MWB wrote: ↑Sat Nov 23, 2024 8:40 pm
Drove to NC State today to watch my younger daughter play club basketball. Also met her girlfriend for the first time. Then, while I was there, my older daughters’s boyfriend texted me and asked if I had a minute to talk. As soon as I got the text I knew what was next. I called him and sure enough he asked for my blessing to propose. They’ve been together for five years and he’s a good guy who takes good care of her. So I guess it’s okay lol and I appreciated that he asked for my blessing.
Man, a lot of emotions I'm sure. I remember having that chat with my father in law in their basement. I don't remember it clearly but it was brief, and then we went to the kegerator and toasted.
We have an appointment on Tuesday to go over the genetic screening results for my wife and I as it relates to our five year old. I'm not sure if anything came back, but would be really nice to have some kind of diagnosis for him.
We are extremely blessed, he is an awesome kid, has a great sense of humor and is really affectionate. I know there is a lot of intelligence in there, seeing him play games on his tablet, being potty trained so young, etc. He just struggles to put his thoughts into words, and speaking clearly. That said, he's come a long way with speech therapy 3x/week. We'll see what happens and go from there
Both of my boys signed up to play in-house basketball this season. Being the dummy I volunteered to coach for both. I enjoy it but may have overloaded my schedule.
Anyway, oldest son’s league is looking like an old boys club. Bunch of coaches know each other and paired up as coach/assistant coach. 3 of us were left out of the discussion. By doing this, some teams are already stacked with two really good players while teams like mine have two kids that are younger and not as skilled
Naturally you’d balance that by skewing the draft a bit to make sure teams don’t have an unfair amount of highly skilled kids on their team. Haven’t heard anything from the guy running the league that this will be done, but in his defense I think he’s new to this and probably letting the coaches tell him what to do. Works fine if the other coaches weren’t trying to stack their team
To that point, one of the coaches on a stacked team sent an email today asking if the #1 player can be on his team since he’s best friends with his son. Dude, no f’ing way. You already have 2 top end players. I had to send an email to the director separately so he would address this. I hate this political bs that goes on, I just want to coach my kid and let him have fun. I’ve coached teams where they were unfairly stacked and it demoralizes the kids and they end up not showing up or quitting the sport altogether. Some people are total jackasses, I hate it.
Our little league is like that too, where the good kids dad's say they're helping each other coach.
The solution is simple. A head coach gets his kid. That's it. The assistant coaches kids get drafted and they assist the head coach that their kid is drafted to.
mac5155 wrote: ↑Mon Nov 25, 2024 5:27 pm
Our little league is like that too, where the good kids dad's say they're helping each other coach.
The solution is simple. A head coach gets his kid. That's it. The assistant coaches kids get drafted and they assist the head coach that their kid is drafted to.
While I agree with that solution, it's also a quick way to a shortage of coaches.
The amount of BS that adults do in a KIDS league is astronomically immature. What are you getting out of saying you're the coach of a team that won a rec league championship? You think the Celtics are hiring you for the bench after that? Get bent. Spread out the talent and let the kids have fun competing. I'd bet that every parent that stacks his team like that was never on a winning team so they have to salvage some past ill.
At the end of our soccer rec league we had to rate our kids. The ratings go into future rec seasons to try and balance teams as best they can. Seems to make the most sense for rec.
mac5155 wrote: ↑Mon Nov 25, 2024 5:27 pm
Our little league is like that too, where the good kids dad's say they're helping each other coach.
The solution is simple. A head coach gets his kid. That's it. The assistant coaches kids get drafted and they assist the head coach that their kid is drafted to.
While I agree with that solution, it's also a quick way to a shortage of coaches.
It can work. First round of draft is selecting the players whose dads signed up as assistant coaches
Orlando Penguin wrote: ↑Mon Nov 25, 2024 8:44 pm
The amount of BS that adults do in a KIDS league is astronomically immature. What are you getting out of saying you're the coach of a team that won a rec league championship? You think the Celtics are hiring you for the bench after that? Get bent. Spread out the talent and let the kids have fun competing. I'd bet that every parent that stacks his team like that was never on a winning team so they have to salvage some past ill.
Oh for sure. And they like to brag about how their kid’s real passion is (other sport) and he’s on the travel team plus the cup team blah blah blah.
Honestly it gives me motivation to be a better coach. I let the kids have fun, but also make sure they learn the game the right way and play super tough defense. I think other teams hate playing my team for that.
So mini-meow’s hockey team is a bit of a wagon. They were on an 8-game heater when we played our cross city rivals last weekend. They lost game one 5-2 and looked really flat. We mixed up some lines and decided to throw mini-meow up at forward.
A little background on him. He’s the second oldest kid on the team, but the smallest kid by a few inches. One of the top two or three skaters on the team, but he loves playing D and plays a pretty aggressive shutdown style. Think like a more aggressive Paul Martin. But, in like 65 10u games, has never scored. Probably has 100 assists, but zero goals.
Well guess who scored 17 seconds into the game. Then 1:47 later. Then had a primary assist in the third period. They smoked them 8-2. I’ve never seen the kids so excited when he scored the first goal. One of the players turned to me and said “if mini-meow scores a hat trick, can we come off the bench?” It legitimately made me tear up on the bench. The fact that it came against our rivals, the number 2 ranked 10u teams in the entire SE (we are 3), made it so much better. I’ve never felt so happy for someone else.
That's the best, meow. I remember my son was scrapping through a weekend baseball tournament, and his coaches moved him up in the order and hit for the cycle including a bona fide out of the park HR. Good stuff.
As for the competitive balance in youth sports, its tricky. Our league is setup so that you can pick 1 friend your kid wants to play with and you can pick your assistant coach. So you could have 4 kids earmarked on your team. The new director though is in a battle to increase participation because of the other non-profit associations in the area, so he'll stretch that even farther. I think my son's flag team had 8 of 10 return, for instance. For this year I got to pick five, but three of which have never played organized ball before and are only playing because "CBear4's dad is going to coach!" so they thought it would be fun.
Last year we played a team that most likely is the full Middle School team this year (the school district didn't let 7th graders play cut sports until this season). I knew when we walked in the gym that we were going to get our butts kicked, and I honestly didn't have a problem with it. The problem started when they were showboating up 15 and pressing at the half (which is against the rules if you're up more than 6). Had a kid elbowed in the face and broke his glasses and not a single "you good?" when they're up 20.
We came up against some other stacked teams as the year went on, but because the sportsmanship was so much better it was not a big deal.
meow wrote: ↑Tue Nov 26, 2024 8:56 am
So mini-meow’s hockey team is a bit of a wagon. They were on an 8-game heater when we played our cross city rivals last weekend. They lost game one 5-2 and looked really flat. We mixed up some lines and decided to throw mini-meow up at forward.
A little background on him. He’s the second oldest kid on the team, but the smallest kid by a few inches. One of the top two or three skaters on the team, but he loves playing D and plays a pretty aggressive shutdown style. Think like a more aggressive Paul Martin. But, in like 65 10u games, has never scored. Probably has 100 assists, but zero goals.
Well guess who scored 17 seconds into the game. Then 1:47 later. Then had a primary assist in the third period. They smoked them 8-2. I’ve never seen the kids so excited when he scored the first goal. One of the players turned to me and said “if mini-meow scores a hat trick, can we come off the bench?” It legitimately made me tear up on the bench. The fact that it came against our rivals, the number 2 ranked 10u teams in the entire SE (we are 3), made it so much better. I’ve never felt so happy for someone else.
All those years shooting on you, it’s no wonder he showed a deft touch when up at forward.
Orlando Penguin wrote: ↑Mon Nov 25, 2024 8:44 pm
The amount of BS that adults do in a KIDS league is astronomically immature. What are you getting out of saying you're the coach of a team that won a rec league championship? You think the Celtics are hiring you for the bench after that? Get bent. Spread out the talent and let the kids have fun competing. I'd bet that every parent that stacks his team like that was never on a winning team so they have to salvage some past ill.
Oh for sure. And they like to brag about how their kid’s real passion is (other sport) and he’s on the travel team plus the cup team blah blah blah.
Honestly it gives me motivation to be a better coach. I let the kids have fun, but also make sure they learn the game the right way and play super tough defense. I think other teams hate playing my team for that.
You’re doing it the right way. Get the kids better and make sure everyone improves and learns along the way. Winning will take care of itself. Plus, the kids learn more about themselves and the work needed to be a better team.
