Teaching tools

From Thursday night to Sunday afternoon I spent a good portion of my time watching a youth basketball tournament. I was observing not only the players, but the coaches and how they coached their players. My grandson has a different coach this year and the pairing has been so poor that his parents are planning on putting him back in the draft next year, hoping for a better match.

After watching Mr. S. for several hours I came to the conclusion that he needs several hours of instruction on how to relate to and instill pride in young players. Some of these boys and girls could be  the basketball stars of the future and what they learn now is going to affect how they play then. Any game is not all about winning it is also about sportsmanship and working as a team.

In the first place Mr. S. needs to buy himself a good pair of glasses to enable him to see the potential in all of his players, not just his son and a couple of his personal favorites. He needs to get out of the dark ages and realize that a shorter player who just happens to be a born athlete can outshine the tallest kid if given a chance to play for more than two minutes.

What really upset me the most was the constant bellowing Mr. S. showered on his team. Nothing was ever right in his eyes and he seemed to go out of his way to make his players look like idiots in front of the spectators. If this wasn't bad enough the assistant coach is equally as loud and offensive. At one point I was sitting next to a parent from the opposing team and her comment was, "I wouldn't want my child on his team!"

The tournament is over and there is only one more game left of the season so hopefully this will be the end of Mr. S.in my grandson's life. For the most part he has had some wonderful coaches for both basketball and soccer who really care about the kids, but this one I would put at the bottom of the list. In my opinion if a coach is not going to encourage all of his players to do their best work perhaps he/she should find something else to do with his/her time.