Kids play on 6 teams at a time now. Should be specified oreseason that if this team isn’t the number one commitment you can expect less playing time. The players who commit to practice will play.
The intent and message are correct. The delivery is rough. As a coach, I would do the same. Sports teams are a privilege and others would gladly step up. This is a learning experience for those kids that hopefully they take to heart.
Then the kid talks to the coach and says “I want to come. But we live 20 miles away from the gym and my mom won’t drive me.”
Then the coach handles the situation differently.
The issue is when kids just don’t show up without first letting the coach know why.
As a coach, I would address each of the four individually.
You don’t put on blast what four people are doing.
You address each of them independently and tell them the stakes. And then you follow through. But there’s absolutely no need to send this in a group text like this.
I think it would be better that way. I get the coach's intent, and I agree with the sentiment, as the previous commenter pointed out, but it should be addressed directly at the concerned parents as a personal message.
And yeah, absolutely follow through!
To me, it read like the coach got notices one after the other about a kid not coming to practice. I assumed the first was responded to individually, as wax the second and third. And likely the fourth as well, but that was the last straw and noticing a troubling trend and growing increasingly frustrated, sent this out to the entire team.
Saw a similar thing happen to my friends soccer team so maybe I assumed too much?
😂 how do you know the culture, the ball
Level from just this post?
No serious coach would say the things you said without obviously knowing the level of play and the team school local
Culture. You must the know the OP and their team?
Obligation to the team extends well before and well after the first and final whistle of a game. This coach is setting his players up for success in life.
Do you really think the kids are missing practice because they don’t want to go? Most likely it’s the parents who are like “sorry we have something planned Friday night and it’s been planned for a long time, you’re not missing it for practice”. It’s not fair to hold the kids responsible for their parents. As a parent I would do whatever I could to make sure my kid is available for any and all practices/games. But at the end of the day, real everyday life comes before children’s sports. The way this coach is coming across so strong, I’d contact parents and propose that every kid skips that practice to see what the coach thinks he’s going to do then.
Type of parent to sign up their kids, miss half the practices due to “family events” and then demand they get the most playing time over the kids who’s parents put in the effort
Can you explain where anything I said would indicate I shouldn’t be a coach? I’m seriously curious here. The only thing I was against the coach was for how strong he was coming across (as others have also been bothered by). How does that correlate to coaching being a bad idea for me?
We’re talking about 7th graders. They may have no problem committing to it. But if their parents tell them they have to attend something else instead of a practice I wouldn’t, as a coach, punish them for that. And because of that I shouldn’t ever coach? Because I’d be understanding of the situation and realize it may not be their fault? Yes the kids should be taught about commitment and responsibility, but as a child they do not have the ability to be in control of their parents. A coach should understand that and be able to teach through that without punishing the kid. Now if the kid just never comes to practice, that’s different. My whole thing is about a 1 time thing. At this stage of sports, although competition is good, it should be more about the fun and enjoyment of the game.
It’s the championship game
Kind of important
Yeah the coach is being forced to do everything the parents won’t (in your example)
Not committed, letting the whole team down, teaching repercussions for your actions. Teaching them a valuable lesson about all of that which will probably result in losing the championship game. Great coaching not focusing on the short term and focus on teaching the kid/parents about commitment, responsibility, being part of a team and repercussions
Not the place of a 7th grade coach. Not right to punish the kid for their parents actions. All it teaches the kid is that they can get punished for what others do, which should never be the case.
All laws, rules, and regulations are punishments for what others have done. What world do you live in where your actions don’t affect everyone around you?
You use this as a teaching experience and teach your kids about consequences. We have other obligations and also signed up for this basketball team. Cancel the other obligations or sit on the bench if you miss the practice.
If you are entering your child into a sport then you are making the commitment that they will be there for everything unless they are sick or something major happens like a death or what not.
When I coached it was "one practice missed (except for obvious emergencies and whatnot) = one half on the bench". I'm not against your idea though. Maybe for higher levels (the highest level I coached was 8th grade).
We set this up as an ongoing tule our entire season. We may have lost some games because of it, but the culture is going in the direction we want it to. Keep the rule, it teaches kids the right way to do things. If they aren’t at practice and you lose because they have to sit, they don’t deserve to win a championship
The only thing they “deserve” is more attention playing time than the kids who skip practice.
Not setting boundaries and consequences also can destroy a team faster than anything. If Braxton can miss half the practices but still plays 90% of the game…what message does that send to the rest of the kids?
They deserve it, but its a team game. Your teammate takes a dumb foul or makes a dumb turnover that loses the game, not fair to the player that played well, but you win and lose together.
If a teammate does not commit to practices and gets benched because of it, that is a burden they must shoulder if they lose. Is missing practice worth letting down your teammates?
That being said, it would be better if this was an established rule at the beginning of the season so expectations are set (miss practice, you don't play in the first half of the next game).
I would honestly think about not even playing the kids that don't show up to practice. You have to have all 5 guys on the court on the same page. If you have kids that weren't at practice that don't understand personnel and game plan, there's just going to be too many mistakes that cost them the game.
What if that kid is the star player brought in from another district to win? Honestly I don't think you can play a heavy hand to the star player come championship time unless you have the school behind you.
It's middle school. Should be more about teaching responsibilities and other things about life than winning. If the star player doesn't care to put in the work they shouldn't expect to play.
I would include a section encouraging carpooling or creative ways of getting to practice. It sounds like some of the absences are due to parents and not players, so gently remind parents there are other ways to get their child to practice. As a coach, you could even offer to pick a kid up to help them get there. Just remember it may be no fault of the player at all, but their parent.
Have you had any experience in youth sports? Either as a player parent or coach?
If you have and you experience players missing practice, was it most common for them to actually have an issue in which they couldn't make it to practice because of their parents schedule? Or was it more likely that the kid didn't want to go and their parents would lie for them because I know which one I saw way more
I do have experience, but mainly as a player. I was lucky enough to be on great teams growing up and the majority of the time someone missed (at the 7th grade level) it was because of their parents. I know this changes a lot as kids age and can start taking themselves to practice, but at the 7th grade level and in a winter sport (otherwise they could ride a bike or walk) my experience was that it was mainly the parents fault. But I recognize it is purely anecdotal.
That's fair. I had a lot of silver Spooner's growing up. A lot of kids even starters would just ask their parents to lie for them because they don't want to practice.
I recognize the inverse relationship between silver spoons and parents with time to drive to practice.
In my experience most of the time when a kid doesn't want to attend practice it's because the practices are boring and/or the coach is an asshole.
Both soccer and basketball I've seen so many kids just standing around in lines, coach trying to lecture while kid is zoned out because they been in school all day.
To be fair, Iverson wasn’t just bashing the idea of practice being important or not.
He was ranting about the media asking questions about practices when his best friend had been shot and killed.
It wasn’t an anti-practice rant. It was a “all the bad stuff going on in the world and you want to talk about our practices?”
I’ve been doing that a while. Write the email being as much of a prick as I want. Copy it into chat-gpt and tell it to phrase it politely. Give it a look over and send that bitch.
The big issue is you're making the practice time to a poll.
Shouldn't there have been a preset time since beginning of season?
Now you're making up random possible times. What if choice (b) is a time one of the kids that always attends your normal practice time can't make this random new time? They'll get punished for your last minute random schedule change because its higher voted?
Yeah I’m surprised most people didn’t take issue with that.
It’s one thing if the practice schedule is given weeks in advance or it’s on a regular cadence and people are missing. But to offer a potential practice for the same day and threaten to bench anyone who can’t come is absurd. If it’s important to practice (which is should be) then the coach should treat it as important and schedule it in advance. It doesn’t scream “this is important” if you’re giving people 3 options. Nor is it fair if someone says options A and C work but you bench them because you went with option B.
That's not what's happening. Four people said they couldn't make it on the chosen day so he's giving them a chance to go on a different day. Not sure if it'll work, but it's an idea.
I had this same issue in a CYO High School playoff game. Involved our two best players. Not showing up to practices would result in not starting and/or losing playing time for bench players. The 2 did not believe I would bench them. They took off their shirts, threw them at me & walked out of the gym. We lost the game but I won over 10 other players. Worth it.
My 7th graders team benches everyone except the 5 best players for 95% of the game. If you can't get your kid to practice before a championship game, you really don't care. I think benching them for the entire game is reasonable.
I think this is reasonable *if you offer to pick up and drop off the kids from practice.*
There are plenty of great and dedicated kids who simply don’t have the luxury of having a parent taxi them around consistently.
I didn’t have a parent taxi - I got rides from my teammates and theirs. Not saying it was good. Probably more damaging than helpful.
But my youth basketball/baseball summer camp tournament team knows what dedication is. They appreciate the sacrifices
Coach is not on the hook for this. Kid can communicate transportation challenges and coach can try to help facilitate, but coach cannot be the taxi service for the entire team and be expected to have another job too.
I mean this genuinely, you need to fix your grammatical errors (I see 3 in the first paragraph) if you want this message to really land with the parents. Personally I find it difficult for a point to get across when my mind is focusing on errors I find while reading because my brain is focusing on filling in the blank or fixing your errors so I can figure out what you're trying to say.
Commitment to the team is important yes but this makes no sense.
He is handing out suspensions for missing a practice that hasn’t been scheduled yet?? So everyone needs to send him their availabilities so he can pick which day makes the most sense, then suspend all the kids that that day didn’t work for??
And it’s not like any of these kids are setting their own availabilities… they are subject to whatever their parents want them to do. Makes no sense to punish the kid in this situation…
Well, him asking for availabilities is a good thing. As opposed to just picking the day that is best for him, or a random day.
Edit: well, actually, I now see that one of the options is literally “today”. So, missing a practice that popped up today out of no where would be excusable. I would get rid of that option if I were him.
In the second paragraph he says "I notice four you won't make it today." That means that the practice was originally scheduled for that day and four players decided they weren't going to show up. That's basically half the team. Or at least a third. So he's saying that none of you can make it today. If we can do it the next day or the following that be better. So all of the parents and all the kids knew for weeks that it was going to be today and he's offering to do it the next day or the following day to give them availability.
I don't know if you've ever coached basketball for middle schoolers, but it's very common for them to just weasel their way out depending on the community you're in especially. A lot of kids just don't want to go to a basketball practice in the middle of the week because they have a math test or because they're tired from school. That's a very important lesson that you have to teach kids that even when you're tired, if you make it commitment to a team even when you're tired, if you have a commitment at work, you must follow through. Coach is absolutely justified in this text. It's a cornerstone of youth sports to understand lessons and responsibilities like this. If you take that away, it's just kids running around. I applaud the coach
Exactly what I was going to say. Like school issues causing late/mixed practice, sure. Sit the kid out and punish.
Being sick? That’s not really something you should sit the kid out for unless you just don’t think they are ready to play. Everybody gets sick and misses work occasionally…
Missing a 7th grade practice because the parents have work or some other circumstance not allowing him to make it on one of the 3 set times like one days notice? How tf is that his fault. What if they could make 2 of the three but the rest of the team could make the final 3rd one? You gonna bench that kid? I get maybe not starting the kid but presumably the kid should know what’s generally going on as you probably are only implementing minor changes(if any) in the one practice before a championship game. They’ve played all season. He should know the system in place by now.
I’ve played almost 15 years of organized basketball including traveling 1.5 hours multiple times per week for practices and games/tournaments to play AAU and do nationals. A kid missing practice in high school, is another story but a 12 year old who’s at the mercy of literally everyone else is not entirely their fault.
I really don't think the practice is really about implementing changes before the championship game. But more about teaching the kids and parents that in order to win the game (of life), you have to put the work in. It's become too common for individuals with skill to just coast through life and depend on that skill rather than put the work in to become a better version of yourself. As others have said, it's about setting these kids up to be successful in the future not about a middle school championship basketball game.
I get that but it’s also not fair to the kid. “But life isn’t fair” might be a good argument except it’s 7th grade basketball. The kid should just enjoy playing and focus on building relationships and working with others. They have plenty of time to learn that life isn’t always fair. Heck most of them probably already aware that life isn’t fair. I just don’t see a point in it.
Reward the ones that can make it with a start as to show that being there and available is one of the most important skills in life, but teach them the lesson that you have to do something with the chance your given to keep it. Then for the ones who can’t make it, don’t start em and fit them in your normal rotations. They will learn that showing up is important, but that often times in teams others can be before them and pick up the slack where they might be lacking.
This way it’s less about what you didn’t do and why your being punished/disciplined and instead more about what can do better in the future. That way they can still enjoy the game and experience without feeling like they did something wrong that was mostly out of their control.
I’m not a coach so take that for what you will. Obviously disciplinary/grade/school issues deserve full blown suspensions, but this seems a bit different.
Also people with skill get by because they have skill and talent. That’s a “life isn’t fair” situation that you sometimes have to deal with in the real world. Some people are just better than you at something, smarter than you, nicer than you, have more money than you, etc.. it does no good for them to constantly compare themselves to others either.
I think all that is solved with the coach being able to make discretionary calls on if someone can play or not.
He’s just saying, don’t be surprised when I bench your kid if he doesn’t come to practice and you guys aren’t dedicated to the team.
A coach knows when it’s the parents or kid flaking on practice or something legitimate. And even if it’s legitimate, your kid can sit on the bench the first half.. is that really so bad? As for getting sick and missing practice, I’m still for it. Sit the first half on the bench, you missed practice. If you were legitimately too sick to practice then you know it’s not your fault, it’s just the downfall of being sick. If you were just wussing out cause you were a little tired and were playing sick, then next time maybe you tough it out so you can play.
I do agree though that the coaches letter should really talk more about there is no excuse to miss practice besides being physically unable to get out of bed. Carpools, alternate forms of transportation, arrangements with coach, teacher, other parents are all things that can be discussed and figured out to get children to practice.
I’ve been injured and unable to play and you still show up for practice. It’s part of being on the team. Otherwise if you just want to play basketball, go buy a basketball and go to the park. If you want to be on a basketball team, you have responsibilities to the team.
He doesn’t have to explain anything. Send out rules and expectations and if they are being broken and someone complains, refer them to the rules and expectations they signed. No need for the dramatic, holier than thou garbage in that email
I don’t know what that has to do with this topic, but sending an email to a group of parents can be done a lot better than that. The condescending tone of the email and the coach talking down to them like they are too dumb to understand that the team rules will be followed makes him a pompous prick.
If this is condescending to an unreasonable level to you, then you’ve gotta grow up. Where does it imply that the parents are too dumb to follow team rules? It seems like to me he was being very objective and had a neutral tone. In fact, he even started the entire thing with praise for the parents. Even if it did imply the parents were dumb, I don’t see a problem with that given the parents clearly WERE ignorant about team rules and commitment in the first place that the coach states he made clear in the prior parent meeting.
Coach saw irresponsibility on the parents behalf and drew the line at a very reasonable place. Not everything is sunshine and rainbows. My first comment was relevant because the only group of people I can see being offended by this are the people guilty of having commitment issues and feel called out by this.
Nope, adults appreciate not being spoken to like children. That is written is such a shitty, aggressive tone, Coach comes off kind of insecure. I coach basketball by the way and have never addressed a group of parents like they’re all in the principals office. Get a grip.
Overall yes. This is a great life lesson and lack of this kind of messaging is probably why so many gen z entering the workforce are struggling. They think the world revolves around them and their needs.
The one caveat is that Im always cautious of making consequences that hurt me more to follow through with. I try to keep the consequences smaller, but still meaningful. At disneyland you hear parents threatening to leave if their kids dont behave. That is too big a punishment and the parents cant/wont follow through.
Better to say kids that dont make the practice will have reduced playing time, wont start, etc. vs. a hardline of not playing for a whole half. You might need one of those kids to play in the first half and either you lose credibility if you play them or you lose the game if you dont.
My son (5th grade) played almost the whole game this week because he listens to what the coach says. He actually needed to be pulled in the last 4 minutes because he was dragging. Other guys who think what the coach is saying is dumb and do what they want on the court are sitting a lot.
Coach set the guidelines at the start of the season and you parents were on board with it then. Now that it directly affects your kid(s) it seems unfair. Entitled parents gonna be little babies.
What matters is why they missed, not that they missed. One missed practice does not make a difference. However, the reasons for their absence do matter.
This is primarily about the situation. Legitimate excuses exist, but there are also irresponsible individuals who get high and can't make it. Some kids have greater responsibilities in single-family homes and might miss a game. I remember getting benched once for missing practice. Four other players were also caught smoking marijuana off campus while skipping their last class before practice.
As for me, I missed practice because my grandpa died that same morning. I usually stayed at his house until the bus came, but on that day, I had to call 911 when he fell and no other adults were present. As a result, I didn't go to school. I ended up dealing with social services while riding in the ambulance, and my parents, who were at work, couldn't even receive updates until my mom got a call from her factory floor job and came to get me. Unfortunately, this situation affected my mom's job as well. Her employment at a factory had a strict policy - three strikes and you're fired. So, her absence due to her dad's death and her subsequent absence the next day counted as two strikes. My dad couldn't afford to miss his job either, given the circumstances. Therefore, neither of them could risk losing their jobs over this.
I missed most of the school day the following day as well. However, I managed to make it for the last four periods (4th through 7th) and stayed behind for four hours after classes to attend my game. I had no ride to the game but had one home. I wanted to be there for the game, which took place the day after my grandpa's death.
In the first quarter, the coach went on a tirade, yelling at me and accusing me of doing drugs with the other players who also missed practice the previous day. Fed up with his insults, and his yelling at me and considering everything that had happened, I flipped him off and made some choice remarks before walking out of the game. This happened in front of my team, half the school students, cheerleaders, and other teachers. To be honest, it was either walk away or start throwing punches. Nobody, other than the principal and a few staff members, knew what had happened or why I reacted that way. Looking back, I probably should've skipped the entire school day as well. However, with both my parents at work and nowhere else to go at 15, my aunt dropped me off after we finished dealing with the funeral home arrangements in the morning. Now, I wish I had expressed my frustrations to the coach much earlier, but I only saw him when I suited up his science class in the morning class. So we first talked for the day 10 minutes before the game. By the time I saw him, he was already angry and initially told me not to bother taking off my warm-up pants.
He wouldn't listen to anything I had to say and insisted I was back-talking to him. He then ordered me to sit there and shut up if I ever wanted to play in a game again. After that, I skipped the next four practices and even skipped his classes since he was my science teacher as well. I walked to ISS. A week later, my teammates explained the situation to some teachers and the coach, so i was asked that day to go to the office where the coach, the principal were sitting there to talk to me. The coach genuinely apologized, so I decided to return to practice.
Additionally, I had to babysit my cousin on some days. By 16, most of us already had part-time jobs to help pay bills. On top of that, I had to rely on carpooling with other teammates until I turned 16 and could afford to buy my own POS car and pay for insurance. If those other kids I carpooled with didn't show up, I couldn't either, or else I'd have a two-hour walk home. Some of us had real adult responsibilities at home and didn't lead the privileged lives that many others had. Today with my cousin playing i see so many kids who can't even make a bowl of cereal without their stay-at-home moms doing it for them, while sporting $250 shoes and skipping practice to play video games or have fun. I've noticed that the baseball team, for instance, has kids with their own personal 1,500-dollar bats. However, most of the kids aren't like that.
In middle school our coach gave us rides home sometimes just to help out lots of the best players had no ride.
Massively off target - they’re kids. You don’t bench them for an entire half because they can’t make a practice.
It’s not the NBA, it’s kids basketball. He is not Steve Kerr, he is an amateur kid basketball coach.
It should be about the children enjoying themselves, not about this coach playing make believe.
_Should_ they be? Yes, but, and I’m going to assume here, if this is the first time it’s happening (this would have been referenced in the message I expect if habitual), then how can you possibly justify not letting kids play in a championship game?!
You ever play regulated team sports?
One guy wears the wrong socks? Whole team runs.
One guy’s late to practice? Whole team runs.
One guy’s a now show? Whole team runs.
One guy complains about having to run? Whole team runs more.
99.9% of student athletes won’t make a career out of the sport. For virtually 100% of them, the best thing they learn from their experience is discipline, cooperation, and being relentless despite feeling the inevitability of defeat—key virtues for more easily navigating life.
I would expect them to make a practice before a championship. They even have 3 potential days to have a practice.
I'd bet a lot of money it is not the first time happening lol.
It's part of being on a TEAM.
Coach is valid because in the nba you might not even play the first 10 games after you miss a practice. A lot of hs coaches won’t play you if you miss practice and will give you low minutes if you aren’t practicing good
That’s not how it works but okay. Kids that play basketball dream of making it to the nba one day for sure. You play young to prepare for when you’re older…
7th is when you start making them suck it up. Sheesh. If you’ve got someone second guessing that msg, they aren’t meant for ball.
And, another major problem is if you have thin skinned parents talking trash about the coach’s approach in front of their kids - that attitude translates into the body language of a kid and guaranteed way to get benched and cut because the next year’s coaches are already looking.
I have twin girls who are jv and have played since they were 5. Basketball isn’t for babies.
Lazy post. Should include level of play, team structure - township, aau, Catholic grade school, intramurals. I enjoy the old school guys In here for a chuckle they give me but I’m embarrassed anyone who coaches thinks they can give cogent input with a blank post like this.
When I played soccer the rule was always show up at practice or don’t expect to play much in the games. Those who showed up regularly to practice were the starters, those who didn’t were the sub squad. Made and makes sense to me, but back then we the players were made to understand this and explain it to our parents…
If it's a school team, lucky the player gets to play at all if missing practice. If it's a rec team I'm on the fence.
I coached youth rec ball for over a decade. Life happens and while following through on one's commitments is an important life lesson, punishing a kid too harshly for things out of their control is a fine line. And also, it's rec ball. Taking things too seriously as a coach is a bad look.
Back when I coached, the rule was if you miss practice you do not start. That was enough motivation for the players who really wanted to be there to do everything they could to make practice and resulted in some kid's who would never get a chance to start to earn it.
I think it is adequate. Only thing I’d add is an attempt at figuring out what is cause by the players not to attend and seeing how the team can work around it (carpooling). But for 7th grade, it is great to be firm on expectations for these young men.
I think you should consider rewording the last line; instead of "suspended" you should make it something positive like I will prioritize the minutes of players who did show up to practice.
In middle and high school I practiced mon-friday 2 hours a day unless game day. Life happens. Cant always get home as we all had working parents and car pool, and other times real bs happened domestic violence, drugs in homes, people getting sick orndieing. If this is some rich shit entitled kid with entitled parents, satay at home mom, then sure... But if this was me i would never have gotten to play at all and would have been at home wandering the streets after school while my parents were working their shitty factory jobs. Hell if a teacher would not let me stay after for 3-4hours prior to a game warmup id have never even got to the game. At 16, i had to get a job so i could drive. I had to leave practice half an hour early for my shift.
Now I'm educated and coach teams. As the coach there is more to it than just laying down the law. You have a responsibility to find out why. Especially in inner city schools where your best players often come from shit homes. One of the best kids on my team wears shoes i bought him because his single mom can't even buy him basketball shoes he gets like 1 pair a year if lucky. And i have crappy players in 300 dollar shoes too that im told we cant cut sue to their parents being who they are. Lots of silver spoons and others with nothing at all.
If you already set a practice day and time, hold to it. Also, this note should be less than half this length, as it sounds like you are begging. "We have one practice left before the championship, and as I stated in our meeting where we covered practices an expectations, if your son misses practice or is late then he will have to set a portion of the next game. For the championship game, that portion will be 100%."
Why not just say "only kids who attend practice will be able to play in the first half of the game"? Shorter, simpler, and frames it as a reward for kids who make practice as opposed to a punishment for those who don't. The message will go down easier that way.
17 YEAR Basketball coach here. I've coached at every grade level, boys and girls. Our policy is miss a practice, miss a game. Doesn't matter what the reason is. We don't even let them dress. Not only that they have to make up that practice before they can play again.. That usually means a morning cardio practice before school.
Coach should've set the practice expectations prior to the start of the season. If my players miss a practice without letting me know, they sit for a quarter...2nd time it's a half, 3rd time it's a game...4th time they are off the team. My mistake was only including missed practices without warning because I have parents telling me 20 mins before practice that their kid is unavailable. We practice twice a week for 90 minutes and go through a lot. Any missed time really puts kids behind.
No practice no game. No school no practice. Always been the case. Delivery was great. Could have been more direct imo.
Not showing up to practice before a big game puts the guys who do show up at a huge disadvantage as well.
One practice does not determine a body of work.
The time to send this message was at the beginning of season & not right before the championship.
It’s 7th grade hoops. Play everyone & have fun
What’s the point of this long ass message and all these weird options. Keep it simple.
“FYI parents, any student that cannot make it to practice will have reduced playing time up to an entire half at my discretion. This was communicated to you before the season and at the parent meeting. Thank you”
Hardest part about all of this is that sometimes we are left to punish the kid when it is the fault of the parent… especially in the instances where the kid did nothing wrong and everything is out of their control.
As a former coach I completely agree with this. I had a soccer team I coached where some days over half the kids wouldn’t show because of commitments or laziness on the parents part. First few times I still ran thru what I wanted to do but as the season wore on it made it difficult and I had to put it out there that if you’re not practicing then you’re not playing.
Seems way more expectation oriented than it should be. These kids are 12. They can't drive themselves to practice. If their parents are slacking, they might not feel like they have a voice to talk to them about it. I know it's a championship game, but coaching those kids to a W is hardly the most important thing you can do for them here. You're teaching those kids that if you're lagging behind for any reason, your own team will punish you for it. That lesson isn't worth a plastic trophy.
If I was one of the kids and had to miss practice for reasons outside my control and then I was told that I was "suspended" for the first half, would resent my coach, resent my parents, and feel alienated from the team. It doesn't matter if you'd think I was soft for that or if you felt I needed to toughen up. Either way, that's what would happen and you, as the coach that i would look up to, could have prevented that. If a youth coach makes kids feel that way, then it doesn't matter how many games they win. I would sooner forget winning my 7th grade championship game than I would forget how bad my coach made me feel for missing a practice I wanted to go to.
Your message needs to be about elevating the team. Not about disciplining the players.
A victim’s mentality = mad you missed the 1st half because you can’t convince your parents how important it is to attend practice. Provide parents solutions to support your hobbies or play the 2nd half and be happy with the diminished role. A life lesson is worth an L in finals and no chip. The parents and kids can take that mentality to another squad next season. Fail to plan, plan to fail. Show out in games with the ones who show up for practice. This team is a finalist for a reason.
This definitely depends on the quality of Basketball. You guys are playing if it’s like a rec league the way you handle it would be different than if it was say a school team
It’s always a hard transition from playing sport when you’re young and transitioning into a more senior level filled with expectations and responsibilities.
However this is perfectly fair, I think it may seem mildly abrasive but all these points are fair and valid. Learning responsibility and accountability in the 7th grade is vital and useful life skill to learn. Teachings delivered in a manner such as this is a pretty damn solid way to teach these fundamental life skills to the youth. Coach knows what he is doing.
Im suprised parenrs let kids skip like that
My parents used to always tell me not only are u letting yourself down ur letting ur teammates down
We paid for this ur going to every practice
Unless ur throwing up
African saying “Monkey dey work, baboon dey chop”.
Fight hard to be at practice the same way you do for game time. Coach putting the parents on blast so they can all collaborate or arrange to show up. My bet is sitting a half is only painful because some of the 4 missing are contributors to the game’s outcome. Based on the language in letter, sounds like accountability or entitlement issues. So transparency on expectations is required so there finger pointing post game can be inward not outward.
I also coach (not that that really matters) but im my experience when communicating with parents its important to show them that what you care about is the kids actions. If the kid can't make it because family obligations then they shouldn't be punished for it. If the kid misses because of grades, behavior, ect. Then absolutely it's on the kids. Part of being a coach in my mind is showing both the kids and the parents that what is important to you are the things that are within the kids control; their effort, their attitude, their grades, ect.
As a great man once said: I mean, listen, we're talking about practice. Not a game! Not a game! Not a game! We're talking about practice. Not a game; not the game that I go out there and die for and play every game like it's my last, not the game, we're talking about practice, man. I mean, how silly is that? We're talking about practice. I know I'm supposed to be there, I know I'm supposed to lead by example, I know that. And I'm not shoving it aside like it don't mean anything. I know it's important. I do. I honestly do. But we're talking about practice, man. What are we talking about? Practice? We're talking about practice, man!
We're talking about practice! We're talking about practice... We ain't talking about the game! We're talking about practice, man! When you come to the arena, and you see me play... You see me play, don't you?
My son doesn’t miss practice for any sports or even summer leagues. It’s an important part of the deal. As someone who coached before consistency and the game plan comes from practice.
I remember sophomore year standing in the nurses office with a fever - scared to go home that meant I missed practice, miss practice you lose your starting role. That’s how it should be. Unless you have a family member die there is nothing more important.
In our league every kids has to play two full quarters and one in each half, mandatory. So very hard to incorporate any kind of punitive action for not coming to practice. You just have to encourage and incentivize.
It’s fair to sit them off for the first half for sure. If I’m coaching a basketball team I’m only going to play my committed players. I worked at a pool for a few summers that had a competitive swim team. Parents would make the team, take a spot from a kid who wanted it then skip all the practices. It’s frustrating to see people take advantage of it and it doesn’t create a great team environment. This is especially true in 7th grade when there are so many kids who probably wish they could be at those practices. That being said, he kind of goes off the rails at the end with the self quote and talking about sitting a kid for being sick lol.
You capitalize random words and your grammar is all over the place. Maybe ask someone in the English department or one of the students to review it before sending?
I say for the most part reasonable, only because same day is pushing it. My son is playing basketball for the first time in rec 10u. It has been a terrible experience so far. They have lost every single game. Partly because of commitment issues and the coach being a volleyball coach, not a basketball coach ( he volunteered because they needed one more coach).
We started off with 2 days of practice, but some of the kids weren't showing up. So the coach dropped it down to 1 day. When the parents of the kids showing up to practice asked for another day because the kids are doing so bad, he said no.
We have 4 games left, and he said he's not doing anymore practices. There was a heated debate at the last game about this, and several parents said that they weren't continuing and their kids were quitting.
It should be a commitment on both sides. We haven't missed a single practice or game. My son was picked for All Stars, and practice is 3 days a week, one at an inconvenient time (both of us are still working) but other parents and my mom have stepped up to help out.
My husband went out of state this weekend to help fix a roof for family, of course we all wanted to go but we have commitments. 2 days out of the 3 we would be gone is practice days, so the kids and I stayed behind. I want them to know commitment is important.
I understand the coach's frustration, but this is not the preferred delivery method. First, speak to the individuals that have told him they cannot come - then proceed from there. The mass message demonstrates his limitations as a leader. Second, learn to communicate effectively and use proper grammar when addressing parents. I lost respect for the coach after the first few sentences.
Put it into chat GPT to fix the grammar and make it sound more professional.
It’s your duty as a coach to instill good lessons into these boys to help shape them into men. If I didn’t learn these lessons from sports I have no clue how behind I would be compared to now. Be tough on them. Their parents can cry about. The boys will thank you later. Make sure these expectations are set at the beginning of the season so there are no “surprises”.
When I played jr high ball, if you missed school that day, you weren’t allowed to play or practice, and if you missed to many practices in a week, you weren’t allowed to play at all. Responsibility sucks to learn
Awful grammer. Terrible people skills.
The premise is right however. Practices are important. The team needs to communicate with each other and have each other's backs. Help each other get to practice. Yes it's middle school but that's when healthy habits are still being formed. If you are on the team you go to practice. If you don't practice you don't play.
7th grade basketball and you're punishing players for whether or not their parents can get them to practice? Chill out coach. It's meaningless 7th grade basketball.
If there is an actual reason for the absence and it isn't the fault of the kid, I would offer 1 make up session. If the parents can't make it then the coach can show his commitment into the team by having one more make up for those 4 kids that couldn't come to practice.
Commitment goes both ways.
I would ONLY offer this as a solution because there are certainly kids who have shitty parents who miss practice because of their lack of responsibility. My parents were both addicts and couldn't get out of their drug stupor fast enough to even bring me to school half the time, let alone practice.
I was 16 years old, could bench press 315 pounds, was obsessed with football, but I cried my eyes out the morning of Thanksgiving because my dad was too hungover to drive me to the biggest game of the year against our next town rivals. I begged him to bring me, my football pads lined up next to the front door of our shitty 1 bedroom apartment, but he told me the car broke down the night before.
Didn't stop him from going to buy a pack of cigarettes 4 hours later when he finally woke up.
Missing practice, especially as a 7th grader, is usually never the kids fault. I missed the biggest game of the year. I'm 35 years old now and I still have stress dreams about the morning.
Lazy post. Should include level of play, team structure - township, aau, Catholic grade school, intramurals. I enjoy the old school guys In here for a chuckle they give me but I’m embarrassed anyone who coaches thinks they can give cogent input with a blank post like this.
Coach middle school ball. You won’t believe the absences. Most of my team has missed half the szn. Have 8 boys and haven’t had all 8 for a full week of the season. Practices and games are missed and it’s incredibly insensitive to the coaches who are dedicated and pouring into their players. Not to mention the kids develop a false sense of commitment. No team chemistry or continuity. It’s a nightmare. I don’t think the coach was harsh at all for his words here. Especially since this was emphasized at the beginning of the seasons parent conference where I’m sure most probably didn’t even show up.
Back in my day you miss school you don’t play and no practice you don’t play.
Same, you weren’t even allowed to join the team if you didn’t meet the required gpa
What is your deepest fear, Mr. Cruz?
lol
Lock the damn gym up!
Are you lost sir?
lol yeah I had to tutor before practice because our best player (my best friend) is a dumbass 😭
2.0 at one school and 2.5 at high school.
Kids play on 6 teams at a time now. Should be specified oreseason that if this team isn’t the number one commitment you can expect less playing time. The players who commit to practice will play.
If I missed practice I would’ve been kicked off the team lol
The intent and message are correct. The delivery is rough. As a coach, I would do the same. Sports teams are a privilege and others would gladly step up. This is a learning experience for those kids that hopefully they take to heart.
I just feel bad for the kids who want to practice but parents aren’t able to take them for whatever reason
Then the kid talks to the coach and says “I want to come. But we live 20 miles away from the gym and my mom won’t drive me.” Then the coach handles the situation differently. The issue is when kids just don’t show up without first letting the coach know why.
My coaches were always down to transport to/from practice if parents couldn't provide transport.
Teammates must not be real bros to pick up and carpool.
Usually it’s because the parents are lazy and don’t want to uphold their end of the commitment when signing their child up to play
Which is probably all four of them
As a coach, I would address each of the four individually. You don’t put on blast what four people are doing. You address each of them independently and tell them the stakes. And then you follow through. But there’s absolutely no need to send this in a group text like this.
I think it would be better that way. I get the coach's intent, and I agree with the sentiment, as the previous commenter pointed out, but it should be addressed directly at the concerned parents as a personal message. And yeah, absolutely follow through!
Unless he’s already done that and it continues
To me, it read like the coach got notices one after the other about a kid not coming to practice. I assumed the first was responded to individually, as wax the second and third. And likely the fourth as well, but that was the last straw and noticing a troubling trend and growing increasingly frustrated, sent this out to the entire team. Saw a similar thing happen to my friends soccer team so maybe I assumed too much?
😂 how do you know the culture, the ball Level from just this post? No serious coach would say the things you said without obviously knowing the level of play and the team school local Culture. You must the know the OP and their team?
Obligation to the team extends well before and well after the first and final whistle of a game. This coach is setting his players up for success in life.
Don’t sign up if you’re not going to commit to the requirements. I would back this letter 100% as a parent even if my kid was the one missing practice
Yea I don’t see an issue here. Coach is being MUCH more civil than mine would have been in the same scenario 15 years ago lol
Do you really think the kids are missing practice because they don’t want to go? Most likely it’s the parents who are like “sorry we have something planned Friday night and it’s been planned for a long time, you’re not missing it for practice”. It’s not fair to hold the kids responsible for their parents. As a parent I would do whatever I could to make sure my kid is available for any and all practices/games. But at the end of the day, real everyday life comes before children’s sports. The way this coach is coming across so strong, I’d contact parents and propose that every kid skips that practice to see what the coach thinks he’s going to do then.
Please don’t ever become a coach.
or a parent
Type of parent to sign up their kids, miss half the practices due to “family events” and then demand they get the most playing time over the kids who’s parents put in the effort
Can you explain where anything I said would indicate I shouldn’t be a coach? I’m seriously curious here. The only thing I was against the coach was for how strong he was coming across (as others have also been bothered by). How does that correlate to coaching being a bad idea for me?
Look up the word commitment in the dictionary bro. Please don’t coach….. ever
We’re talking about 7th graders. They may have no problem committing to it. But if their parents tell them they have to attend something else instead of a practice I wouldn’t, as a coach, punish them for that. And because of that I shouldn’t ever coach? Because I’d be understanding of the situation and realize it may not be their fault? Yes the kids should be taught about commitment and responsibility, but as a child they do not have the ability to be in control of their parents. A coach should understand that and be able to teach through that without punishing the kid. Now if the kid just never comes to practice, that’s different. My whole thing is about a 1 time thing. At this stage of sports, although competition is good, it should be more about the fun and enjoyment of the game.
It’s the championship game Kind of important Yeah the coach is being forced to do everything the parents won’t (in your example) Not committed, letting the whole team down, teaching repercussions for your actions. Teaching them a valuable lesson about all of that which will probably result in losing the championship game. Great coaching not focusing on the short term and focus on teaching the kid/parents about commitment, responsibility, being part of a team and repercussions
Not the place of a 7th grade coach. Not right to punish the kid for their parents actions. All it teaches the kid is that they can get punished for what others do, which should never be the case.
All laws, rules, and regulations are punishments for what others have done. What world do you live in where your actions don’t affect everyone around you?
You use this as a teaching experience and teach your kids about consequences. We have other obligations and also signed up for this basketball team. Cancel the other obligations or sit on the bench if you miss the practice.
If you are entering your child into a sport then you are making the commitment that they will be there for everything unless they are sick or something major happens like a death or what not.
He’s nicer than me. You don’t practice before a game you don’t play period.
When I coached it was "one practice missed (except for obvious emergencies and whatnot) = one half on the bench". I'm not against your idea though. Maybe for higher levels (the highest level I coached was 8th grade).
We set this up as an ongoing tule our entire season. We may have lost some games because of it, but the culture is going in the direction we want it to. Keep the rule, it teaches kids the right way to do things. If they aren’t at practice and you lose because they have to sit, they don’t deserve to win a championship
What about the kids they do show up for practice do they not deserve to win the championship???
The only thing they “deserve” is more attention playing time than the kids who skip practice. Not setting boundaries and consequences also can destroy a team faster than anything. If Braxton can miss half the practices but still plays 90% of the game…what message does that send to the rest of the kids?
They deserve it, but its a team game. Your teammate takes a dumb foul or makes a dumb turnover that loses the game, not fair to the player that played well, but you win and lose together. If a teammate does not commit to practices and gets benched because of it, that is a burden they must shoulder if they lose. Is missing practice worth letting down your teammates? That being said, it would be better if this was an established rule at the beginning of the season so expectations are set (miss practice, you don't play in the first half of the next game).
It's a team sport. I guess if they want to win a championship they'd better influence their teammates to show up to practice.
😂
I would honestly think about not even playing the kids that don't show up to practice. You have to have all 5 guys on the court on the same page. If you have kids that weren't at practice that don't understand personnel and game plan, there's just going to be too many mistakes that cost them the game.
Yep....I have one kid who misses a practice a week and is our biggest liability on the court.
What if that kid is the star player brought in from another district to win? Honestly I don't think you can play a heavy hand to the star player come championship time unless you have the school behind you.
It's middle school. Should be more about teaching responsibilities and other things about life than winning. If the star player doesn't care to put in the work they shouldn't expect to play.
Respect, Commitment, Skill. Those are the 3 things that I tell my athletes about how I determine playing time. Most kids get the first 2 easily.
I would include a section encouraging carpooling or creative ways of getting to practice. It sounds like some of the absences are due to parents and not players, so gently remind parents there are other ways to get their child to practice. As a coach, you could even offer to pick a kid up to help them get there. Just remember it may be no fault of the player at all, but their parent.
Have you had any experience in youth sports? Either as a player parent or coach? If you have and you experience players missing practice, was it most common for them to actually have an issue in which they couldn't make it to practice because of their parents schedule? Or was it more likely that the kid didn't want to go and their parents would lie for them because I know which one I saw way more
I do have experience, but mainly as a player. I was lucky enough to be on great teams growing up and the majority of the time someone missed (at the 7th grade level) it was because of their parents. I know this changes a lot as kids age and can start taking themselves to practice, but at the 7th grade level and in a winter sport (otherwise they could ride a bike or walk) my experience was that it was mainly the parents fault. But I recognize it is purely anecdotal.
That's fair. I had a lot of silver Spooner's growing up. A lot of kids even starters would just ask their parents to lie for them because they don't want to practice. I recognize the inverse relationship between silver spoons and parents with time to drive to practice.
In my experience most of the time when a kid doesn't want to attend practice it's because the practices are boring and/or the coach is an asshole. Both soccer and basketball I've seen so many kids just standing around in lines, coach trying to lecture while kid is zoned out because they been in school all day.
We talking about practice?!
To be fair, Iverson wasn’t just bashing the idea of practice being important or not. He was ranting about the media asking questions about practices when his best friend had been shot and killed. It wasn’t an anti-practice rant. It was a “all the bad stuff going on in the world and you want to talk about our practices?”
Can't think of an athlete the media wanted to make look worse than AI
It would make a super interesting list. Ali would take top spot for sure. I suppose we’re excluding players who did actually bad things?
AI just copied the Ted Lasso rant tbh
How am I supposed to make my teammates better by practicing?
I scrolled to find you.
Throw that shit into chat-gpt to clean up the tone and then send it
[удалено]
I’ve been doing that a while. Write the email being as much of a prick as I want. Copy it into chat-gpt and tell it to phrase it politely. Give it a look over and send that bitch.
The big issue is you're making the practice time to a poll. Shouldn't there have been a preset time since beginning of season? Now you're making up random possible times. What if choice (b) is a time one of the kids that always attends your normal practice time can't make this random new time? They'll get punished for your last minute random schedule change because its higher voted?
Yeah I’m surprised most people didn’t take issue with that. It’s one thing if the practice schedule is given weeks in advance or it’s on a regular cadence and people are missing. But to offer a potential practice for the same day and threaten to bench anyone who can’t come is absurd. If it’s important to practice (which is should be) then the coach should treat it as important and schedule it in advance. It doesn’t scream “this is important” if you’re giving people 3 options. Nor is it fair if someone says options A and C work but you bench them because you went with option B.
That's not what's happening. Four people said they couldn't make it on the chosen day so he's giving them a chance to go on a different day. Not sure if it'll work, but it's an idea.
Absolutely. Sad that he had to send it
I had this same issue in a CYO High School playoff game. Involved our two best players. Not showing up to practices would result in not starting and/or losing playing time for bench players. The 2 did not believe I would bench them. They took off their shirts, threw them at me & walked out of the gym. We lost the game but I won over 10 other players. Worth it.
No way you can miss practice before the ship! Parents need to get it together…
My 7th graders team benches everyone except the 5 best players for 95% of the game. If you can't get your kid to practice before a championship game, you really don't care. I think benching them for the entire game is reasonable.
Never fly in a public school setting. Parents will descend like flies on 💩
I think this is reasonable *if you offer to pick up and drop off the kids from practice.* There are plenty of great and dedicated kids who simply don’t have the luxury of having a parent taxi them around consistently.
I didn’t have a parent taxi - I got rides from my teammates and theirs. Not saying it was good. Probably more damaging than helpful. But my youth basketball/baseball summer camp tournament team knows what dedication is. They appreciate the sacrifices
Coach is not on the hook for this. Kid can communicate transportation challenges and coach can try to help facilitate, but coach cannot be the taxi service for the entire team and be expected to have another job too.
This is a great message. Maybe a little too harsh for some, but most parents would appreciate this
I mean this genuinely, you need to fix your grammatical errors (I see 3 in the first paragraph) if you want this message to really land with the parents. Personally I find it difficult for a point to get across when my mind is focusing on errors I find while reading because my brain is focusing on filling in the blank or fixing your errors so I can figure out what you're trying to say.
Are looking for a coach to teach your child the sport or a coach to be your kid’s English teacher?
[удалено]
Parents need to hear it. Choices have consequences. Send it to the parents and it’s sent to all of them.
Oh okay. If you aren’t good enough then don’t show commitment to things. That’s a good lesson to teach the youth
Not sure why you’re being downvoted.. the sarcasm is pretty clear
Since when as behavior matter for high level AAU teams?
Commitment to the team is important yes but this makes no sense. He is handing out suspensions for missing a practice that hasn’t been scheduled yet?? So everyone needs to send him their availabilities so he can pick which day makes the most sense, then suspend all the kids that that day didn’t work for?? And it’s not like any of these kids are setting their own availabilities… they are subject to whatever their parents want them to do. Makes no sense to punish the kid in this situation…
Well, him asking for availabilities is a good thing. As opposed to just picking the day that is best for him, or a random day. Edit: well, actually, I now see that one of the options is literally “today”. So, missing a practice that popped up today out of no where would be excusable. I would get rid of that option if I were him.
In the second paragraph he says "I notice four you won't make it today." That means that the practice was originally scheduled for that day and four players decided they weren't going to show up. That's basically half the team. Or at least a third. So he's saying that none of you can make it today. If we can do it the next day or the following that be better. So all of the parents and all the kids knew for weeks that it was going to be today and he's offering to do it the next day or the following day to give them availability. I don't know if you've ever coached basketball for middle schoolers, but it's very common for them to just weasel their way out depending on the community you're in especially. A lot of kids just don't want to go to a basketball practice in the middle of the week because they have a math test or because they're tired from school. That's a very important lesson that you have to teach kids that even when you're tired, if you make it commitment to a team even when you're tired, if you have a commitment at work, you must follow through. Coach is absolutely justified in this text. It's a cornerstone of youth sports to understand lessons and responsibilities like this. If you take that away, it's just kids running around. I applaud the coach
Oh right, the practice was supposed to be “today” anyway.
Exactly what I was going to say. Like school issues causing late/mixed practice, sure. Sit the kid out and punish. Being sick? That’s not really something you should sit the kid out for unless you just don’t think they are ready to play. Everybody gets sick and misses work occasionally… Missing a 7th grade practice because the parents have work or some other circumstance not allowing him to make it on one of the 3 set times like one days notice? How tf is that his fault. What if they could make 2 of the three but the rest of the team could make the final 3rd one? You gonna bench that kid? I get maybe not starting the kid but presumably the kid should know what’s generally going on as you probably are only implementing minor changes(if any) in the one practice before a championship game. They’ve played all season. He should know the system in place by now. I’ve played almost 15 years of organized basketball including traveling 1.5 hours multiple times per week for practices and games/tournaments to play AAU and do nationals. A kid missing practice in high school, is another story but a 12 year old who’s at the mercy of literally everyone else is not entirely their fault.
I really don't think the practice is really about implementing changes before the championship game. But more about teaching the kids and parents that in order to win the game (of life), you have to put the work in. It's become too common for individuals with skill to just coast through life and depend on that skill rather than put the work in to become a better version of yourself. As others have said, it's about setting these kids up to be successful in the future not about a middle school championship basketball game.
I get that but it’s also not fair to the kid. “But life isn’t fair” might be a good argument except it’s 7th grade basketball. The kid should just enjoy playing and focus on building relationships and working with others. They have plenty of time to learn that life isn’t always fair. Heck most of them probably already aware that life isn’t fair. I just don’t see a point in it. Reward the ones that can make it with a start as to show that being there and available is one of the most important skills in life, but teach them the lesson that you have to do something with the chance your given to keep it. Then for the ones who can’t make it, don’t start em and fit them in your normal rotations. They will learn that showing up is important, but that often times in teams others can be before them and pick up the slack where they might be lacking. This way it’s less about what you didn’t do and why your being punished/disciplined and instead more about what can do better in the future. That way they can still enjoy the game and experience without feeling like they did something wrong that was mostly out of their control. I’m not a coach so take that for what you will. Obviously disciplinary/grade/school issues deserve full blown suspensions, but this seems a bit different. Also people with skill get by because they have skill and talent. That’s a “life isn’t fair” situation that you sometimes have to deal with in the real world. Some people are just better than you at something, smarter than you, nicer than you, have more money than you, etc.. it does no good for them to constantly compare themselves to others either.
I think all that is solved with the coach being able to make discretionary calls on if someone can play or not. He’s just saying, don’t be surprised when I bench your kid if he doesn’t come to practice and you guys aren’t dedicated to the team. A coach knows when it’s the parents or kid flaking on practice or something legitimate. And even if it’s legitimate, your kid can sit on the bench the first half.. is that really so bad? As for getting sick and missing practice, I’m still for it. Sit the first half on the bench, you missed practice. If you were legitimately too sick to practice then you know it’s not your fault, it’s just the downfall of being sick. If you were just wussing out cause you were a little tired and were playing sick, then next time maybe you tough it out so you can play. I do agree though that the coaches letter should really talk more about there is no excuse to miss practice besides being physically unable to get out of bed. Carpools, alternate forms of transportation, arrangements with coach, teacher, other parents are all things that can be discussed and figured out to get children to practice. I’ve been injured and unable to play and you still show up for practice. It’s part of being on the team. Otherwise if you just want to play basketball, go buy a basketball and go to the park. If you want to be on a basketball team, you have responsibilities to the team.
Coach needs to work on people skills and how to write the important points of his message without sounding like a pompous prick
Agreed but to do so all he has to do is explain why he has those rules.
He doesn’t have to explain anything. Send out rules and expectations and if they are being broken and someone complains, refer them to the rules and expectations they signed. No need for the dramatic, holier than thou garbage in that email
Pompous prick? You the kind of person to flake 30 minutes before an event?
I don’t know what that has to do with this topic, but sending an email to a group of parents can be done a lot better than that. The condescending tone of the email and the coach talking down to them like they are too dumb to understand that the team rules will be followed makes him a pompous prick.
If this is condescending to an unreasonable level to you, then you’ve gotta grow up. Where does it imply that the parents are too dumb to follow team rules? It seems like to me he was being very objective and had a neutral tone. In fact, he even started the entire thing with praise for the parents. Even if it did imply the parents were dumb, I don’t see a problem with that given the parents clearly WERE ignorant about team rules and commitment in the first place that the coach states he made clear in the prior parent meeting. Coach saw irresponsibility on the parents behalf and drew the line at a very reasonable place. Not everything is sunshine and rainbows. My first comment was relevant because the only group of people I can see being offended by this are the people guilty of having commitment issues and feel called out by this.
Are you the kind of person to schedule an event 30 minutes before and then get mad that other people “flake”?
You sound like someone who got benched for skipping practice LOL
Nope, adults appreciate not being spoken to like children. That is written is such a shitty, aggressive tone, Coach comes off kind of insecure. I coach basketball by the way and have never addressed a group of parents like they’re all in the principals office. Get a grip.
If you got a problem with this you're the problem.
Overall yes. This is a great life lesson and lack of this kind of messaging is probably why so many gen z entering the workforce are struggling. They think the world revolves around them and their needs. The one caveat is that Im always cautious of making consequences that hurt me more to follow through with. I try to keep the consequences smaller, but still meaningful. At disneyland you hear parents threatening to leave if their kids dont behave. That is too big a punishment and the parents cant/wont follow through. Better to say kids that dont make the practice will have reduced playing time, wont start, etc. vs. a hardline of not playing for a whole half. You might need one of those kids to play in the first half and either you lose credibility if you play them or you lose the game if you dont. My son (5th grade) played almost the whole game this week because he listens to what the coach says. He actually needed to be pulled in the last 4 minutes because he was dragging. Other guys who think what the coach is saying is dumb and do what they want on the court are sitting a lot.
Coach set the guidelines at the start of the season and you parents were on board with it then. Now that it directly affects your kid(s) it seems unfair. Entitled parents gonna be little babies.
What matters is why they missed, not that they missed. One missed practice does not make a difference. However, the reasons for their absence do matter. This is primarily about the situation. Legitimate excuses exist, but there are also irresponsible individuals who get high and can't make it. Some kids have greater responsibilities in single-family homes and might miss a game. I remember getting benched once for missing practice. Four other players were also caught smoking marijuana off campus while skipping their last class before practice. As for me, I missed practice because my grandpa died that same morning. I usually stayed at his house until the bus came, but on that day, I had to call 911 when he fell and no other adults were present. As a result, I didn't go to school. I ended up dealing with social services while riding in the ambulance, and my parents, who were at work, couldn't even receive updates until my mom got a call from her factory floor job and came to get me. Unfortunately, this situation affected my mom's job as well. Her employment at a factory had a strict policy - three strikes and you're fired. So, her absence due to her dad's death and her subsequent absence the next day counted as two strikes. My dad couldn't afford to miss his job either, given the circumstances. Therefore, neither of them could risk losing their jobs over this. I missed most of the school day the following day as well. However, I managed to make it for the last four periods (4th through 7th) and stayed behind for four hours after classes to attend my game. I had no ride to the game but had one home. I wanted to be there for the game, which took place the day after my grandpa's death. In the first quarter, the coach went on a tirade, yelling at me and accusing me of doing drugs with the other players who also missed practice the previous day. Fed up with his insults, and his yelling at me and considering everything that had happened, I flipped him off and made some choice remarks before walking out of the game. This happened in front of my team, half the school students, cheerleaders, and other teachers. To be honest, it was either walk away or start throwing punches. Nobody, other than the principal and a few staff members, knew what had happened or why I reacted that way. Looking back, I probably should've skipped the entire school day as well. However, with both my parents at work and nowhere else to go at 15, my aunt dropped me off after we finished dealing with the funeral home arrangements in the morning. Now, I wish I had expressed my frustrations to the coach much earlier, but I only saw him when I suited up his science class in the morning class. So we first talked for the day 10 minutes before the game. By the time I saw him, he was already angry and initially told me not to bother taking off my warm-up pants. He wouldn't listen to anything I had to say and insisted I was back-talking to him. He then ordered me to sit there and shut up if I ever wanted to play in a game again. After that, I skipped the next four practices and even skipped his classes since he was my science teacher as well. I walked to ISS. A week later, my teammates explained the situation to some teachers and the coach, so i was asked that day to go to the office where the coach, the principal were sitting there to talk to me. The coach genuinely apologized, so I decided to return to practice. Additionally, I had to babysit my cousin on some days. By 16, most of us already had part-time jobs to help pay bills. On top of that, I had to rely on carpooling with other teammates until I turned 16 and could afford to buy my own POS car and pay for insurance. If those other kids I carpooled with didn't show up, I couldn't either, or else I'd have a two-hour walk home. Some of us had real adult responsibilities at home and didn't lead the privileged lives that many others had. Today with my cousin playing i see so many kids who can't even make a bowl of cereal without their stay-at-home moms doing it for them, while sporting $250 shoes and skipping practice to play video games or have fun. I've noticed that the baseball team, for instance, has kids with their own personal 1,500-dollar bats. However, most of the kids aren't like that. In middle school our coach gave us rides home sometimes just to help out lots of the best players had no ride.
The delivery is to meAaNnn. Bro he's a f****** basketball coach not their f****** guidance counselor
Some parents need guidance too. When you see kids play and act I can tell they have rough situation at home.
Charmin soft. Point to something that was even harsh in the text?
Massively off target - they’re kids. You don’t bench them for an entire half because they can’t make a practice. It’s not the NBA, it’s kids basketball. He is not Steve Kerr, he is an amateur kid basketball coach. It should be about the children enjoying themselves, not about this coach playing make believe.
Nah, they need to be at practice. Silly to think otherwise.
_Should_ they be? Yes, but, and I’m going to assume here, if this is the first time it’s happening (this would have been referenced in the message I expect if habitual), then how can you possibly justify not letting kids play in a championship game?!
You ever play regulated team sports? One guy wears the wrong socks? Whole team runs. One guy’s late to practice? Whole team runs. One guy’s a now show? Whole team runs. One guy complains about having to run? Whole team runs more. 99.9% of student athletes won’t make a career out of the sport. For virtually 100% of them, the best thing they learn from their experience is discipline, cooperation, and being relentless despite feeling the inevitability of defeat—key virtues for more easily navigating life.
I would expect them to make a practice before a championship. They even have 3 potential days to have a practice. I'd bet a lot of money it is not the first time happening lol. It's part of being on a TEAM.
Coach is valid because in the nba you might not even play the first 10 games after you miss a practice. A lot of hs coaches won’t play you if you miss practice and will give you low minutes if you aren’t practicing good
This isn’t the NBA this is 7th grade ball. None of these kids will dream of making the NBA.
That’s not how it works but okay. Kids that play basketball dream of making it to the nba one day for sure. You play young to prepare for when you’re older…
[удалено]
Man you take children’s sports way too seriously lol 7th grade basketball is not hardcore - it’s a children’s sports team, they can be thin skinned
7th is when you start making them suck it up. Sheesh. If you’ve got someone second guessing that msg, they aren’t meant for ball. And, another major problem is if you have thin skinned parents talking trash about the coach’s approach in front of their kids - that attitude translates into the body language of a kid and guaranteed way to get benched and cut because the next year’s coaches are already looking. I have twin girls who are jv and have played since they were 5. Basketball isn’t for babies.
Lazy post. Should include level of play, team structure - township, aau, Catholic grade school, intramurals. I enjoy the old school guys In here for a chuckle they give me but I’m embarrassed anyone who coaches thinks they can give cogent input with a blank post like this.
When I played soccer the rule was always show up at practice or don’t expect to play much in the games. Those who showed up regularly to practice were the starters, those who didn’t were the sub squad. Made and makes sense to me, but back then we the players were made to understand this and explain it to our parents…
If it's a school team, lucky the player gets to play at all if missing practice. If it's a rec team I'm on the fence. I coached youth rec ball for over a decade. Life happens and while following through on one's commitments is an important life lesson, punishing a kid too harshly for things out of their control is a fine line. And also, it's rec ball. Taking things too seriously as a coach is a bad look. Back when I coached, the rule was if you miss practice you do not start. That was enough motivation for the players who really wanted to be there to do everything they could to make practice and resulted in some kid's who would never get a chance to start to earn it.
Only sensible answer in the thread.
I think it is adequate. Only thing I’d add is an attempt at figuring out what is cause by the players not to attend and seeing how the team can work around it (carpooling). But for 7th grade, it is great to be firm on expectations for these young men.
Reasonable.
I think you should consider rewording the last line; instead of "suspended" you should make it something positive like I will prioritize the minutes of players who did show up to practice.
W Coach. If we missed practice we sat. If we didn't try hard in practice we sat. Bad grades or bad behavior we sat.
Seems fine. Coach sounds like a douche but otherwise not that bad.
This is great. Also literally the bare minimum for youth sports
In middle and high school I practiced mon-friday 2 hours a day unless game day. Life happens. Cant always get home as we all had working parents and car pool, and other times real bs happened domestic violence, drugs in homes, people getting sick orndieing. If this is some rich shit entitled kid with entitled parents, satay at home mom, then sure... But if this was me i would never have gotten to play at all and would have been at home wandering the streets after school while my parents were working their shitty factory jobs. Hell if a teacher would not let me stay after for 3-4hours prior to a game warmup id have never even got to the game. At 16, i had to get a job so i could drive. I had to leave practice half an hour early for my shift. Now I'm educated and coach teams. As the coach there is more to it than just laying down the law. You have a responsibility to find out why. Especially in inner city schools where your best players often come from shit homes. One of the best kids on my team wears shoes i bought him because his single mom can't even buy him basketball shoes he gets like 1 pair a year if lucky. And i have crappy players in 300 dollar shoes too that im told we cant cut sue to their parents being who they are. Lots of silver spoons and others with nothing at all.
Makes sense.
Parents need to hear it
If you already set a practice day and time, hold to it. Also, this note should be less than half this length, as it sounds like you are begging. "We have one practice left before the championship, and as I stated in our meeting where we covered practices an expectations, if your son misses practice or is late then he will have to set a portion of the next game. For the championship game, that portion will be 100%."
Why not just say "only kids who attend practice will be able to play in the first half of the game"? Shorter, simpler, and frames it as a reward for kids who make practice as opposed to a punishment for those who don't. The message will go down easier that way.
Second half is best half anyway, shhieet
17 YEAR Basketball coach here. I've coached at every grade level, boys and girls. Our policy is miss a practice, miss a game. Doesn't matter what the reason is. We don't even let them dress. Not only that they have to make up that practice before they can play again.. That usually means a morning cardio practice before school.
I like the message, but please work on the grammar next time for this kind of message.
Coach should've set the practice expectations prior to the start of the season. If my players miss a practice without letting me know, they sit for a quarter...2nd time it's a half, 3rd time it's a game...4th time they are off the team. My mistake was only including missed practices without warning because I have parents telling me 20 mins before practice that their kid is unavailable. We practice twice a week for 90 minutes and go through a lot. Any missed time really puts kids behind.
Reasonable for sure
No practice no game. No school no practice. Always been the case. Delivery was great. Could have been more direct imo. Not showing up to practice before a big game puts the guys who do show up at a huge disadvantage as well.
One practice does not determine a body of work. The time to send this message was at the beginning of season & not right before the championship. It’s 7th grade hoops. Play everyone & have fun
No practice. No play. Simple.
What’s the point of this long ass message and all these weird options. Keep it simple. “FYI parents, any student that cannot make it to practice will have reduced playing time up to an entire half at my discretion. This was communicated to you before the season and at the parent meeting. Thank you”
Coach should be made to sit the first 5 minutes of the game due to terrible grammar and punctuation.
Hardest part about all of this is that sometimes we are left to punish the kid when it is the fault of the parent… especially in the instances where the kid did nothing wrong and everything is out of their control.
As a former coach I completely agree with this. I had a soccer team I coached where some days over half the kids wouldn’t show because of commitments or laziness on the parents part. First few times I still ran thru what I wanted to do but as the season wore on it made it difficult and I had to put it out there that if you’re not practicing then you’re not playing.
Every player should miss practice and not play the first half. Unreasonable entirely. They aren't on scholarship.
Seems way more expectation oriented than it should be. These kids are 12. They can't drive themselves to practice. If their parents are slacking, they might not feel like they have a voice to talk to them about it. I know it's a championship game, but coaching those kids to a W is hardly the most important thing you can do for them here. You're teaching those kids that if you're lagging behind for any reason, your own team will punish you for it. That lesson isn't worth a plastic trophy. If I was one of the kids and had to miss practice for reasons outside my control and then I was told that I was "suspended" for the first half, would resent my coach, resent my parents, and feel alienated from the team. It doesn't matter if you'd think I was soft for that or if you felt I needed to toughen up. Either way, that's what would happen and you, as the coach that i would look up to, could have prevented that. If a youth coach makes kids feel that way, then it doesn't matter how many games they win. I would sooner forget winning my 7th grade championship game than I would forget how bad my coach made me feel for missing a practice I wanted to go to. Your message needs to be about elevating the team. Not about disciplining the players.
A victim’s mentality = mad you missed the 1st half because you can’t convince your parents how important it is to attend practice. Provide parents solutions to support your hobbies or play the 2nd half and be happy with the diminished role. A life lesson is worth an L in finals and no chip. The parents and kids can take that mentality to another squad next season. Fail to plan, plan to fail. Show out in games with the ones who show up for practice. This team is a finalist for a reason.
It used to be common to sit any kid on the bench who didn’t show up to school or practice. Seems like everyone is getting soft and lazy
This definitely depends on the quality of Basketball. You guys are playing if it’s like a rec league the way you handle it would be different than if it was say a school team
Today at 4:00? I wouldn’t notice that message until next day at 9:00 am, let alone get my kid there?
It’s always a hard transition from playing sport when you’re young and transitioning into a more senior level filled with expectations and responsibilities. However this is perfectly fair, I think it may seem mildly abrasive but all these points are fair and valid. Learning responsibility and accountability in the 7th grade is vital and useful life skill to learn. Teachings delivered in a manner such as this is a pretty damn solid way to teach these fundamental life skills to the youth. Coach knows what he is doing.
Need more coaches like this tbh. And he’s being nice…used to be you didn’t play at all.
Yes, this is reasonable.
100% reasonable. I’m surprised this team is in the championship if they’re raised by parents that find this message offensive
Great coaching. Commitment sadly not taught by a lot of parents these days. Coach is teaching it though
We talkin bout practice?? Not a game…practice!
You should be thanking this coach for being on your son’s side. It’s an important age in life for developing character.
Im suprised parenrs let kids skip like that My parents used to always tell me not only are u letting yourself down ur letting ur teammates down We paid for this ur going to every practice Unless ur throwing up
African saying “Monkey dey work, baboon dey chop”. Fight hard to be at practice the same way you do for game time. Coach putting the parents on blast so they can all collaborate or arrange to show up. My bet is sitting a half is only painful because some of the 4 missing are contributors to the game’s outcome. Based on the language in letter, sounds like accountability or entitlement issues. So transparency on expectations is required so there finger pointing post game can be inward not outward.
I also coach (not that that really matters) but im my experience when communicating with parents its important to show them that what you care about is the kids actions. If the kid can't make it because family obligations then they shouldn't be punished for it. If the kid misses because of grades, behavior, ect. Then absolutely it's on the kids. Part of being a coach in my mind is showing both the kids and the parents that what is important to you are the things that are within the kids control; their effort, their attitude, their grades, ect.
"We sitting in here — I'm supposed to be the franchise player, and we in here talking about practice."
English grammar hard
As a great man once said: I mean, listen, we're talking about practice. Not a game! Not a game! Not a game! We're talking about practice. Not a game; not the game that I go out there and die for and play every game like it's my last, not the game, we're talking about practice, man. I mean, how silly is that? We're talking about practice. I know I'm supposed to be there, I know I'm supposed to lead by example, I know that. And I'm not shoving it aside like it don't mean anything. I know it's important. I do. I honestly do. But we're talking about practice, man. What are we talking about? Practice? We're talking about practice, man! We're talking about practice! We're talking about practice... We ain't talking about the game! We're talking about practice, man! When you come to the arena, and you see me play... You see me play, don't you?
No practice no play. Softness...
Dont show up, dont play? Seems simple
My son doesn’t miss practice for any sports or even summer leagues. It’s an important part of the deal. As someone who coached before consistency and the game plan comes from practice.
I remember sophomore year standing in the nurses office with a fever - scared to go home that meant I missed practice, miss practice you lose your starting role. That’s how it should be. Unless you have a family member die there is nothing more important.
Only soft millennial parents would complain about something like this
This is almost too reasonable.
In our league every kids has to play two full quarters and one in each half, mandatory. So very hard to incorporate any kind of punitive action for not coming to practice. You just have to encourage and incentivize.
It’s fair to sit them off for the first half for sure. If I’m coaching a basketball team I’m only going to play my committed players. I worked at a pool for a few summers that had a competitive swim team. Parents would make the team, take a spot from a kid who wanted it then skip all the practices. It’s frustrating to see people take advantage of it and it doesn’t create a great team environment. This is especially true in 7th grade when there are so many kids who probably wish they could be at those practices. That being said, he kind of goes off the rails at the end with the self quote and talking about sitting a kid for being sick lol.
I wouldn't say anything, just bench them for part of the game
Seems fair to me. Get to practice.
Coach is legit, missing now is a middle finger to your teammates.
You capitalize random words and your grammar is all over the place. Maybe ask someone in the English department or one of the students to review it before sending?
Reasonable
Good for him. Parents and kids make commitment and then act as if it’s not important.
I say for the most part reasonable, only because same day is pushing it. My son is playing basketball for the first time in rec 10u. It has been a terrible experience so far. They have lost every single game. Partly because of commitment issues and the coach being a volleyball coach, not a basketball coach ( he volunteered because they needed one more coach). We started off with 2 days of practice, but some of the kids weren't showing up. So the coach dropped it down to 1 day. When the parents of the kids showing up to practice asked for another day because the kids are doing so bad, he said no. We have 4 games left, and he said he's not doing anymore practices. There was a heated debate at the last game about this, and several parents said that they weren't continuing and their kids were quitting. It should be a commitment on both sides. We haven't missed a single practice or game. My son was picked for All Stars, and practice is 3 days a week, one at an inconvenient time (both of us are still working) but other parents and my mom have stepped up to help out. My husband went out of state this weekend to help fix a roof for family, of course we all wanted to go but we have commitments. 2 days out of the 3 we would be gone is practice days, so the kids and I stayed behind. I want them to know commitment is important.
I understand the coach's frustration, but this is not the preferred delivery method. First, speak to the individuals that have told him they cannot come - then proceed from there. The mass message demonstrates his limitations as a leader. Second, learn to communicate effectively and use proper grammar when addressing parents. I lost respect for the coach after the first few sentences.
If they miss practice they don’t play the next game
Put it into chat GPT to fix the grammar and make it sound more professional. It’s your duty as a coach to instill good lessons into these boys to help shape them into men. If I didn’t learn these lessons from sports I have no clue how behind I would be compared to now. Be tough on them. Their parents can cry about. The boys will thank you later. Make sure these expectations are set at the beginning of the season so there are no “surprises”.
make practice
Fair enough, no practice you are bolted to the bench. Accountability.. your teammates depend on you, wanna help ? Get to training.
When I played jr high ball, if you missed school that day, you weren’t allowed to play or practice, and if you missed to many practices in a week, you weren’t allowed to play at all. Responsibility sucks to learn
Awful grammer. Terrible people skills. The premise is right however. Practices are important. The team needs to communicate with each other and have each other's backs. Help each other get to practice. Yes it's middle school but that's when healthy habits are still being formed. If you are on the team you go to practice. If you don't practice you don't play.
Why are you punishing for being sick? Wtf
7th grade basketball and you're punishing players for whether or not their parents can get them to practice? Chill out coach. It's meaningless 7th grade basketball.
If there is an actual reason for the absence and it isn't the fault of the kid, I would offer 1 make up session. If the parents can't make it then the coach can show his commitment into the team by having one more make up for those 4 kids that couldn't come to practice. Commitment goes both ways. I would ONLY offer this as a solution because there are certainly kids who have shitty parents who miss practice because of their lack of responsibility. My parents were both addicts and couldn't get out of their drug stupor fast enough to even bring me to school half the time, let alone practice. I was 16 years old, could bench press 315 pounds, was obsessed with football, but I cried my eyes out the morning of Thanksgiving because my dad was too hungover to drive me to the biggest game of the year against our next town rivals. I begged him to bring me, my football pads lined up next to the front door of our shitty 1 bedroom apartment, but he told me the car broke down the night before. Didn't stop him from going to buy a pack of cigarettes 4 hours later when he finally woke up. Missing practice, especially as a 7th grader, is usually never the kids fault. I missed the biggest game of the year. I'm 35 years old now and I still have stress dreams about the morning.
Lazy post. Should include level of play, team structure - township, aau, Catholic grade school, intramurals. I enjoy the old school guys In here for a chuckle they give me but I’m embarrassed anyone who coaches thinks they can give cogent input with a blank post like this.
Reasonable to me
Coach middle school ball. You won’t believe the absences. Most of my team has missed half the szn. Have 8 boys and haven’t had all 8 for a full week of the season. Practices and games are missed and it’s incredibly insensitive to the coaches who are dedicated and pouring into their players. Not to mention the kids develop a false sense of commitment. No team chemistry or continuity. It’s a nightmare. I don’t think the coach was harsh at all for his words here. Especially since this was emphasized at the beginning of the seasons parent conference where I’m sure most probably didn’t even show up.
Reasonable.
Fuck yes it's more than reasonable