re: Anyone experience douchey coaches in youth rec leagues?

Isn’t it also important to develop core memories of competition and winning something.

I’ve coached a lot and play everyone while capitalizing on their skills as best as possible, if we are going to steal of everyone’s time though we are going to put the kids in a position to win.

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I’ve coached a lot of youth baseball over the years. I’m sure I’ve had complaints behind my back of a similar fashion. It’s a fine line between winning and developing...

I always tried to do a lot of developmental drills during practice and had a game plan for rotations in the game. But the best kids played the pivotal positions. There has to be an element of winning in every sport or it’s an everyone gets a trophy mentality....individual development is up to you. Team development is up to the coach.

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Best response and coaching philosophy in the thread.

There is often a wide discrepancy in skill-level in LL. You involve the lesser developed kids as necessary, but the best guys shouldn't be penalized or else as you note, the game becomes a demoralizing exercise in "trophy-mentality".

The bigger problems become when coaches' and their buds' error/K prone sons remain in the entire game instead of working in the obviously more developed skilled (benched) kids.

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Am I being the douche here? And should just tell my kid he needs to work harder and he isn’t as good? Or is the coach the douche for treating 5th grade rec basketball like he’s in the state finals?

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When I coach these teams I try and rotate as much as possible and even start the kids I know aren’t as good, but even in rec (and even in kindergarten) the kids care about winning the games. Towards the end of the game I play the best players and try to win.

You have a point the kids need to play to develop, but the better kids are going to probably play more at the end. Does feel like you need to work with your kid on your own and have him put in the work if he cares about getting better, developing in the game only seems like a weird hill to die on.

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I came to visit home for a few weeks and went to a couple of my nine year old nieces bball games and the amount of fighting between referees and 40 year old coaches was insane. This was at pelican park. Every game I went to the coaches were all in the faces of the refs and screaming. Insane. It wasnt just one teams coach either it was a few different ones.

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I always wonder how the kid feels. I know I would have been completely embarrassed if my parents were at the games cutting up, yelling at the umps. Sadly the ones who are always yelling and screaming and cursing at the umps.. The kids are probably used of their parents acting like that.

Work with your kid in the drive way or local park. Playing time is earned, not given

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There are a ton of options out there for competitive AAU type leagues where these guys can get their kids on to play max competition.

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Don’t we also complain youth sports have become too much about club/travel teams?

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All the coaches happen to be Dads of players who also happen to be the 1st or 2nd best player on each respective team

Coach’s kids never come out during games. Maybe a one minute breather at most.

Bench players 6 thru 9 play a quarter or two quarters at most. Often in short stretches where they don’t have enough time to get comfortable.

Close games or crunch time, bench players don’t get in.

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I've coached my son's rec teams the last few years (he's in 6th grade now) and all of this sounds reasonable and exactly how our league goes.

Each team typically has 2 very skilled and/or physically big kids, 4-5 solid/competent players who understand the offensive and defensive structure/scheme and can generally play within the rules, and then 2-3 players who sometimes try hard but have no clue what to do with or without the ball. My son falls into the second group.

You need at least 1 of that skilled group on the floor at all times in order for the offense to function, so those kids have to play most of the game. If they don't, you're basically trading turnovers the entire time.

That leaves about 2 quarters max for players 3-9, which varies based on the opponent and situation. If the game is tight with a couple minutes left, at least one of the coaches is going to have all their competent players on the floor, which means you either have to 1) match them or 2) put your worst players in a horrible position trying to operate against a much better player. I've done both. With the former you get some upset parents (kids are usually fine). With the latter you get upset kids and parents.

Late to the party but I have experience coaching youth rec leagues (soccer & bball) and as a parent on the sidelines. Although my kid was not very good at either sport..

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Close games or crunch time, bench players don’t get in.

All plays designed to go thru the best one or two players with the other players acting as cleanup guys.

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Players & coaches alike want to win and sometimes (as in my last season coaching bball) you don't have but one or two good players to work with, 'good' meaning 'can dribble.' I had one kid who was so small & weak he couldn't catch a pass or hit the rim with the basketball. You get like 1 hour, maybe 2 hours of practice time per week and there is not enough time and no magic spell exists to make them get better quick if they aren't developing their skills on their own time at home. I was asked this same question - why not have the struggling players in during crunch time? My response was basically "I can tell who is & isn't practicing at home; I tend to put the kids who practice at home in at the end of the game as a reward."

Parents - I had mostly good parents. I'd rather have an overbearing parent who yells and cheers hard at games, than the ones who drop off their kids at practice or games, then come back later to pick them up like I am a babysitter. Sure everyone has busy lives but parent participation at that age is critical.

As a parent in the stands for the first two seasons of bball: you described my son's coach .. who had his kid running point all the time.. and almost never got subbed, despite league rules mandating court time.. but his kid was awful. He could only dribble right-handed and would get stuck in the corner every damn time down the court. His practices were unorganized and the thing with his son convinced me to try coaching.

We didn't really have any direct run-ins with douchey coaches. Something common in both soccer & bball at that age, however: I always got random kids on our team, but there was always at least one team in every league's season who obviously had been recruited to play together. Like, the coach knew all the better players' parents and got them together to form a super-team (LOL) who'd dominate the league. Which, IMO is an extremely douchey move.

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Crying because your kid doesn't play enough including crunch time. Bet you think every team should get participation trophy's.


You're not teaching him anything about real life and the failures we must deal with along with success.

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Didn't OP say his kid was 10?

I’ve had about 50 percent positive experiences with the rec league my boys are in. It’s 50 percent because one of my boys is pretty athletic so he doesn’t have many problems getting playing time. My older boy is an average athlete and has spent plenty of time on the bench or subbing out or getting minimum playing time while never getting the chance to improve. It’s hard as a parent to see that. He doesn’t think he’s going to be some pro - he just wants to play. One time we were on a team which never won a game and yet the coach would never sub out the better kids and kept 4-5 kids on a rotation while the other kids never sat out - like why man? We already suck.
All you can do is fight for your kid to get that playing time and hope the next season is a better one with a better coach. I may also suggest signing up to coach - then you can lead a group however you see fit.