Ten Things That Will Keep a Youth League Coach up at Night

Coaching kids is like a box of chocolates. You never know what you’re going to get. That said, following are ten events (for better or worse) that will make a coach do more than just shake his head.

 

1. A boy’s first hit in a baseball game. We’re not talking t-ball, baseball.

2. Girls with long hair showing up to soccer practice without a ponytail, braids etc.

3. Even worse, the dreaded “Sillybandz."

4. Kids running cross country on trails …in “Crocs.”

5. Having six assistant coaches for a five and six year old baseball team and one assistant coach for a seven and eight year old softball team.

6. Watching a girl throw like a boy.

7. Telling a player to run to second base while the second baseman is waiting with the baseball. That’s a helpless feeling. What’s more helpless? When it is your kid.

8. Getting called “Dude” by a seven year old.

9. Watching the first spiral or made free throw.

 10. Winning a game that you never thought was possible.
 To repeat my favorite line from The Untouchables: “Somethings we laugh because there funny, Somethings we laugh because there true.

Hypothetically Speaking

Here’s a hypothetical scenario for you.


Let’s just say that you, your kids and your spouse (unless you happen to be Susan Sarandon) hop in the SUV and head on over to the Grandpa’s house weekly for Sunday breakfast/ brunch. Let’s also say that there is a guy hanging out there that the kids call “Uncle.” The kids like this guy, the Uncle character. Uncle never criticizes the kids and is quick to make a funny joke if you happen to get on to your kids a little bit. Uncle is also inclined to let your kids have a little more than their fair share of bacon, from time to time. It’s an easy way to buy some loyalty


As parents, you clearly see what is happening routinely but generally ignore the situation … then comes that fateful day. While you are truly oblivious to goings-on, the Uncle gives the bacon on your plate to one of the kids. The kid, not being mature enough to really make his own decision and not wanting to look un-cool in front of the Uncle, happily enjoys the bacon.


Hypothetically, let’s say this is how you choose to be the heavy and handle the situation. You ignore the Uncle character, put the boy in “time-out” for half an hour and make him take money out of his piggy bank and buy you a pound of bacon. (Yes, it is a little ironic twist that the bacon money comes out of piggy bank).


In the real world you and significant other probably wouldn’t handle this situation that way. Unless, the two of you act in a manner similar to the NCAA’s football Lords of Discipline. This, however, is exactly, not hypothetically, how the college athletic policymakers are handling this fall’s agent-gate and specifically, the strange case of the University of Georgia’s consensus pre-season All-American wide receiver, A. J. Green.


Green sold a Liberty Bowl jersey from last year’s bowl game to a pro football agent or one of his associates. The NCAA is not pressuring the agent. Instead, the brain trust is making Green donate his proceeds to a charity and sit four games … four games. (On a side note: all this is for a Liberty Bowl jersey. Georgia fans must be cringing every time they hear that). This severe punishment is clearly a case of the parent not taking the proper action to solve the problem. The guys in suits penalize the kid and fail to confront the instigator. The NCAA is clearly making Green pay far more retribution than he received benefit, way more. They do not have the fortitude to address an uncomfortable situation, so they end up going way overboard in the wrong direction.


Unfortunately, these types of scenarios do happen, and happen quite often. Why? Because college football is so profitable for the NCAA and is the minor leagues of the NFL. Remember, high school football players can not advance to the NFL after just one year out of high school like the NBA. For football, the rule is three years. Coincidentally, Green is in his third fall away from high school. He is projected to be a top-ten pick in 2011 NFL Draft.


This is the type of thing that makes you hope for the advancement of super conferences and a possible secession of football from the NCAA umbrella. It could happen. After all, the south is no stranger to the word secession.

Oh, and son, “You better never, ever take bacon off my plate, or you will pay.”