Comments on: Winning & Losing in Youth Sports

By: In it to Win It « Red Sea School

In it to Win It « Red Sea School — Fri, 27 Apr 2007 20:59:32 +0000

[...] There’s some dissenting discussion at Chris O’Donnell’s site: Winning baseball, basketball, or even in business is done by executing the little things properly. The victories to be celebrated in youth sports are not the final outcomes, but the gradual day-to-day improvement that leads to those victories. Little Johnny can�t control the final score, but he can control what he does when at bat or on the field. [...]

By: JJ Ross

JJ Ross — Fri, 27 Apr 2007 18:25:10 +0000

Yeah, point taken. Play “the game” (baseball or soccer, say) somehow if you love it and want to, without being dissuaded — but that sure doesn’t mean every game and team and sports situation.

By: COD

COD — Fri, 27 Apr 2007 15:12:34 +0000

I wouldn’t go that far JJ. Breck had a baseball coach once that was so bad that it set Breck two years on his baseball confidence and almost ruined the game for him. There is nothing so pure that an asshole adult can’t ruin it for kids. Breck would have been much better off not playing that season.

By: JJ Ross

JJ Ross — Fri, 27 Apr 2007 14:53:46 +0000

Remember in the movie War Games, the NORAD supercomputer learns “the only way to win is not to play the game?”

Maybe for kids’ sports, the opposite is true? — the only way to LOSE is not to play the game.

By: JJ Ross

JJ Ross — Fri, 27 Apr 2007 14:42:26 +0000

Jeanne and COD – love this freeze tag time-out for noticing what’s happening and helping kids figure it out for themselves, thank you! We do this mentally all the time in our unschooling but I never thought to consider it a form of good coaching, or that it worked in physical coaching the same way. We do it in the car a LOT, discussing the day’s events, listening to talk radio or reading marquee and political signs, in traffic jams, school bus stops in a silly place, etc. Suddenly we all pounce on something that looks or sounds a little off and figure out why, unraveling the broken logic plays.

By: COD

COD — Fri, 27 Apr 2007 13:46:42 +0000

That’s exactly how I handled basketball. I did the freeze tag thing a lot. We scrimmaged with the 4 pass rule ala Hoosiers. We scrimmaged where layups were worth 3 points, shots in the paint worth 2, and outside jumpers worth one. We focused on teaching the kids what to do, even though in a lot of cases they weren’t quite up to the task physically. Attempting the proper pass resulted in a round of attaboys, regardless of the result. We played man-man to defense 100% of the time, and were the only team in the county doing it. Did it cost us a game or two? Most certainly it did, although we never had a losing season in Breck’s 4 year basketball career. And we had 8 or 9 kids request to be back on my team each year. That to me was the ultimate indicator of success. The kids were having so much fun not winning the league championship that they wanted to do it again.

By: Jeanne

Jeanne — Fri, 27 Apr 2007 13:32:16 +0000

SomeHOW not SomeONE. I give up.

By: Jeanne

Jeanne — Fri, 27 Apr 2007 13:29:34 +0000

Woops – someone I musta lost a piece of one sentence, which should have read “be as competitive as possible in that context.”

Sorry. Like I’m not long-winded enough and have to post again.

By: Jeanne

Jeanne — Fri, 27 Apr 2007 13:27:07 +0000

But let’s not throw the baby out with the bathwater. The kid on my team who had never played before, and whose soccer skills are dismal, is having a blast out there. Her mom says she’s out kicking the ball against the side of the garage every afternoon instead of “more TV.” She is clearly in the groove to move because she’s gotten an opportunity to play youth sports. (Not that her parents couldn’t take her hiking or biking — but, y’know, they haven’t and probably aren’t going to).

A mom expressed surprise at practice that our Coaching Staff (Read: me, my husband, 18 yo brother and 16 yo brother – oh my, the poor people get a whole homeschooling family) is actually teaching soccer — and the kids with the good skills are getting to learn and think about game strategy, a real brain builder that will also provide a physical challenge for them.

It’s all about Attitude. I told “my” parents Wed. night that just as our team is going to be the “team that passes,” our parents are going to be known as the “supportive parents.” Sure, I’m going to find out who the rogues are on Saturday morning, but our family will continue to do our best to marginalize that attitude and demonstrate sportsmanship, give every kid a chance to play, and be as competitive

I also had a cool scrimmage Wed. night against a bigger, more advanced team. I told their coach right off what I was looking for, and it was terrific how he responded. He gave his clearly superior team the challenge of never shooting without passing at least three times. This gave them a strategic challenge and opportunity to work on their passing and evened the odds against my little guys, who had more opportunities to take the ball and didn’t get scored on so bad. I also requested to use my whistle to play “freeze tag.” When I blew, everyone stopped dead in their tracks, so we could show the kids when they were out of position, too close to pass, offsides, etc. The other team needed none of this, but those kids on the opposing team were right in there with us, helping to explain to the younger kids where they needed to be. Smiles all around.

Shhhhh. Don’t tell anyone. We’re homeschooling soccer. : )

By: JJ Ross

JJ Ross — Fri, 27 Apr 2007 00:51:42 +0000

Rex has a point that there IS research to back up — I won’t bore everyone and don’t have time to retrieve it right now anyway, but essentially it’s the old nature-nurture thing: nature differences are very small when kids are little, but then parents and coaches (and teammates) favor the seemingly better kids, or those who grow a little faster, whatever, with scads more opportunities and special training, summer sports camps and awards, and surprise! All those incremental opportunity differences add up over time, the gap gets wider and wider because all the other kids gradually stop playing at all, what’s the use — and then by high school, it’s a self-fulfilling prophecy and there are huge gaps. A few kids seem like superstars. But it really could have been almost any kid given that much emphasis and reinforcement. It was almost all based on nurture, given in buckloads to the kids with only very slight nature advantage . . .