I’ve been around sports a long time, especially youth sports. Until recently, I’ve never truly had a desire to coach because of those experiences.

Once my old high school had posted an opening for varsity girl’s basketball coach. For about 15 seconds, I thought about applying for the position and talked with one of my buddies who worked at the school. He basically said, “Why would you want to do that? Coaches are still getting sh!t just like they did back in our day. You want that aggravation?”

When I held the strength coach position at Columbus Academy (my old high school), I thought this was the perfect coaching position for me. I could still contribute to helping these young athletes achieve their goals without dealing with the headaches of coaching.

Who’s starting?  

This nutjob parent hates me cause of playing time?  

Which person is going to yell at me from the stands because I called the wrong play?

Plus, I have experienced the coaching frenzy firsthand when I played and heard about the moronic coaches from my parents and athletes. In light of all that, there are a several things I want to point out before we start labeling some of these coaches as “bums.” Specifically, I’m talking about coaches not at the high school level, but younger.

I was told that some parents at my daughter’s school were upset with some of the school’s coaches. They didn’t feel that their kids were getting enough out of it.

I’m not going to deny there are coaches that have no clue about the fundamentals of certain sports they are coaching. But, the one thing they share is that they want to be involved with these kids to provide an experience for them.

You do realize most of these coaches are VOLUNTEERS don’t you?!

I don’t know many stud coaches for any sport that would be willing to coach a team for free if their child was not part of that team.

It’s not like these athletic directors have just stacks of resumes to pick from for coaches. Even at the high school level, the pickings are slim so you know that at the youth level you kind of get what you can get.

I recently met the newly hired middle school track coach at a school. He had no previous track coaching experience. He never ran track, but he applied for the job and wasn’t a psycho so he got it. That’s usually how it works.

There is also no coaching school to go to. It’s not like you take a class to be a sport coach, get your degree upon completion, and now you are ready to coach. If you think your coach stinks, then by all means why don’t you go ahead and coach the team.  

Something I think that is truly missed is one’s ability to coach a kid. Your coaching style takes years to develop. How do you communicate with these kids and can you say the same thing in multiple ways because the same phrase can be interpreted differently by two different athletes.

What if you have some kids that are screwing around? You going to discipline them and if so how? In this day and age, you sneeze on a kid and you got all sorts of complaints that you are a mean coach.

I’m definitely not saying all coaches are great. What I am saying is before you throw the blanket statement that your child has an awful coach there might be other positives there just not the ones you likely desire.

  • You have someone who wants to be there giving these kids an opportunity.
  • Your kid is probably playing on a team with his/her friends. Even if they suck as a team, your kid might be having a great time doing something with his/her friends.
  • These aren’t professional coaches, or probably even getting compensated at all, so be happy someone is taking the bull by the horns coaching these kids.

Besides, we all know that the real gains for an athlete are made in the off-season. Mad your kid can’t dribble?? Take him/her to a basketball instructor or kick that kid out of the house with a basketball and practice the dribbling on their own.

Finally, let’s all remember that this is youth sports. Yes, they probably could learn something, but ultimately it is for the athlete to have fun. Take some responsibility for developing your own kid’s athletic prowess rather than relying on some other volunteer dad coaching your son’s rec team and hoping he becomes Lebron James by the end of the season.

Photo courtesy of Jim Larrison on Flickr: https://www.flickr.com/photos/larrison/