Kid's sports - The Sequel

[lookout123]

It has been a couple weeks since I posted as nothing unusual has happened. The kids have continued improving and are still undefeated. Lil Lookout has continued his scoring streak and that is about it.

I was out of town for the weekend and was going to miss the games so I asked one of the other coaches who I trust to approach the games with respect to fill in for me. Lil Lookout was still playing so my dad was there to tape the games for me. As a dad, after watching the video I can only smile and chuckle. (As a coach I have to cringe) Lil Lookout played two blinders. The kid was just on fire. The rest of the team really fought it out as well. Their passing and movement is really starting to become impressive.

Unfortunately, the guy I asked to fill in for me, got pulled away and had another coach fill in. The coach who filled in is a friend, but not a great coach. He is actually very frustrated because he refuses to see the connection between his lack of coaching flexibility and his team's low morale and constant failure. He coaches fundamentals but nothing on the mental side of the game. The results are dismal. He often complains how I stack my team after we beat his team. When I saw him on the video setting my kids up I knew what was going to happen. He was going to use this opportunity with my "stacked" (i prefer to call them trained) team to show his prowess and really pick apart the other team. The other team has 4 of the super cool club kids and the club director is the coach. Usually they walk all over everyone. We beat them, but only by a couple points usually because I rotate my strong and weaker players through regardless of the competition.

D (the fill in coach) lined the kids up in the strongest line up we have. He put the weakest player in the goal, put 2 strong defenders and then all 4 of the strongest attacking players up front. He sat Lil Lookout down 10 minutes and 5 points later. He only rested him for a minute or two. The ref quit changing the scoreboard when the kids were up 10-1. It was stupid and ugly. I never ever keep the strongest line up on the field like that for a whole game. He didn't even have to coach them and he knew it, all he did is give them a position and let them go. At some point their keeper who is fantastic even at the club level just sat down and cried. LL was caught on video apologizing to him and saying he wouldn't score anymore. By my count the final score was 23-3. You can't blame 6 and 7 year olds for running up the score, it is completely the coach's fault. Pathetic and wrong.

Apparently a parent from the other team complained that Lil Lookout was left upfront for the whole game and D just smirked and said, "It doesn't matter where you put him, he'll still score". Then the parent turned on Lil Lookout and made it clear he was a little jerk who didn't belong out there with her kid. LL is a pretty sensitive kid and that is the only thing he told me about when I called him from mexico to ask about his games. He didn't mention how he played or if he had fun, just that someone's mom said some nasty things to him.

I will now have some serious damage control to do for the next few weeks.