Sports for Your Child

This blog post is intended, mostly, for parents who are just getting their kids into tackle football.  There are certain suggestions that impact more experienced players or those who are switching teams as well.  

Youth tackle football practices will begin within the next month.  If your kids are new to tackle football, buying equipment is very exciting, especially if they’ve watched football on televison.  Don’t get ahead of yourself on buying the equipment though.  The first thing you should do is talk to your son’s football coach to find out what the team requires from it’s players. 

You will have some very important considerations:

The team colors can have an effect on some of the accessories that you purchase such as : helmets, gloves, and cleats. Your child’s helmet can be specific in color so find this out before you buy.  Also, helmets can have many upgrades, mostly in the area of protection from head injuries.  Gloves and cleats don’t have to match the uniforms, but if you have a choice why not go for a matching color.  Remember it’s not only important how they play, but they must look mahvelous (thanks, Billy Crystal).

The position your child plays can impact the shoulder pads that they wear as they get older.  If they are going to play a line position, the pads should be more protective.  At skill positions, players need to have flexibility in their pads so they can lift their arms up high for a pass.  As your kids get older, you should have a pretty good idea of their position, although this can change at any age. 

The coach of your team may have an arrangement with selected stores for your purchases.  If they don’t and you want to save money, you may want to check into a store that sells used equipment.  This is your choice, but I always error on the side of good protective equipment.  By the way, I’ve had good luck buying equipment online, in many cases you can save many and get more options. 

If you purchase visors for helmets, be aware that leagues may prohibit dark colors.  This is for the safety of your child because, if there is an injury the attending coach/caregiver will need to see your child’s eyes to make an informed decision as to how to care for your child.

Football is almost here.  Can you feel it!

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Most americans understand the game of baseball, right? Maybe not. This blog is a brief, easy to understand overview of America’s Pastime.

In baseball, each team fields nine players on defense. There are three outfielders, four infielders, a catcher and a pitcher. The pitcher throws balls from the pitching mound to the catcher who is positioned behind home plate. The batter from the other team, who is standing next to home plate, attempts to hit the ball.

There is an imaginary rectangle which is the width of home plate and extends from the letters on the jersey down to the knees of the batter. This rectanglular area is called the strike zone. When the pitcher throws the ball, to the catcher, if it passes within the strike zone and the batter doesn’t swing it is called a strike by an official called the home plate umpire. Also if the batter swings and doesn’t hit the ball, no matter where it is pitched, it’s also a strike. Three strikes and the batter is out. If the pitcher throws four balls (outside of the strike zone and the batter doesn’t swing) the batter goes to first base on a “walk”.

If none of the defensive players can catch the ball on a fly or field the ball and throw to first base before the batter can reach the base, the batter has a base hit. If the batter tries to extend the hit by running to second, third or home plate and gets tagged out when they’re not planted on a base or having touched home plate they are out. The last base they reach determines the type of base hit that is recorded.

At the youth levels, different age groups play a different number of innings and with different rules. Additionally, there are different sponsoring organizations in the United States that have different rules.

An inning is when each team has an opportunity to send at least three batters to the plate with a chance to get on base. Each teams “at bat” is not complete until three outs are recorded. The other team tries to get three outs as quickly as possible. The object for the defense is to limit the number of runs that score.

There are four types of base hits:

1) Single – The batter reaches first base safely
2) Double – The batter reaches second base safely
3) Triple – The batter reaches third base safely
4) Home Run – The batter reaches home plate safely

Whenever a runner circles the bases, either on their own hit or after reaching base and then being “driven in” by a teammate, their team scores a run. The team with the most runs at the end of the game wins.

There are many more intricacies to the game, but this is just a basic overview.

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This is a question that only you can answer.

First, I would say that you should be realistic for the sake of your kid. Get an assessment from your child’s coach. If your coach says that your child is amazing then maybe, just maybe, they can get a college scholarship.

Remember that only 1 child in 60,000 has a chance to be a professional athlete. Those odds are staggering!

If your child plays youth sports they have a 30% chance to play high school varsity sports. Once your child gets to play varsity sports in high school they have a 5-10% chance of getting a Division I college scholarship. The average college program send 1-3 players to the pro ranks every year. Of every player that makes a pro team training camp, only 35% survive.

If you create an environment where your child feels that they have to “make it” so that they can support the whole family, you all may be bitterly disappointed if the goal isn’t accomplished.

Again, my recommendation is that you always set realistic expectations for your child.  Let them have fun. 

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How do you determine what sport will be best for your child? There are many sports and within each of those sports there are many positions. Each position requires a different skill set.

When your child is young, 4-7, you can get an idea, but their physical attributes can change as they grow older. Still you can only go with what you have in front of you, which is a child who is 4-7 years old. Play with your kid and see what they’re good at.

Do they have great hand/eye coordination? If you throw your child a ball and they can hit the ball with the bat most of the time the answer is YES. Conversely, if you throw a ball and they can’t catch it most of the time, the answer is probably NO. Again, these things can change in time, but you still can get an idea of their strengths at an early age. Most importantly try different sports to see what they love playing. There’s nothing more sad than watching a kid play a sport that they simply don’t enjoy.

How fast is your child? You can usually tell when they play with other kids their age. On the other hand, sometimes kids don’t run their hardest. Check in with them to see if they give their best effort.

Remember when I said that physical attributes can change? One of my boys played football with a boy that played quarterback and was one of the slowest boys on the team. In the sixth grade, this boy recovered from a broken leg and discovered that he was now one of the fastest boys on the team. Sounds like a miracle, doesn’t it? It happens often. Another slow lineman from that same team is now one of the fastest boys on his varsity lacrosse team.

Speed can also be enhanced through exercises and proper technique. Search the web and you’ll find plenty of books and videos that focus on improving speed. Forgive me for this obvious statement; in any sport speed can be a great asset.

How strong is your child? Like speed, power is very useful in any sport, but sports such as football, rugby, lacrosse, wrestling and boxing capitalize on power. I can hear all of you baseball coaches saying power is important when hitting home runs! That’s true, but with good technique you don’t need exceptional strength to hit home runs.

It’s not a bad idea to start with a sport that you like, but be careful to make sure that “you know who” is having fun. Kids can also gain an appreciation for a sport in time.

My oldest boy played baseball almost every summer of his life. When he was in the seventh grade, he reached the burnout point with baseball. He had played on increasingly difficult teams through the sixth grade. At that point, the competition was fierce and the schedule daunting. For the first time in his life, a coach didn’t think he was good enough. He went through a rough time that summer, but it was great for him in the long run.

My boy decided to try lacrosse the next summer and was a stud on his new team. He was “the man” that summer. He scored 75% of his team’s goals.

Ironically, he went back to baseball for the next two years before realizing that lacrosse was more fun for him. He didn’t do badly at baseball. He played shortstop and catcher on his Junior Varsity team as a freshman. He just got bored waiting for a ball to come his way. He likes a fast paced game, but there are plenty of kids who LOVE baseball.

You don’t need to get a DNA test to figure out where your child fits in the world of sports. Time will tell.

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This is where coaching can really get challenging. Before you have your first practice, sit down and explain to your child the challenges of coaching their team. Let them know that your goal is to coach every child on the team and while you want them to grow from the experience, it’s not just about them. Also, ask them to call you “Coach” on the field, instead of “Dad” or “Mom”. It might make things easier for them and the other players.

This is really when you need to use the Goldilocks theory . . . “just right”. Work your hardest to treat your child as you would any player on the team. Don’t favor them and don’t make them your example of what the team shouldn’t do . . . all of the time. Strive to find the perfect balance for the sake of your relationship with your kid and the rest of the team.

Make sure that your child earns the positions they play or you’ll hear it from the parents of other players with questions like “Why does your son play Quarterback?”.

Most parents with athletes have been in the situation where the coach’s son/daughter is the weakest player on the team and they play the best position! This holds the team back, infuriates the parents, and ultimately drives players away.

I had a great solution to this problem when I was a head coach; I let my coordinators pick the positions for the players. My great solution didn’t work either because the parents still complained when my son was picked to be the Quarterback. I guess they thought that I mandated the selection. It turns out that my son was the only player on the team, at that time, that wasn’t terrified of being clobbered by the other team.

This is an area where I can only wish you the best of luck and be thankful that those days are almost behind me.

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