EDUCATIONALLY SPEAKING

Gay Geiser-Sandoval

Apparently even my editor (who wrote me the headline “Raising some

questions that a youth sports coach should consider”) thinks the only

kind of youth team that can be coached is a sports team. Although I coach

an academic team, I believe that the questions are the same. I

communicated with coaches, parents, and kids about the answers to the

questions raised. While there is no consensus, it is important to

consider the responses in view of the larger questions raised about the

effect of the coach on our young people’s characters and physical

well-being.

Most of the kids on my team played sports throughout their youth and in

high school. Many don’t play organized sports any more. More kids give up

sports in middle school than continue them. Even though exercise is the

biggest preventive health medicine, is the emphasis on organized sports

and the coaches in charge turning our nation’s youth into a bunch of

couch potatoes?

Many parents I talked to said that a coach was the main reason their kids

didn’t play sports any more. Most of the kids I talked to said the same

thing.

It isn’t easy for a coach to know what to do. One coach responded that

the questions in my column brought a tornado of turmoil in her head,

while another believed it was good to air out the subject. One coach who

also had children in sports said she often wondered about what other

coaches are saying and doing to her children, and how it affects their

sportsmanship decisions.

Whose team is it? Some coaches said it was the coach’s team, but most

thought it was “our team,” including both the coach and the players. What

is the coach’s role? While a couple of coaches responded that they were

dictator, facilitator and leader all rolled into one, most coaches leaned

more toward the facilitator or leader role. They saw the coach’s job as

maintaining structure and order while getting the best out of the kids.

One suggested that pure dictators suck all of the fun out of it for the

kids.

The members of my high school team said I should lean more toward the

helper side than the coach side. One responded, “If you were more like a

coach, we may end up too dependent on you and lack the necessary

free-thinking and doing aspect required of us.”

Not one member of my team, a group that has had a number of coaches in

various sports and other activities, thought that the coach should be a

dictator.

What should the coach say is the team goal? While the members of my team

thought that there was nothing wrong with winning, or wanting to win,

they felt that it was a secondary goal. The most important goal to them

was the learning process, and working together as a team. They enjoyed

the camaraderie of getting to know people from other schools.

Some of the coaches said the primary goal was winning and using the best

players to win; one should never lose sight of that. Another said the

team’s goal should be to have fun and become good sports. “It’s not brain

surgery or the Olympics; when we get there, we’ll be very serious.” One

suggested the team members should decide the team’s goal after an honest

and realistic discussion. My favorite team goal, which I plan to adopt,

is, “Everybody on the team is individually a better player by the end of

the season, the team as a whole plays up to and beyond their ability

level, and most importantly, everyone has fun.”

The issue about spreading the word and recruiting players is a thorny one

in Little Leagues, soccer associations, and high schools throughout the

nation. As high school athletes flock to the school that they perceive to

have better players or a better coach, it skews the playing field in that

league. Likewise, it makes an average player who lives within the

school’s borders a bench warmer or nonparticipant, due to the influx of

top athletes into their school. One coach thought it also hurt the

coach’s power if a key player who believed his playing time wasn’t

adequate threatened to leave town. A parent not originally from here

wondered how grown Americans could be so involved in children’s games

that they spent their time and energy trying to get around the very rules

that were there to make the teams more even. Is it that much fun to win

if you have to cheat to do it?

No coach, parent, or player thought a coach should break the rules, even

if no one would know but the team. “It would be teaching a really rotten

lesson to the kids, and eventually you would be exposed as a schmuck who

cheats.” While the coaches agreed that academics come first, none

suggested that practice should be missed because of it. Instead, it is a

lesson for the kids in time management. Coaches suggested that a reliable

schedule in which practice time is used wisely was most important. If

players needed to miss, they owed it to the team to let the coach know in

writing ahead of time. Some said a miss meant no playing time; others

said it depended on the circumstances.

One of my team members said teens on teams needed to focus on

responsibility more. If they play on a team, they need to make the coach

aware of conflicts as soon as possible and suffer the consequences

imposed upon them, whether it was their fault or not.

While one coach said that a player should pick one activity besides

school and devote himself exclusively to that, most of the kids thought

that was bad advice. They thought the younger a player, the more things

they should try. It helps the youngster become more well rounded and lets

them see what they are best at and what they enjoy the most.

I’m out of space, so more to come next time.

GAY GEISER-SANDOVAL is a Costa Mesa resident. Her column runs Mondays.

She can be reached by e-mail at [email protected].