As a coach, playing time can be your biggest headache. It can be difficult to give each player fair playing time. However, the opportunity to participate in sports with meaningful playing time is essential to childhood development, confidence-building and overall athlete development. PLC believes strongly in the distribution of equal playing time in youth sports. We recommend at a minimum for 6th grade and below as close to equal playing time as possible and for 7th and 8th grade at least 25% playing time for all participants.So how do you do that? Here are 5 strategies taken from the Play Like A Champion Today™ youth sport coaches manual:
- Communicate with your players and their parents. Let your players and parents know your commitment to fair playing time and what they can expect throughout the season. Make sure your playing time commitments are explained to the parents at a pre-season meeting. The better you communicate up front, the less push back you will receive during the season.
- Plan ahead. Prepare a detailed substitution pattern before each game. Set your line-ups to have the best chance to be competitive in each quarter, half, or inning. Don’t “stack” certain line-ups to try to win – players pick up on this and might think of themselves as the “B Team.” Make everyone feel like they are on the “A Team” and you will get the most out of every player.
- Stick to your playing time commitments, regardless of the game situation. Is sacrificing a player’s opportunity to have fun and feel accepted by his/her coach and team worth improving your record? You decide.
- If possible, have an assistant keep track of playing time; this could be an assistant coach or a trusted parent. Recruiting some help will allow you to focus on game strategy and instruction of your players during the game.
- Take advantage of lopsided opportunities and give more time to your less-used players (especially when equal playing time is not guaranteed). Don’t wait for the other coach to do this. If he/she wants to play their stars the whole game then that is their problem. Also, make sure this isn’t your only playing time strategy.
Feel free to comment on this post to share any of your strategies in distributing playing time fairly. We want your feedback!
6 comments:
Thank you for your input. Our school's coach just had the intermediate girls sign a "contract" in which they had two options. Option A: I want to play to win this season or Option B: My goal is to have fun this season. The girls had to place a check mark beside their choice and sign. I was upset with this because I think this is something I should have discussed with my daughter, as a family and because she felt pressured to vote for Option A because everyone could see her vote. After speaking with other parents, they said their daughter told them the same thing. These girls are in grade 7, not high school where scholarships are at stake. Our level of competition is simply elementary school level. The teacher (coach) has done this so she can justify keeping the same line up on the entire game and has said she will only put the weaker players on if they are ahead by 20 points. We are fortunate, our daughter plays many sports outside of school and is a strong player. But I know that school sports is the only sport some families can afford to put their kids in and it's a real shame that they'll spend their season sitting on the bench never truly getting any better because they will never experience true competition in a game. Shame on you Coach "N".
I am going to take a few days to calm down over this and decide if and how to approach the school on this matter. I'm sure when I do my "A Team" daughter will quickly move to the "B Team".
Thanks for this post. I think it is important for there to be equal playing time. I hope that the right people read this. Thanks again.
This is often a subject many youth football coaches struggle with. The head coach is either a win-at-all-costs coach who cares little about getting all the kids in the game or he's a guy that lets the soccer mom Nazi parents pressure him into playing all the kids the same amount.
I just have to add discipline, respect, and patience. You will surely be a winner in the hearts of the fans as well as your colleagues.
We recommend at a minimum for 6th grade and below as close to equal playing time as possible and for 7th and 8th grade at least 25% playing time for all participants.
We recommend at a minimum for 6th grade and below as close to equal playing time as possible and for 7th and 8th grade at least 25% playing time for all participants.
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