Thirsty Thursday

Never too early to install personal pride in your kids. A clean room. A good grade. A W in sports. All things as the result of working and succeeding. What’s the alternative? A kid sitting around a dumpy room, getting poor grades and losing games on the weekends all because winning isn’t important yet?

You want to raise kids who feel good about themselves and without self esteem issues? Be fucking honest to them from day 1. Yes, winning matters. In every game they’ve ever seen on TV there is a score. Stop treating your kids like idiots. You’re here. We practice an hour (or more) a week. We may as well win the game.

And if we lose we lose but let’s not pretend losing is fun. It’s part of life, but it’s not fun, and anybody that tells you it is is lying to your face. In every game there is a winner and a loser every time. May as well try to win.
You start making a kid's self-esteem contingent on winning games you're asking for trouble.
 
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Sometimes when you win, you really lose, and sometimes when you lose, you really win, and sometimes when you win or lose, you actually tie, and sometimes when you tie, you actually win or lose. Winning or losing is all one organic mechanism, from which one extracts what one needs.
Take it to the Philosophy Forum.

2/10
 
You start making a kid's self-esteem contingent on winning games you're asking for trouble.

Winning/succeeding at anything, including the games they want to win. You don’t think these kids want to win? Nothing jolts a kids confidence faster than telling them their feelings are wrong.
 
Prob why so many teens and young adults don’t want to go ti school, go to work, work hard for anything etc…

They’ve never been a winner at anything in life so why start now?
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Winning/succeeding at anything, including the games they want to win. You don’t think these kids want to win? Nothing jolts a kids confidence faster than telling them their feelings are wrong.
Good thing I would never do that.
 
You want to be participation trophy coach, be that guy. You’re not doing anybody any favors.
Yeah, what would I know about playing sports at a high level? Not like I didn't play in college.

What would my dad, who played two sports in college, know about the difference between youth development leagues and high level sports?

Please, educate me.

The Office Reaction GIF by MOODMAN
 
You want to be participation trophy coach, be that guy. You’re not doing anybody any favors.
Now I think I understand why you're now on the sidelines.

Saw a LOT of Dads like you appear to be in my years of coaching.
 
Winning and losing does matter, but it is NOT the most important part of the game at the junior level.

It’s the goal of every kid out there. They all want to win.

Having dumpy parents who have already long given up on their own goals in life handing out candy and soda after an L and telling their kid everything they just did out there doesn’t actually fucking matter - is definitely not the point of youth sports.,
 
See, I see it differently. The kids are going to want to compete. I know that the kids were keeping score in the soccer league Ham played in the last two seasons. Coaches only tracked the score to prevent games from turning into beatings.

Coaches should be teaching, and winning comes as a byproduct of that. If the players are focused on getting better at their game, they'll improve, and the team will improve.

Unless you're in a position where you're held accountable for your wins and losses, winning shouldn't be your (the coach's) focus. The kids will care about it, certainly, but it should be more important that all your kids got better and are coming back next season than you went 12-0 and won the 8-year-old baseball league.

All-star tournaments, knock yourself out. Put your best players in their best spots, and play to win. Town ball games, where everyone has to get on the field and has to hit? Put the kids in places where they can succeed and let them play.

Not advocating for the uncoordinated kid who can't run to play the most at shortstop in a town ball league, but give him a shot there if he asks to do it. If he just wants to play right field and pick dandelions, let him do that. At the end of the day, if my town ball team doesn't win a game, what's the worst thing that happens to me? I don't get asked to volunteer to coach again?
I think I played baseball up to a point where I did it to make my dad proud. He loved it and I wanted to be good so he would be happy. I got winning and losing and I of course wanted to win, but I wasn't that good.

My competitive drive didn't kick in until I discovered tennis and individual sports...it was a different kind of challenge because it was all on me.

If I kept playing baseball. I might have gotten decent but it just wasn't for me...but it helped me to develop a pretty decent hand-eye coordination to be good at tennis

I think too many parents push their kids too far because it's what they want, not what the kid necessarily wants
 
Yeah, what would I know about playing sports at a high level? Not like I didn't play in college.

What would my dad, who played two sports in college, know about the difference between youth development leagues and high level sports?

Please, educate me.

The Office Reaction GIF by MOODMAN

Good for you. Dan Campbell played in the NFL and won 3 games. At least he cares.
 
I think too many parents push their kids too far because it's what they want, not what the kid necessarily wants

They push them into sports, period. Then when the kid sucks they tell them it’s okay, doesn’t matter. 15 years later they’re taking their 12th “mental day” of the quarter.
 
Didn't your daughter play in college?
She won a high school state championship but chose not to play at the next level. Several of her teammates did, however. Several of them regretted it.
 
Now I think I understand why you're now on the sidelines.

Saw a LOT of Dads like you appear to be in my years of coaching.

I really don’t understand why you idiots follow me around the board.
 
I think I played baseball up to a point where I did it to make my dad proud. He loved it and I wanted to be good so he would be happy. I got winning and losing and I of course wanted to win, but I wasn't that good.

My competitive drive didn't kick in until I discovered tennis and individual sports...it was a different kind of challenge because it was all on me.

If I kept playing baseball. I might have gotten decent but it just wasn't for me...but it helped me to develop a pretty decent hand-eye coordination to be good at tennis

I think too many parents push their kids too far because it's what they want, not what the kid necessarily wants
This. Exactly.
 
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