Little League-isms

[Muppet]

Some of you may or may not know I'm a little league coach. I coach my 10 year old son's team. We have 11 kids total, 9 of which are returning players, which is great. We have an extra year experience together and are that much more advanced than last year. I really love coaching. It's an extremely rewarding sensation knowing these 11 kids are looking at me for guidance and I'm actually steering them the right way. It helps both in sports and in all areas of life. I wouldn't give it up for anything.

Nonetheless, it;s been a rainy summer and we've had to reschedule many games. I've rescheduled at least 6 games so far. We have now played 6 and have 7 left, 6 at home. I asked the league commissioner (Jim) what we do if we cant make up a game. We are playing 3 a week for the next 2 weeks and schedules are really really tight.

read below:

Coach Muppet : "With so many rain outs, Like tonight NB Blue v. CGB Black, it's really tough to reschedule all of them, What happens if we cancel a game and do not make it up? I can't imagine we are the only team to have this possibility. I'm talking about end of year standings and playoffs.

Will a missed game be an automatic loss in the record book?"



Jim : "I don't have the answer to your question. Do the best you can do to makeup the games. If we have two undefeated teams, we don't have anything to worry about. This is about getting games and playing. The whole winning to make playoffs takes away from the learning part of this league. Remember we are dealing with 3rd and 4th graders. Thanks and Good Luck."


Winning to make the playoffs takes away from learning? What? W.w.w.WHHhh WHAT? ?? Why have playoffs? Why have a Championship? Why even keep score?

It's guys like this that are fucking up our future by pretending there are not winners or losers. I am so hot right now....... RRGGHHHHhhhHHHHhhh Muppet SMASK!!~!!

[3fingersalute]

I know what you mean. I helped coach my daughter's little league softball team last year and then coached it this year.

This year in the playoffs for our first game we were up against a team that beat us 17-5 and 16-8 during the year so I was expecting to get knocked out on our first game. Anyhow, we get there and they're missing 2 players and don't have enough to take the field. They make calls and find that she's down the road ways watching her brother play baseball, would we mind waiting 20 minutes or so for her to get there? It was our call but at that age I couldn't see taking a win by forfeit that way so we agreed to wait. At the end of the 5th inning (we only play 6) we were losing 11-5 but somehow the girl's rallied and we scored 9 runs and held them to 2 and ended up winning 14-13!!

Lining up to shake hands I heard the other coach telling somebody "no wonder, he was telling all his girls to just stand there and not swing the bat so they would get walked". Needless to say I decided to walk over to his dugout and set him straight. I said "first of all, I NEVER tell a girl to just stand there, in fact I tell them constantly I'd rather see them go down swinging then take a walk". Then I told him how pissed I was that I tried to do the right thing by waiting 20 some minutes for his player to show up when I knew there was a good chance we'd lose and get knocked out of the series by doing so, but I did it to teach my girls a lesson about sportsmanship and what he was doing was teaching his girls a lesson in bad sportsmanship by being a sore loser. He started moaning again and I said "bottom line is my girl's can't walk if your pitcher throws strikes"

[Semper Fi]

Yeah, with you both. Of course the kids are there to have fun, work hard, and enjoy the sport. But at the end of the day it's still competition sports. You either compete, or go build some crafts in the Girl Scouts. (no disrespect for the GS) Especially at the leadership position; of course you shouldn't put major league pressure on the kids, after all they are not under contract...but you don't teach them anything about competition if you don't try hard in all aspects of the game--to include making every effort to get games rescheduled. Hats off to you both!

[Overdrv]

I can see it not counting score for a 4 to 6 year old league, but 10 year olds ??

[Muppet]

This is about getting games and playing. The whole winning to make playoffs takes away from the learning part of this league

[3fingersalute]

This is about getting games and playing. The whole winning to make playoffs takes away from the learning part of this league

Then don't have playoffs. You can't have it both ways!

[Muppet]

Then don't have playoffs. You can't have it both ways!

My point exactly. This is what that jacktoolfuckwad told me. WHat the fucking fuck?

[3fingersalute]

My point exactly. This is what that jacktoolfuckwad told me. WHat the fucking fuck?

Everybody wins, everybody gets a trophy. It's adding to the pussification of america.

[Larommi]

Everybody wins, everybody gets a trophy. It's adding to the pussification of america.

The younger boy lettered in wrestling last season. It was his first year and he was 0-8.

[Gazzak]

I hear you both loud and clear.

My girls soccer team was in the U12 league this year. We played one team and beat them 12-0. It was one of those games where every chance was taken. The other coach complained to the league that is was unfair on his girls being beaten 12-0, so the league issued a directive that when winning by 4 goals teams should ease off and change the team so that the other team has a sporting chance.

This I understand, because at 9, 10, 11-0 it can be a bit demoralising for the other team, however, the directive falls apart because of what happened next...

We played a match soon after and were 5-0 up at half time. I told the girls to back off a bit, swapped a few around, told them not to contest opposition goal kicks so hard and give the other team a chance. All they did was relax and play like it was a training session and were actually better. We won 11-0.

We then played the team who's coach complained to the league and seriously weakened our team. We were only 1-0 up with about 10 minutes to go and because he thought his team had a chance of a draw against us, (we were leading the league at the time), he was getting nastier and nastier with his own team every time they made a mistake. He threatened to put one girl in goal if she made another mistake, (despite their goalkeeper having a great game), and was putting so much pressure on his girls that they were unable to play through fear of making a mistake. We won 2-0.

Removing the competitive edge of sport is absolutely wrong in my opinion. Kids need to learn to be able to shake hands and say well done weather they win or lose, and the coaches even more so.

Weird timing of this thread as I'm starting my first FA qualified soccer coaching course tonight. There are a lot of sessions involved, (40 hours in total), and over that time it will be interesting to get views of the other coaches and trainers about non competitive games.