LET KIDS BE KIDS….
July 30, 2007
If you take offense to this, then it most likely means you’re guilty of it.
I attended my mate’s 11yr old niece’s football match over the weekend and was gutted with what I saw and heard. First, I saw their "coach" yelling at these girls telling them "if you don’t win this game you are a disappointment to me". I saw kid’s siting on the side line for the whole match while their teammates play the whole match (One of those girls happened to be my mate’s niece, who was in tears). And lastly I saw a "coach" pack up her stuff after the match with out telling her team that they "played well," or "she’s proud of them", or even giving them a high five.
After the match Mark was curious why Madison and a few others girls sat on the side the full match, so we went to the coach to ask her. Her answer was this…"Madison has missed 2 practices, so she has to sit on the side and watch the girls that are more committed to the team play".
When I heard this I could not sit back and listen to this bollocks. I asked her how many practices they have a week and was surprised to hear her tell me 5 practices a week and games on the weekend. I then asked her how she expects 11 year old kids to practice 5 days a week and her answer to that was: "you obviously don’t know anything about soccer, maybe you should sit on the sidelines, watch the game and you can learn something". Needless to say that did not go over well with me. I did have a few "adult words" with her and Mark explained to her that Madison would not be attending any of the remaining games.
In closing, my comments are this….
Kid’s play football because it’s fun….Don’t take that away from them. Making an 11 year old practice 5 times a week is cruel enough, but then to punish them because they miss 1 or 2..or even 3 practices by sitting them the whole match is ridiculous.
This is another example of what is wrong with football in America. It starts with the youth and the youth coaches. There is plenty of time for kids to be brilliant footballers, but it has to be fun. With out the fun they get frustrated and quit playing and the beautiful game is one of the things that suffers.
Cheers,
Scott
Scott Hudlow is a member of Ziga-Zoga and blogs passionately about his views on the culture of football . Scott that can be reached from his page here.
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