Tag: youth sports

basketball, soccer

Single-Digit Soccer: The lessons of basketball

Posted on by Beau Dure

The general consensus says playing multiple sports is a good thing for kids. They get a broader range of physical activity, they avoid overuse injuries, and they may find some skills in a secondary sport that transfer to their primary.

Also … they’re kids. The overwhelming majority of them are just looking for fun things to do with their friends. And later in life, they may have more social options if they’re comfortable playing pickup basketball as readily as they play soccer.

So as I spend parts of my winter sitting on a gym floor watching 7- and 8-year-olds heave a ball up toward a basket on which I can actually dunk, I sometimes try to shut off the coach/philosopher part of my brain and just enjoy the spectacle.

But not always. And I’m finding a couple of interesting philosophical differences between the USSF youth soccer mandates (which not everyone follows) and the approach I see in basketball.

1. Tactics. The basic advice for youth coaches in the single-digit years is simple: Get out of the way. Let them play. Let the game be the teacher. At the earliest ages, kids can’t even understand positions. And for heaven’s sakes, don’t yell at them during the game, or we’ll call you a “joystick coach.”

No such concern in second-grade basketball. Our team spent the first practice session of the season learning how to set screens for the point guard. Every time we bring the ball down the court (excluding fast breaks), our coach yells out “2!” or “3!” — and now “4!” and “5!” These are plays designating which player is supposed to set a screen. A couple of other players are supposed to move accordingly.

I think if my soccer club’s technical director saw me doing that, I’d be in for the lecture of a lifetime. But is it more necessary in basketball than it is in soccer?

And why do we think kids are better able to grasp these concepts in basketball? Are basketball players smarter? Or is it just because basketball has a clearer distinction between who has the ball and who doesn’t?

2. Passing. Yeah, they don’t get that in basketball any more than they get it in soccer. U8 soccer players are probably better at passing than second-grade basketball players, at least in our town. Also, the refs tend not to call dribbling infractions, and holding onto the ball until shooting is just a higher-percentage play than trying to fling it to a kid who can’t really catch it.

3. Individual skills. In soccer, we’re supposed to make sure players are getting plenty of touches on the ball at every practice, especially at the earliest ages. It’s not so much that we aren’t teaching how to pass as much as we are supposed to let kids get comfortable with the unnatural state of having soccer balls at their feet.

Our basketball practices? Usually no more than two balls in use, often just one. Players take turns learning plays or a particular skill such as boxing out for a rebound.

Is this typical? I don’t know. When I went to USA Basketball’s site, I just saw a bunch of things about teaching a 2-3 zone and so forth. Basketball is, at its heart, much more of a chalkboard sport than soccer is. But I do see a bit of hand-wringing over how we’re teaching kids, particularly when it comes to “the fundamentals.”

My hunch is that kids who play basketball in the winter will return to the soccer fields in spring with better spatial awareness. Maybe they’ll see that what they do away from the ball can affect the game.

So soccer players can learn from basketball. Can soccer coaches learn anything as well?

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sports culture

‘Friday Night Tykes’: The decline of Western civilization?

Posted on by Beau Dure

This is a guest post from Katie Voss. Please greet her on Twitter! 

Youth football first became an establishment in 1929, and since then has been led by leagues such as the Texas Youth Football Association who, after being followed by cameras for the new reality show Friday Night Tykes, may face some backlash for their intense coaching antics. The primary goal of youth sports leagues, or at least their original intent, was to encourage the development of young athletes into capable leaders, teammates, and driven individuals. However, if Friday Night Tykes is an accurate reflection of what many youth sports programs have become, it looks like the realm of youth football has some re-evaluating to do.

The docu-series, which follows five teams of 8- to 9-year-old rookie players competing in the Texas Youth Football Association (TYFA), has shown not only some rough takedowns and questionably safe activities, but also some frightening advice from coaches and parents alike. One coach is quoted encouraging players to, “Rip their freaking head off and let them bleed.” He then goes on to tell another young athlete, “I want you to stick it in his helmet — I don’t care if he don’t get up.” Only one mother, perhaps shown to placate audiences, is filmed reminding fellow parents that the boys are little more than babies.

The show, set to air on the Esquire Network on January 14 (available from most cable providers, DirectStar TV and from their website), is giving ammo (perhaps unintentionally) to already concerned parents and others regarding the safety of youth football and similar contact sports. From the preview alone, which is being advertised on TYFA’s homepage with pride, it’s clear that these players are participants in some of the worst aspects of athletics: public shaming, being pushed past physical breaking points, and high-risk, injury-causing activities. Someone may have to remind these coaches that their players need to safely make it through elementary, middle, and high school before being given a chance to play for their favorite colleges.

It seems Esquire expected some sort of controversial response, which is no surprise since the dangers regarding concussions from football and similar sports has been filling headlines across the country for the past couple years. As recently as 2012, more than 2,000 NFL players sued the NFL for not educating them on the possible consequences of repeated blows to the head, and the controversy resulted in a PBS documentary: League of Denial: The NFL’s Concussion Crisis. Esquire claims that the show will bring to light important health questions regarding young athletes. Their website claims the show will have “coaches and parents offer insight into why they believe they’re teaching valuable lessons about discipline and dedications, but also grapple with serious questions about parenting, safety, and at what price we’re pushing our kids to win.”

Concussion awareness aside, one of the biggest issues a young athlete will face is the “culture of resistance” found in most competitive sports. Whether it is a potential head injury or other physical pain, athletes are often afraid or discouraged from reporting injuries. Staying on the sidelines, and therefore disappointing mom, dad, and coach during or prior to important games can be more convincing than physical discomfort.

The NFL, which has been trying to reduce head-to-head collisions among players through penalties, fines, and education, has already felt the need to publicly mention that Friday Night Tykes is not a part of their Heads Up Football Program, which seeks to improve player safety in youth football. If even the NFL is skeptical, chances are the show will not highlight the bright side of little league football. In the end, what audiences can only hope for from the show is an understanding of what needs to change in order to improve youth sports.

Much as Teen Mom was aimed toward (and possibly succeeded in) lowering teen pregnancy rates, Friday Night Tykes could help reduce the culture of resistance in youth sports, and educate parents and kids alike on the safety risks, and necessary precautions, that are part of high-contact sports.

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soccer

Single-Digit Soccer: The score is always 0-0

Posted on by Beau Dure

Perhaps Caddyshack was ahead of its time. Chevy Chase’s character just went out and played golf — very well. Score? Nah. Didn’t keep it.

A lot of youth soccer leagues don’t keep score in the early ages — in our case, we don’t keep track until U9. And the travel leagues don’t keep standings until U11. (Oddly enough, our U9 house league had standings on the Web for all the world to see.)

In Canada, they’re going a step farther. Under age 12, no scores, no standings. (UPDATE: Here’s some info about the plan as a whole, which addresses far more than scores and standings.)

In a country in that loves its hockey fights, such a plan is going to draw some flak. Fighting back against those critics is player-turned-commentator Jason deVos, who issued a strongly worded defense of the plan against what he calls ignorance and misinformation.

Jason is a sharp guy who does his research, and I’m sure a lot of the critics (Don Cherry? Really?) don’t fit that description. He’s got some backup from a thoughtful Toronto Star column on competition vs. cooperation, A couple of other columnists, including Duane Rollins, think the plan’s backers are losing the PR war. There’s no question that some of the concerns raised in this plan are valid.

But to give a sneak peek at the book I’m writing now, I’m a little skeptical about turning off the scoreboard. And that’s based not on Don Cherry’s macho notions of sports but on my experience coaching a wide range of kids — some exceptional, some decidedly average.

One point from the deVos column:

This pressure-filled environment has nasty repercussions for children. Rather than fostering their natural creativity and curiosity about the game, it stunts their development. In such an environment, children are not free to make the mistakes that are necessary for learning to occur. They play the game with a sense of dread, fearful that a mistake will lead to a goal against or a lost game.

Valid concern. But does that pressure go away when the parents aren’t writing down a score? Jason and others concede, correctly, that the kids know what’s going on. I’ve seen kids in U8 games get upset when things aren’t going their way, even though I shut off all discussion of score-keeping. “When we kick off again, the score’s 0-0.”

So the pressure of mistakes is still there. What we lose in the Canadian plan is the accomplishment of winning.

Last season, the first season my U9 team had scores, we had a rough regular season. Then we played a season-ending tournament in which everything suddenly came together. We beat two teams that had beaten us in the regular season to reach a final against a third that was unbeaten through nine games. We won that one, too.

The scoreboard critics say such things mean more to parents and coaches than they do to kids. I’m not so sure. My kids were experiencing the thrill of victory. One parent told me, “He’ll remember this for the rest of his life.”

Another consideration deVos raises:

They have taken an adult competition format, involving promotion and relegation, and imposed it on children.

My impression of promotion and relegation in youth soccer is that it’s there to keep teams of similar ability grouped together. You won’t have any 10-0 blowouts, regardless of whether anyone’s officially counting the 10 goals. And elite U10-U11 players will be challenged rather than relying on a handful of tricks and athletic ability to overwhelm a bunch of kids who haven’t developed yet.

One way to do this without putting too much pressure on kids is to keep the division structure opaque. I played for a U14 team that was “promoted.” To this day, I don’t know what we were promoted from or to. Division 1? Of what? Was there a Premier League above that? Was this all of Georgia or just Atlanta-through-Athens? Good thing the Web didn’t exist in those days.)

(One possible irony, though I can’t find enough detail on the Canadian plan to confirm this: Will they still have tryouts for elite teams? If so, are we just substituting individual accomplishment — making an elite team — for team accomplishment such as winning?)

And is the best course of action for elite players the best course for everyone? Steven Sandor isn’t so sure:

Not keeping score will, if done in an elitist manner (which, unfortunately, our insular Canadian soccer tends to do pretty well) drive the average kids away. But, there’s no doubt that the no-score system helps the elite kids.

In other words — the vast majority of kids playing soccer at age 11 aren’t going to be professionals. Many of them won’t even play at age 14. That scares a lot of soccer people to death, but really, it’s OK. A lot of 11-year-olds play several sports and then choose one on which to focus at age 14. (For me, it was running, which was a really stupid idea in retrospect.) When I talked with MLS draftees last month in Indy, most of them had done exactly that, laying down their basketballs and baseball gloves in their teens.

So for these kids, all they’ll remember of soccer is a bunch of scoreless games, all designed to prepare them for a future that they weren’t going to pursue?

The best axiom I’ve heard for youth sports is simple: “Let kids be kids.” The soccer community tends to forget that youth sports are supposed to be a kid’s activity, not just a breeding ground for future World Cup players. A lot of these kids want to play games and tournaments with trophies on the line. Why rob them of that experience? “Because the rest of the world does it,” frankly, isn’t a good argument. And you’re still going to have good coaches helping players improve while bad coaches just try to win, even unofficially, by any means necessary.

I think there’s a creative way to address the valid concerns deVos and others are raising. We’re already doing a lot. We delay scorekeeping and standings for a few years already. Even when we start traditional league play, we rotate kids through different positions and spread out the playing time, giving everyone a complete soccer experience.

Maybe it’s as simple as having a lot of “exhibition” or scrimmage games that don’t count toward standings, then a tournament at the end of each season. Maybe it’s something more clever than that.

The important part is to continue the discussion, not to end it with a concrete plan handed down from Canada’s Olympus. Daniel Squizzato puts it well: “Don’t confuse legitimate criticism of the (Canadian) plan with an outright aversion to change.” Change is good. Realistic change is better.

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olympic sports

How not to play youth sports, Russian hockey version

Posted on by Beau Dure

Fighting in the NHL and Canadian junior hockey is governed by a strict code. The parts leading up to the fight are nonsensical — it all has to do with calling people to account for dirty plays, except that it somehow ends up in the hands of two enforcers fighting each other over stuff involving their teammates. But the fight itself is arranged fairly.

You don’t pummel people when they’re down — it’s one thing to do that on a mat in MMA, quite another to do it on ice. And the fight is supposed to be the safety valve that stops you from doing anything dirtier — a shot to someone’s knee, a vicious cross-check — in retaliation.

These Russian kids have seen a few fights, but they haven’t learned the code. And it doesn’t look like anyone’s trying to teach them. And it’s ugly.

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soccer

Single-Digit Soccer: What age for travel? Tryouts?

Posted on by Beau Dure

We’re in the midst of travel tryouts, in between massive thunderstorms. That means a bunch of second-graders are out showing their stuff, hoping to make the cut for U9.

Of course, we’re not supposed to be doing that, according to … well, everyone. No one seems to be making the case for starting travel soccer at the U9 level, and yet everyone’s doing it.

Consider the U.S. Soccer “Best Practices” guide (PDF). They recommend “a few organized matches per season” and “little or no travel” through U10. (I’m not saying I agree with everything here. They say 9-year-olds should NOT be organized and hold their positions. The reality: Competitive 8-year-olds with a real interest in soccer want to play real games. They’re sick of “magnetball” — particularly if they’re little guys who don’t fare well in a scrum.)

SoccerIndiana.org did a neat state-by-state survey (PDF) asking when “competitive play” begins. Most states started around 10 or 11. Most directors surveyed said they’d rather start a little later.

Then there’s this essay based partly on the book Game On by Tom Farrey, which suggests that we Americans are the only ones pushing our kids to play such organized sports so early in life. (The English parent on my team would disagree.) It points to a real issue with having travel tryouts so early — the “early bloomers” could end up getting all the coaching attention. I think my club is trying to address this problem by having programs geared toward House players as well as Travel players, which is one reason I like my club!

I can see a couple of advantages to having tryouts and travel soccer early. Some kids really want that level of competition. And serious players can get serious coaching without being bogged down by the daisy-pickers who drive us U8 parent coaches to distraction.

But can we do that without putting 8-year-old kids through a meat-grinder tryout at an age in which it’s really difficult to spot the best players?

I think so, and the answer may be what some local clubs are doing at the U8 level. Offer additional programs to your House league. And don’t have tryouts for them. The most serious players — who, not coincidentally, will usually be the best players as well — will sign up.

Give everyone the “free play” so treasured by the youth soccer cognoscenti these days. Then give the most soccer-savvy players a chance to do a little more.

At least, that’s the hypothesis I’m sticking with for now. That might change tomorrow. These aren’t easy questions with easy answers. But the good news is that no one’s listening to me.

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soccer

Single-Digit Soccer: Great moments in halftime speeches

Posted on by Beau Dure

Here’s my attempt to make sure my players didn’t get caught up in any unsportsmanlike antics yesterday (my comments in bold; the rest are from various kids):

So we’re all going to be cool, OK? Like Fonzie. What’s Fonzie like?

(blank stares)

You all don’t know Fonzie, do you?

No.

Wait, is he a Muppet?

Fonzie’s really … cool … OK?

No, he’s not a Muppet!

He’s a cool Muppet?

Which Muppet is he?

No, no — he’s not a Muppet.

Are you sure?

Is he the chicken Muppet?

No, Fonzie was on Happy Days.

What’s Happy Days?

Happy Days was a TV show with Fonzie.

A Muppet was on Happy Days?

No — FOZZIE is the Muppet.

Oh.

Is he supposed to be funny?

Yes. And he’s the bear, not the chicken.

I thought he was supposed to be cool.

Wait, you want us to be like the bear?

OK, let’s start over …

I thought about trying to explain the Pulp Fiction reference, but I didn’t want to shock any parents.

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mma

Kids in the cage: How not to do mixed martial arts

Posted on by Beau Dure

A big fear for the UFC and other reputable MMA promotions is that some promoter or sports commission with more brashness than brains will put on a card that puts the sport in a bad light or actually gets someone seriously hurt.

Case in point: This youth grappling exhibition from England. See the YouTube video and the Telegraph piece about it.

Some of the criticism in the Telegraph is nonsense. The griping about protective gear misses the mark — this is grappling. They’re not hitting each other. And the condescending quotation marks around “mixed martial arts” are unnecessary. It’s as if people saw two kids walk into a cage without gloves and headgear and just assumed the rest.

Kids grapple all the time. They do it in youth wrestling programs — locally, we start at age 7. Kids can start training in jiu-jitsu at an early age, just as they can learn karate and do “sparring” sessions with more protective gear than the kids who do sumo matches in between innings of minor league baseball games. Like any other youth sport, the safety is a matter of proper supervision. You wouldn’t let your kid play football for a maniac teaching dirty play, and you wouldn’t let your kid grapple without nearby adults who know what they’re doing.

The exhibition in question, however, is a shaky concept executed poorly. The promoters are simply lacking common sense in a couple of facets:

1. Stop the danged fight. The announcers, who seem fairly level-headed, plead for several minutes for the ref or one kid’s corner to put an end to the proceedings. One poor kid is clearly overmatched, and his tears may be tears of embarrassment or frustration rather than tears of pain. He clearly can’t defend against the other kid’s leglocks. An MMA bout ends with one tapout. Bully Beatdown bouts ended with five, but that show’s raison d’etre was to humiliate an adult who deserved it. This bout should’ve stopped by the third tapout.

2. Leglocks? Seriously? U.S. grappling promoter Grapplers Quest has a lot of restrictions on leglocks. For beginners, none. For advanced kids’ classes, only a couple of holds are allowed. These are kids — they might not understand the damage that a leglock can cause, and they might not tap until their underdeveloped joints have been stretched. To put this in perspective — UFC president Dana White doesn’t even allow leglocks at tryouts for The Ultimate Fighter, and these are professional adults.

3. Hey ref! Wake up! In at least one case, the announcers are pleading with one kid to tap out. The ref should be able to see what the announcers see. Let’s put this in perspective: At Grapplers Quest tournaments, they remind the adults to tap out and make sure they leave the mat without a limp or a messed-up arm. At tryouts for The Ultimate Fighter, White stops the proceedings and awards a submission bonus when one guy clearly has a strong hold, even if the other guy is being stubborn.

This is pretty simple, folks: When a referee sees an 8-year-old kid trying to be brave by not tapping out to a leglock, he needs to step in and stop it.

4.  Should this be in a cage with a crowd? Kids love to be in the same arenas as their athletic heroes, sure. I played football in front of about 20 people at the University of Georgia’s Sanford Stadium about two hours before the Bulldogs played. (All I remember is that I missed a tackle.) D.C. United and the Washington Capitals let youth teams play in between halves or periods. But a one-on-one bout, particularly a mismatch such as this one, might be a bit too much for an 8-year-old to handle in front of a riled-up crowd. Most martial arts sparring sessions take place in front of fellow students and watchful instructors … and no one else.

So is this footage “disturbing”? Not quite. They’re not punching each other and causing potential long-term damage. There are some trained supervisors in place, even if they’re operating under dubious rules.

But the promoters really need to rethink the way they’re doing things. And we can only hope the media and the tut-tutting medical boards will realize that major promoters have a little more sense than this.

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