ride.

No hard feelings, I hope ???



View attachment 950
ref

You made my day Fourth!

 

[Virginia Redbird]

"The only thing wrong with youth sport is ... ADULTS". How true that is.
The only youth sport I ever coached was my both of kids' little league teams. I never had a problem. I would head them off with a stern meeting before the season and a signed letter agreeing to my rules. No yelling at umps. No coaching from the stands and so on.

High school was a little different. You wouldn't believe how many kids my basketball coaches kept out of the NBA over the years. That's a joke but unrealistic expectations are at the heart of most of the problems.

This is my favorite story. I ran the triple option so my fullbacks always gained a lot of yards. The dive back on inside and outside veer is going to gain 1000 yards unless we're really bad. REALLY bad. I had a pretty good fullback whose mom worked in the school's cafeteria and I had known her for years. She caught me in the lunch line and told me in front of my peers that she was disappointed in me because her son wasn't getting "offers" from big schools like Notre Dame. She was serious. I said "Mrs. S., Larry had a great year and a great career. That's something you should be very proud of." I turned and walked away.

Larry was about 5'8" and 135 lbs.

Oh, and he was arrested for pilfering computers out of the lab. Never made it to college.

I won't get into the president of our athletic association standing up in the bleachers, screaming and flipping off a ref with both hands over his head during a basketball game. That went over really well.

I heard a quote once, "Sports don't build character; they reveal it." The quote has been attributed to John Wooden and sports announcer Heywood Hale Broun. I don't know who actually said it but ... yes, on a number of levels and not just the players on the field. Great story and great response.