My Coaching Journey

I started coaching in 2021 and it has become more than a hobby. It’s a lifestyle. My wife would say it sometimes takes over my life.

Context

I was a bit of a baseball standout before I quit at the age of 14. I played pickup basketball all my life, but my focus in high school was substance abuse and delinquency. As an adult, there were times I was on the field or the court with guys who played college sports at the DII level. It’s inevitable to wonder what could have been. Maybe I could have gotten into a better school, or gotten money for the school I went to.

Substance abuse and delinquency became my greatest regret in life, and that regret is now a driving force to prevent that happening to my children. Even before I became a father I read a lot about how specifically boys get on the wrong track. The most important thing is to keep the family intact: no divorce. Another critical success factor is to keep boys in sports.

I see it as my job as a father to develop my son athletically both to keep him out of trouble and strengthen his case for the best university possible.

I Got Roped In

That’s the background for why I showed up to my son’s first soccer practice 15 minutes early wearing cleats … so we could get a little pre-warmup before warmups. The coach appointed me as an assistant, in a tactic I would later employ on the first day of any practice. It’s important to have help. In hindsight, I was a no brainer. I’ve seen some enthusiastic parents, but I’ve never seen one arrive 15 minutes early in cleats.

I still never thought I would coach. But once I started helping, I saw that I’d rather be coaching and in the mix than sitting on my arse watching from the sideline. And as even more time went by, I started having my own ideas and decided I’d rather be running practice than following someone else’s program.

I started coaching all the sports year-round: soccer, baseball and basketball. And I was an excellent coach.

By the way, I would not rate a coach of 5- to 12-year-olds by their wins and losses. Any honest actor is going to be dealt some squads of misfits. If you’re in it for the kids and development, and not for yourself, then you’re probably going to have a season where you lose every game. If a coach is always winning every game, he’s likely working the system to get better players, playing below their level or, often, both.

I had teams that got routed in games and teams that won by landslides. It’s mostly luck of the draw. I saw the worst coaches I’ve seen (my opinion) win every game of a season because he had one dominant, natural athlete on the team.

But I would judge coach quality by the participation at the end of the season (is the team still near full strength, or has half the team quit before the end?). I’d also look at how much each player improved. Finally, and this depends on the system, but I’d see how often the coach is requested by parents. And those are the criteria I judged myself on and got straight As:

• participation at the end of the season*
• player improvement
• returning player requests

* ironically, maintaining high participation will likely lead to less success in games, because the less developed players are the ones who decide it’s a waste of time.

The Program

I recently attended a coaching clinic that included the mantra: “No laps, no lines, no lectures.” I loved that and had developed a similar philosophy on my own. But the most important thing as a coach is to not have young children standing around. I thought about it like this: I’m taking a couple hours out of my weeknight, and spending some money, to put my child in a sport.

I want him to be sweaty and tired at the end of every practice. I don’t want him full of energy. Yet in most soccer practices, you’ll see the coach line the entire team up to take shots on the goalie one by one. There are other games (King of the Hill, Knockout, World Cup) where players are immobile for minutes at a time.

Kids are very impatient, the smartphone generation even more so. Some of these parents are forcing their overweight kids into sports to shed pounds. And you may only have one full practice to do that, given limited game time will be shared among everybody.

That’s my expansion of “no lines,” as in no waiting in a line to play. Lines can be okay if there are only one or two people in the line and it’s serving as needed rest from an intense activity. Otherwise, they should be moving the whole time.

“No lectures” means no long talks while the children are just sitting or standing. Again, they have amazingly short attention spans. You have to keep any lesson as simple as possible. I try to make my points in “teachable moments” during scrimmage, preferably lasting no more than 30 seconds before the game resumes play.

That brings us to the most important pillar of my program: scrimmage. I scrimmage for a minimum of 50% of the practice. Sometimes we’ll scrimmage for the entire practice. Nonnegotiable. You must simulate a real game or they won’t be ready for gameday.

I got this idea from boxing. Many aspiring boxers will learn how to stand and punch, and spend weeks getting good at working the heavy bag, the speed bag and the coach’s mitts. But once they’re in the ring facing down another boxer, it’s almost a completely different sport. I’ve heard that 90% quit after their first experience sparring. In the weeks before a fight, sparring three times a week is required. And unlike other sports, sparring is easy to skip. It hurts. Taking shots to the head hurts like hell. But if you don’t do it, you’re unprepared for a real fight.

It’s the same logic in other sports. You can get good at dribbling and shooting baskets by yourself, but it’s a completely different proposition when someone is standing in front of you, trying to steal the ball and block your shots. When teams don’t scrimmage in practice, you can see them flatfooted or even shellshocked when they’re playing a real game, especially if the other team is better.

So as a rule I scrimmage the team for a minimum of 50% of every practice. I would think this is common sense, but not with the youth coaches I’ve seen. Best case scenario, they’ll scrimmage 50% of the practice. And I have seen coaches that never scrimmage. They only do drills. I don’t know how many youth coaches I’ve seen come in thinking they’re going to teach nine-year-olds the advanced techniques the coach learned in college or from YouTube, and do that for the whole practice. It doesn’t work. They need simple, and they need simulation.

The devotion to scrimmage applies to young children who have very limited experience. I know this will change later in their athletic careers. Fundamentals will be increasingly important in high school and beyond. But those athletes don’t have limited experience, they have seen the intensity of a game. We’re not there yet. Not even close.

I have heard of elite programs where the parents can get angry if they’re paying thousands of dollars and the coaches only scrimmage the teams. I’m not operating in those elite programs.

Extending the scrimmage logic, I learned to make everything a game, even the drills. Children want to win. They want the clarity of winners and losers. I’ve seen soccer leagues where they don’t keep score in official games … MALARKEY! Kids suffer when you take that away. So I make even the skills and drills into a game where one side will win and the other lose.

When you scrimmage, don’t let the kids pick the teams. Coach picks the teams, and he makes changes in the middle of the scrimmage as needed. The goal is to have a tie game at the end so you can say, “Next goal/basket wins!” You don’t want one team routing the other. It should be a heated battle of high intensity, everybody invested in winning.

Great Fun

For many practices where you don’t have enough players, you as coach will play too. Sometimes we have so few players that I’ll do kids against adults (kids love this!), with me and whichever assistants I rounded up for that season against all the kids. So I get some exercise out of keeping my son on the right track.

You’ll also inevitably end up doing drills or passing the ball back and forth with kids as they trickle in one by one. I went from zero soccer experience in life to the point where I can one-touch or dribble the ball a little. I bought my son a USA men’s jersey. Imagine the 180 I’ve done, from what I used to write about soccer!

I began my coaching career with the YMCA, which requires “equal time.” Every player gets the same playing time, no more time for the standouts and no less for the scrubs. I just love this concept, and I’ve applied it outside of the Y. As a coach I want to win, but I don’t want to do it at the expense of the less talented kids (and their parents). If you can’t win with equal time, it’s not worth it.

I extended the “equal time” philosophy to positions, where everybody plays every position, with few exceptions. See specific sports tips below.

When you do win while employing equal time, and the players are getting better, and the parents are thanking you to heaven, and the kids want to come back and play for you in the next season, it feels great. I got real fulfillment out of it, which is why I’ve coached almost two dozen teams in three years (!). If I’m not blogging, it’s because I’ve overextended myself again with youth sports.

The End of Fun

Children under 10 years old love their coach. Starting around 11 and increasing as they get closer to puberty, they become argumentative little monsters. I never hated a player before this last year, and now I have hated a handful. I almost asked one’s father to leave the team. The trash-talking, the arguing, the angst. It’s in line with what’s happening with my son day to day, but the adolescent attitude is bringing a dark cloud over the coaching journey.

The challenges are getting greater. I stand my scrimmage mantra for this age, but I can feel we’re getting closer to needing more technical coaching, which doesn’t interest me much. I just want to play and have fun.

I always thought, and I still do, that playing all the sports at this young age is better for my son. But the kids who have only played one sport their whole lives are starting to pull away in ability. My son is no longer one of the two or three best players on every team any more, because there are at least two or three kids who have essentially specialized in just one sport for years now.

I’ve learned I’m not the only one who had the idea to bolster my child’s college application with sports. It seems to be an affliction of my generation. I’ve heard from friends who spend thousands every year on elite teams that travel to regional tournaments all year long. They say that if you’re not doing that, you probably won’t play in college. And I don’t intend to do all that. We just want to have fun playing various sports with other children and parents in the community.

So I may be nearing the end. It’s been a fun ride.

My Tips per Sport

Again, no laps no lines no lectures. Scrimmage a minimum of 50% with equal time and each player in every position.

Basketball

A classic drill is to scrimmage but require each player to make at least five passes before the team can take a shot. The idea is to prevent ball hogs from driving and popping threes on every possession. But with kids it’s even harder, so I added a rule that they can only have the ball for five seconds. After every pass, I’ll count down from five in a loud, booming voice. They have to dish, dribble or shoot, or it’s a turnover. Basketball is supposed to be fast.

In one exception to “no laps,” I’ll make a player run around the court if they put up an airball in scrimmage. Young children are selfish. They want to make the baskets. They don’t have a strong concept of team. You’re always combating that, up to at least 10 years old, and a prominent symptom of selfish players is airballs. Instead of passing, they’re taking bad shots they had no business shooting. So you make them run around the court because they couldn’t even hit the rim, they should not have taken the shot.

In equal time in every position, you would think you can’t have everybody play point guard. But I’ve done it occasionally, and definitely in scrimmages. It may not work for every game, but don’t discount it. If you need a low post player, obviously you don’t need to work the smaller players through that spot.

In adults vs. children scrimmages, you have to tweak rules to handicap the adults’ height advantage. Adults can make only bounce passes to each other, and they can only grab a rebound after it has bounced on the ground. For extra credit, be like me and squat all the way down, arse to ankles, when you take shots within 15 feet. This gives the children a chance to block you.

Soccer

Again, kids are self-centered in sports. One gifted athlete can win the game up until about nine years old. After that, it just doesn’t work. They’re going to have to work as a team. So I constantly repeat the mantra that assists are just as important as goals. And after a game or scrimmage, always highlight a player of the game who got assists. Almost never give public credit to a natural talent who scores goals but never passes. Encourage those to become playmakers.

“Pass it before you get into trouble.” It’s a never-ending battle. You’ll be surprised how often kids will dribble the ball straight into the defender’s feet. Pass before you get into trouble. Playing “keep away” is supposed to be a great drill to teach teams to work together, but I haven’t cracked the code for keeping it interesting.

Pick your goalies on the first day. In scrimmage, teach them to grab the ball as soon as they can. Don’t wait for the shot. Goalies are one exception for equal time in all positions. Some players are not interested in and should never play goalie.

On defense, always clear it out to the sides. Never kick the ball into the middle on goal kicks or otherwise. You have to shout that at every goal kick. On offense, it’s the opposite. Center the ball, bring it into the middle. Don’t take bad-angle shots.

“Attack the ball” all the time. No matter where you are on the field, if you’re guarding the player with the ball, try to steal it. Bother him. Whatever you can do to attack the ball. My son is at the age where this mantra no longer applies. The talented 11- and 12-year-olds can beat defenders, so you want to stay in front of the ball. Don’t let them get past. But under 11 years old, attack the ball.

Baseball

With such complex skill sets, and limited exposure to each in a game, you may think it’s less important to scrimmage in baseball. And you see that in little league practices, but I’d argue it’s just as important. Of course everybody needs to practice hitting, playing catch and taking fly balls. But like hitting a heavy bag that doesn’t hit back, fielding a ground ball and throwing out a runner is a different proposition when he’s trying to beat you to the bag. They need to practice that live action early and often to be prepared for gameday.

If you read Moneyball by Michael Lewis, you’d know that hitting is the most important skill in a team, and everything else is subservient. Sure, pitching is important. But hitting is Priority #1 through #5. In little league, however, especially with beginners, the skill that will make or break your win-loss record is getting outs. That’s because many teams will get no outs if they aren’t strikeouts. There will some kind of skunk rule that switches sides for most innings. If you can get batters out, you’ll have a huge advantage. So I scrimmage with the focus on getting outs.

How do you scrimmage with seven players? We used to play something we called “Indian Ball,” which is an every-player-for-themselves kind of game. Everybody gets 10 pitches and invisible runners. If the bases are loaded, you can tag any base before the runner gets to first and that runner is out. Simulate games with Indian Ball / invisible runners if you don’t have enough for two teams.

In the early years you can rotate players around all the positions in scrimmages, but for games I put them in set positions with minimal variation. Not everybody can play first base. Some kids can’t catch the ball. They need to be a little out of the way of the heavy traffic.

My boy just played his first year facing player pitchers (not coach pitch). I did not coach this team, and my biggest complaint goes back to my scrimmage philosophy. The only pitches they took in practice were from the coach, who lobbed them in there. Then they were flatfooted against 12-year-olds trying to strike them out. If players are pitching, you need to scrimmage or have batting practice against boys pitching.

Flag Football

I recently coached an informal intramural season of flag football. I didn’t do enough to have great tips but I did see you definitely want to apply equal time at every position. If you just let them play their own way, one kid will be quarterback for the whole game, and he’ll throw to one or two receivers for the whole game. There will be one or two kids on each team who never touch the ball.

Give everybody a turn at quarterback, and make it a rule that they have to target every receiver for every possession, drive or whatever.

Require them to run routes. No running around trying to get open. The quarterback tells everybody where to go and when to expect the pass.

I don’t like prohibiting the pass rush. The quarterback will wait forever. Either let someone on defense count 10 seconds or start him 20 yards back, but you have to let the defense attack the quarterback.

That’s all I got. Any other coaches out there? What did I miss?