We played for the 3rd grade fall rec league baseball championship today. The last time we played this team they had 2 players that never played OF. Teams are required to rotate IF/OF. Once again, the same 2 players never played OF. I mentioned it to their coach before the last inning and he still sent the two out as P/C for the last inning.
What club? Curious how it compares to the size of ours here lake Nona soccer and the Orlando city ones. Both of them feel huge but I’m not familiar with the landscape really.
Have an actual good hearted story today and since it doesn’t fit I’ll share an asshole parent story in the spoiler My son’s team played a team from Puerto Rico this morning in a tournament. After the game all the players from the Puerto Rican team came over and gave each player on my son’s team a wristband and a pin from Puerto Rico which I just thought was a cool gesture. Spoiler A professional golfers daughter is playing in U-8 soccer with our club this season. The golfer asked to be put on a certain coaches team so she was removed from the draft and placed on that team. After the draft one of the coaches who is crazy started a yelling match that they couldn’t draft the kid and how unfair everything is
The same guy in all my stories started a yelling match with the league president during our 9U baseball draft because the league implemented a new draft strategy to evenly distribute kids who have never played before. His argument was that he didn’t get the same treatment in previous years so it doesn’t make sense for others to benefit. Remember…it’s about the kids.
Reminds me of my 8th grade town league draft. 7th grade was my first year playing baseball ever. I had no fundamentals. Swing like a blind man chopping down a tree. I was still pretty fast so i was good when I got on base but overall a bad player. loved the coach though, and he liked me too. next year he tried to draft me at a slot that was way above my actual ability. Another coach caught wind and swooped in and took me. needless to say the coach of the team I ended up on was EXTREMELY disappointed when he realized my utility was quite limited. Pretty sure we were the worst team in the league that year. cliffs: one coach wanted to draft me cuz he liked me as a kid/teammate, another coach was being a hardo and made sure that didn’t happen. Joke was on the hardo because I wasn’t good at baseball.
Last soccer season we moved up to 10u so that broke up our team, which was always coplmpeting for the championship. ( coaches get to keep players if they coach the same league multiple seasons in a row) 12u didn't make last season, So we ended up on a team with a new (to us) coach and assistant, both who had 12 year olds on the team. First thought was "great" older kids will be good and team will be decent. Wrong, coach was terrible, coaches kids were worse. Didn't win a game all season. My little man finished the season saying he didn't want to play soccer any more. I obviously want him to play every sport he can, especially at this age. So we just signed up for spring 10u soccer and I volunteered to be an assistant coach for our old coach from 8u. So now my little guy and his will be on the same team (both two of the better players in the age group) Feel like a little bit of an asshole parent for 'rigging ' the team, but I just couldn't stand the thought of the chance of him being on that other coaches team again. I get he's a volunteer and doing it just because they really need more coaches, but damn that guy was just not good at it at all.
OMG yes, evenly distributing players with no experience is the right thing to do. Our 3rd grade basketball team has 5 new kids and it’s so hard to blend them in and put them in places they can be successful. I literally have to rely on two ball handlers that can face pressure and get us in to an offensive set. The one game both of them got strep we lost like 48-4. That isn’t good for anybody.
Yeah I don’t coach the kids anymore, being a dad in the stands is the best. However, when I did I always just picked kids my kids were friends with and kids with parents we liked. Always got a kick out of parents trying to stack elementary age rec league teams in any sport.
Not sure where to put this but it's probably as good of a place as any. My 7 yo has always been decent at sports. Way better than I ever was. I never got a chance to do much until middle school because well, we were pretty poor and I lived 7 miles into the country so this youth sports thing is all kind of new to me. He picks stuff up pretty quickly typically. Currently he's in a youth rec league basketball program with 1st and second graders. He's in 1st. 2 games in and they are getting beat pretty handily and he's quickly figuring out he can't just show up and expect to be the best. He came to me on Saturday and asked what he should do to get better. Honestly I have no idea as I never played basketball. Best I could come up with was some drills I found on YouTube for ball handling as that is his biggest struggle. So he's spent at least an hr every night since Saturday in the basement doing dribbling drills while following along on yt, all on his own. My question is any of you guys have any other ideas for me to throw at him? He's very competitive and he just wants to get better.
Just practice. Get him a hoop and ball and if he just sticks with basketball you’re getting off cheap.
This is the move. Get an adjustable hoop and IMO don't cheap out. If he likes sports, even if he doesn't keep up with basketball, it will be a thing that gets used by him and his friends for YEARS.
Oh we've got a hoop. I sprung for one during lockdown. Mainly for me honestly for something to do. He's out there putting up shots when it's not too cold.
We got my 2nd grader a Dribble Up ball for Christmas and he loves it. He can just set up his tablet on a chair in the basement and mimic the drills all he wants. Now that the weather is nicer he hasn't been using it as much as he just wants to be outside getting up shots
So my two boys are decent at stuff and the oldest is a solid tennis player. Nothing elite, but will probably be asked to play JUCO or small college tennis one day. However my daughter is extremely athletic and amazing at soccer. I can tell she is just different and other parents and coaches notice it. I get calls weekly from travel teams and coaches and other parents trying to recruit her. She’s 8, but it’s wild to me how competive these parents are. I’m like she’s 8 lol and we are not traveling two hours just to practice because of how good your team is.
I still get calls from sports asking if I want games or if I’m available. I always say no. There’s an extreme shortage of refs and umpires and the reason is parents suck.
I umpired little league baseball one summer when I was in high school and it was hell. Parents/coaches were complete assholes. I wish working as an official/umpire/ref was required of any parent that has kids in athletics. Similar to how I wish everyone in the world would have to work food service once in their lives.
I’ve offered fat ass dads an opportunity to do better in 95 degree heat with full umpire gear. Never one taker.
similar spot with my son but I grew up playing ball year round and have a pretty good handle on fundamentals and where to start. I’ve got some good stuff I’ve found off instagram that is also helpful. Search around on there. I will say that if you can work with him being aggressive when he has the ball he will be so much further ahead. Don’t let him just stand and dribble or just work through cones. Those are good drills but you need to hammer home the importance of playing with contact. It’s almost a football mentality he needs to have. My son is 7 and seeks contact when he has the ball because I’ve taught him the best way to win that initial encounter on the court is to be the most aggressive and physical. Our league is very physical and he’s out there dribbling with kids hanging off of him like it’s nothing.
My cousin played D1 baseball and did a shit ton of research because he just assumed his kids would be as talented as he is/was. Apparently it's really easy to get a full ride playing women's golf if you are anywhere near a scratch golfer at 18-19.
I fucking hate little kids basketball that isn't handled correctly. You end up with one coach basically letting his kids press and if a team has 1 good player they win by 30.
I think this goes for any sport but maybe baseball for the little kids. Have seen kids dominate soccer and the coach just let them score endless goals. Never take them out, never tell them to stay back on defense, it's infuriating and no one is having fun but that kid. Doing our first year of flag (5 and 6 year olds) and the coaches son is ridiculous but I think he limits him to 2 TDs a game which is usually 3 touches.
I posted last year that this happened to me. I had a team of first graders going up against a coach that rigged his team with mostly third graders and he ran it up on us. I had two kids crying and walked off the court during the game. It bent me all out of shape then and he’s been running it up again on the smaller teams this year. It’s just pathetic. Our league can only pressure in half court but it’s still tilted so much towards the defense that it’s hard to even call it basketball. Most teams only have 2-3 legit ball handlers and can’t really complete multiple passes so it’s a bad looking product.
This happened to my 2nd grader this past weekend. They made the championship game for their league and ran up against a team with two kids who were studs - the two of them scored every point for their team and the coach didn't sub either one out until about 2 minutes left and the game was far out of reach. I talked to a parent I know with a kid on the other team that is not one of the two and he said he hates it so much and his son hates going to the games because he never gets the ball. You'll be shocked to learn the two kids are the coach and assistant coach's.
My son's team is 0-2. They've scored 12 points all season. Their opponents thankfully, haven't been great either but better than them. My sons coach is his principal and is more focused on the kids having fun, which I'm happy about. His son is also on the team and he doesn't start his kid. He makes sure everyone on the team has equal playing time. Wish there were more coaches like him.
It was 20-0 in the first 10 minutes. Obviously the only way that happens at that level is defense converted to layups. I know the coaches from the other team and gave them a heads up we were without ball handlers that game. I was hoping they would relax in pressuring the ball handlers but the kids were like rabid dogs waiting at half court to steal the ball. We ended up having to use our center to bring it up because his defender was the least aggressive. Our association tries to keep elementary schools together and that team is all from the same school. There is another that started with the base of one school but added kids from other schools that all played up a grade in travel baseball the prior summer (travel starts in 3rd for us but they let 2nd graders try out because it’s technically just 9U or whatever). There is a clear separation of athleticism for kids that survive a cut session in a travel sport and the other kids in rec. So that team is basically just a travel team caliber team playing in a rec league. They pulled in the best kid in the league (that had a dad play D1 football), the Vikings coach’s kid, the nephew of a kid that played basketball for the Badgers (along with his grandpa coaching), etc. It really annoyed me playing that team and I had to bite my lip a lot because I was angry that team existed.
Scholarships are awesome but my son is only interested in playing tennis. Will be a solid high school player but probably that’s it. I’m okay with that it’s his passion
Not necessarily youth but… My dad is one of those guys. Small town legion ball, you had the official ump behind the plate and volunteers on the bases. I was in the on deck circle when there was a close play at third where my dad was on the call. I will grant him that he had good position but our guy was under the tag and all of us blew up when he called him out. My coach and him, lifelong friends, were nose to nose fighting about it. Afterwards, he says he can’t believe how my coach blew up. I said yeah, because you blew the call. We didn’t talk for a week. High school basketball, I dove for a loose ball and landed in the stands right in front of my dad. He’s screaming for a foul. Since I’m literally at his feet, I told him to shut up, I dove. After the game he told me I needed to pay more attention to the game instead of him. I told him he probably needed to pay more attention to the game. Mom had to intervene on that one. My nieces are currently being embarrassed by his behavior at their events. I’ve tried to explain the difference between him and I screaming along with 14k at Kelly Pfeifer making 3k a game at Nebrasketball and him being a noisy dick to some part time 22 year old at a small school jv game but it doesn’t land. My nieces hate it. My brother has told him he lives with all of these people, the kids friends are aware of it, they all dread it. When I was in high school, he actually got into a shoving match with a clock operator from another school over a junior high tournament my brother was playing in. He did this while I was talking to my friends from that school, a girl I was kinda seeing, etc. “Who’s that asshole?” “Ah shit. Sorry guys, that’s my dad. He’s got a temper please don’t hold this against me talk to ya soon I better go or my mother is gonna kill him.”
I feel sorry for you, that guy is probably the most embarrassing of the lot for me. My dad was like that as well. I will have to say, I randomly do admire how invested these people can get in something so inconsequential. It may indicate certain neurons aren’t firing properly but I’m not sure there are like more than 5 things I’ve ever been that invested in.
Like golf, it’s a life long sport and he will have a lot of fun playing adult league tennis as adult as a good player
First of all, I want to commend you for already avoiding the primary pitfall that creates the asshole parent; you’ve identified your son’s talent without attempting to control or gatekeep it. It's also very important that he is the one driving the pace and extent of his development. It’s rare for kids to do that, but is what creates the best players. At this point, your primary focus is helping him develop his fundamentals to a razor-sharp edge; he will get the technical coaching he needs from the rec league coaches, and eventually the more sophisticated strategies from his school teams or AAU if you guys become inclined towards that. Learn enough that you can correct obvious errors, but be careful about embedding new techniques. As parent, your best path forward is providing him reps and resources. Since you’ve already got a hoop and want to get some use out of it anyways for personal exercise, I’d recommend the following four games: 1. Position yourself in the middle of the key, and tell him he needs to score 10 times…one-handed. Let him do it with the dominant hand first, then non-dominant. Defensively, you move side-to-side, but don’t step out of the boundaries of where the paint would be. Swat it away if he gets too close. Let him guard against you in the same way. 2. Figure out about what his max controlled shooting range is (at his age, I’d guess no further than the free-throw line). Position yourself as a mirror about three feet in front of him with your back to the basket, and tell him he can dribble anywhere around the horn that isn’t past you and put up a shot. Again, he needs to make 10 shots to win. You do the same against him. 3. Play setup HORSE with him. Pick a “too-close” boundary, let him find a place to post up, then pass him the ball and he has to make the shot without a dribble. You do the same and make him pass it to you. 4. Let him post up on you near the basket, then bounce the ball off the backboard. He has to catch the rebound with his feet off the ground. If he doesn’t get high enough (say chest level) catch the ball over him. First to 10 wins. Again, let him dictate the terms on when and how often this happens, but make it clear to him that if he starts it, you expect him to finish. He learns how to self-start and be internally motivated, but also accountability and responsibility.
am I an asshole for putting my 3 year old (he'll turn 4 during the season) son in the 5-6 t-ball league? I reached out to the guy and told him I'd be willing to coach the team and he seemed completely fine with it and happy to have a parent that wanted to be involved. I just want to make sure I'm being fair to all the other kids. my son played in a U4 soccer league in the fall and did really great and absolutely loved it. like I'd come down from bed the morning of his games and he'd already be in full uniform with shin guards and cleats on. and he just keeps asking me when he's going to get to play baseball. I'm not really worried about him playing because he's been hitting off a tee in the backyard since last summer and can throw the ball decent enough. I'm more worried about him not listening as he can be a little wild and will obviously be less mature than the other kids. my biggest worry is me being there alone with him, coaching the team, and him melting down or something. I don't think that's likely to happen, but 3-4 year olds are capable of anything.
I’ve been helping coach my son’s teams since he was 4. Seen lots of younger kids join their older siblings teams before and they usually hold their own. Worst case he gets stuck in the outfield. I’ve also found that kids of all ages will have meltdowns out there. Mine got banished to the outfield for it. It happens and good learning experience.
assuming there isn't a younger option? If you are there to deal with any issues i'm sure it will be fine. I think at the 5/6 league, the bar for behavior for boys is incredibly low. As long as your kid isn't having regular temper tantrums that completely derail the game then i don't see how any other parents will be bothered. And the fact that you are there to deal with it makes up for any potential problems imo
It is surprising how many psycho sports parents are out there. Just screaming at their kids when they fuck up. Last year's team (6U) we had a star player (his parents redshirted him in kindergarten for sports--that's a thing down here) so he was a 7 year old whipping up on 6 year olds. He was very good and our team won a lot of games primarily because he was so good at shortstop and hit home runs every at bat. Anyways his dad was the HC and would chew him out if he ever dropped a ball or anything. The kid would routinely have meltdowns in the dugout if he made a very minor error or like, only got a double instead of a home run. it was pathetic. his mom and grandmother would have to hype him up in the dugout and tell him how wonderful he was just so he would go back out there. so yeah he's a 7 year old stud but will probably quit baseball at like age ten and hate his dad forever.
Yeah gives me PTSD from when I played. I never really got yelled at but watching the HC go hard on their sons was always uncomfortable to watch as a kid. Even harder as an adult. Promised myself I never wanted to be the reason for my child to cry on the field. Past fall baseball season the HC went a little too hard on his son in our playoff game. His head was not in the game and was missing some throws and catches he would usually make. Kid was balling when we went out and I pulled him to the side and hyped him up. He got back in and played soo much better where we lost but had a chance to win in the last inning.
I get onto my kid but he's got ADHD and likes to fuck off in practice a lot while waiting in lines for drills. He's mostly fine in game outside of occasionally zoning out in the field lol.