What level should your team play? Usually, teams have the option to play at various levels. Should you place them at the top level, “A”, or place them in the average level, “B”, or in a developmental level, “C”? Is it better to play at a higher level against better competition and probably lose every game? Will that increased competition make your players better? Would losing demoralize them? Is it better to stay down a level and totally dominate your opponents? Would winning every game make your players better? Does it give them a false sense of superiority?

Ideally, in a perfect world you want to play at a level where your team goes .500. That reflects that you are winning some and losing some. You’re in the right league! Hopefully the games are also closer and more competitive. If you have a higher winning percentage, then you might have been better served playing at a higher level, and vice-versa. So how do you decide which level to play?

1) What are your goals? Is it to instill a winning tradition? Is winning the most important thing to you and the players? Does winning give you a lot of self-esteem at the office? Get to brag to your co-workers and the boss? Then by all means “sandbag“ at a lower level.
But if your goals as a coach is to challenge your players in a competitive atmosphere, teach them many of life’s lessons, such as losing and handling adversity, then you might play at a more competitive level.

2) Check your ego at the door. Take a step back and take a realistic look at the talent of your players. Think of “lipstick on a pig”. Just because you have them playing at the “A” level doesn’t make them “A” level players.

3) Use your experience. If you’ve been coaching the same team for a year or two, go back and look at your record and decide if they are ready to move up. If you’ve dominated the “C” level with this group of players, obviously move them up. If you’ve struggled, check the ego and move them down. Look at your players. Have you gained or lost the better players?

4) See what the leagues dictate. Often, the leagues will dictate what level you play. If your town has 4 or more teams, then the top teams have to play at the “A” level. If your town has only 2 teams, that’s when you may decide which level.

Big picture, make sure that you realize that it’s THEIR experience, not yours. Make the decision that will enable them to be in the most competitive league where they will experience some victories and some losses. There’s nothing wrong with going .500 if you’re in the right league.

Another early season matchup between MIAA powers, Calvert Hall and St Pauls. Both these teams are in the same division and were 1-0 in conference play.
With game time temps hovering around 45 and a constant downpour, both teams struggled offensively. St Pauls slowly extended their lead and were able to hold off the CH Cardinals, 6-3. The APU Player of the Game was St Paul goalie Gunner Waldt.
Thanks again to Booker Corrigan for the play by play.

Here is the action from the first quarter. Kudda was late setting up as it was standing room only in the press box.

1st Quarter CH @ SP from Kudda on Vimeo.

Here is the action from the 2nd quarter

Calvert Hall @ St Pauls 2nd Q from Kudda on Vimeo.

Action from the 3rd quarter

Calvert Hall @ St Pauls 3rd Q from Kudda on Vimeo.

Action from the 4th

CH SP 4th Quarter from Kudda on Vimeo.

Many of the Spring season teams actually started to play games this past weekend. For those of us in the Mid-Atlantic region, this is nothing short of a miracle, especially if we remember what it was like one month ago… 50 inches of snow on the ground.

With the start of games, comes the start of the “Pre-game” speeches. What do you say to your teams to get them in the best possible mental state of mind? Do you go over situations? Do you yell and scream and get them excited? Do you try to give a Knute Rockne speech?  Or how about an amazing motivational speech like Gene Hackman in Hoosiers?

Unfortunately, what we see in youth sports are coaches who try to do too much before the game. We see coaches who feel that they have to give the “Hoosiers” speech every game. It might work once but gets old real fast. We often see coaches who want to go through all of the possible situations that their 9-10 basketball team may face. After a few minutes, probably even seconds, their team isn’t listening or they are simply overwhelmed with the amount of information as well as the amount of energy and excitement.

Here are some Kudda- proven guideleines to make your “pre-game” talks more productive.

• Players are excited, and coaches are excited. Coaches need to be calm. Take a few deep breathes to settle down before addressing the troops.

• Keep them short and simple

• Location, location, location. Make sure there is nothing behind you as you talk, nothing that would distract your team. Therefore, don’t stand in front of your bench and talk while the other team is warming up behind you. Have your team turned away from the field when you talk with them.

• Prepare what you will say. Write it down and stick with it. All too often coaches try to “wing it” and go all over the place. Then they get too excited… see number 1.

• Give them 1 or 2 thoughts to focus on. Hopefully these are 1-2 areas that have been emphasized during the week.

• Give them something specific to focus on. Something for their extremely short-term memory.  “First shot, BOX out!!” “First ground ball is OURS at all costs!!” “Everyone touches the ball before we attack the goal”.

• Reinforce their strengths. Too often coaches remind players of their weaknesses right before games which defeats the purpose of getting them mentally fired up.

• Save the great motivational speeches for that one key game/moment of the season. Prepare that speech, write it out ahead of time and practice it. What sounds good in the shower, or in your commutes, may not sound as inspirational out loud.

Many of you have contacted Kudda expressing outrage on the dirty hits exhibited by the Penn Charter player in a game last week. There has been much discussion on various forums and the general feeling is disgust. The Penn Charter coach, Pat McDonough, did not see the actual hits and is frustrated about the subsequent fallout. He has received emails calling his program “classless”. I know Pat personally as we taught together for several years and know the type of program that he runs up at PC. He’s a standup guy and a coach that wouldn’t tolerate this type of behavior. It wasn’t Kudda’s intent to smear his program but to bring to light the coaches’ responsibility to controlling his players. Kudda removed the videos from this blog as well as from Youtube as we wanted to take the heat off of Pat.

Kudda is hoping that disciplinary action is being taken up at PC against this player. They can not simply ignore what he did. The message needs to be sent that this type of thuggery has no place in HS sports.

Many of you have also questioned the referee’s role in controlling the players. This issue is being investigated by the referee association in the Baltimore area as a result of the video. How could the referees allow this player to remain playing after two devastating and illegal hits? Why didn’t they immediately eject the player? Again, the primary job of the referees is to make sure that the players are safe. (Then you deal with calling the games fairly)

In this situation, the referee’s failed in their primary mission. I also blame the coach for not removing the player. Coach McDonough may not have seen the actual hit, but seeing the aftermath, a player knocked unconscious might raise some questions on the sidelines…someone saw it on the PC sidelines. And after the 2^nd player went down? Doesn’t take a rocket scientist to figure it out.

The question still to be debated is, ”Is the coach still responsible if they don’t see the play?”

Kudda will stay on this story and as we get results back from PC and the referee association, we’ll be sharing them with our viewers.

I was recently at the AAHPERD convention in Indianapolis attending some of the youth coaching workshops and presentations. I went to the “10 Things Youth Coaches Should Know” presented by Rick Howard and Jay Coakley. They were able to combine research and their own experience to convey certain areas that coaches should be aware of, as well as parents!  For someone who has an extreme case of adult ADHD and the fact that this was the last lecture of the convention for me, I was totally focused on their presentation! Here is a sample of the “10 Things…”

Peak Performance Occurs after Maturation. This statement really emphasized the need for kids to multi-sport until the age of 15-16. They need sampling of various sports to see which ones they liked and were best suited for. Yet, unfortunately we still see 11-12 year olds playing one sport year round. Why? Players feel the pressure to only play one sport so that they can make the cut year to year. Parents support this as their social support group is typically the other parents on the team, and they don’t want to be cut from the group either. This brought u[p an interesting point that I had not considered. I always thought the parent’s pressure to focus on one sport was more based on the pursuit of college scholarship money. However, the other motive is purely selfish on the parent’s part: they need friends and will use their children’s sport’s experience to get them.

The Privatization of Youth Sports and the Impact on Economic Class. This sounds like a mouthful but very easy to understand. With Parks and Recreations being the first to get the ax during budget deficits, youths are dependent on private clubs and or leagues to join in order to play. The costs of these clubs prevent many poorer families and kids from participating. Therefore, the richer kids get better at sports while the poorer kids don’t get to play. And when you combine this with all of the studies with childhood obesity, poorer kids tend to be the obese ones.

Youth Sports are Gravitating Towards an Adult Sports Model. The Adult Model being one based on winning, more competition and little to no practice. The model we should be focused on is a Child Based Model where it’s all about Fun, and learning the Fundamentals. I wrote on the blog last year about the trend that kids are no longer fundamentally sound because they play too many games and don’t practice enough. I’m glad it wasn’t just my imagination, but am disappointed that this is the current trend in youth sports.

So as coaches and parents, what can we do? Is there anything we could do to offset/impact the Parks and Recs being closed? Not sure… However, we can support kids playing multiple sports, not putting pressure on kids to specialize and realize that it’s their experience, not ours. And of course, focus on the fundamentals while making it fun, kid-centered and hopefully, encouraging the kids to participate in a lifetime of physical activity.

There are several coaching adages out there that deal with the bench player. “You’re only as good as your weakest player”, probably rings true. Even though, most coaches focus on developing the starters’ talents and abilities rather than the non-starters. Several problems could arise from ignoring the bench players or treating them differently than the starters. One of the most devastating problems to a team’s chemistry is poor attitudes which like a cancer will spread and eventually kill the team. Usually the negative attitude starts with players who are not getting playing time or who don’t feel like a valued member of the team. If this attitude goes unchecked and the coach chooses to ignore this problem rather than addressing it, then other players will feed off of this negativity and the team’s cohesion and performance will suffer.
There are many different ways to get bench players to feel like valued parts of the team. It will take a conscientious effort on the part of the coach to take some steps, but this investment will reap larger returns through the season.
Here are several proven ways to handle the bench players

1) Define a role for each player and communicate that with the player. One of the most important qualities of a coach is to be honest with their communications with a player. Let the player know that they will be getting a few minutes every game and that their job is to play great defense against the other teams’ leading scorer. Or possibly their role is to possess the ball and get it to another scorer. Need to communicate with that player and honestly let them know what their contribution to the team will be.

2) During practices, call out their names. This lets them know that you’re recognizing their efforts…and that you know their name! People like to hear their name being called.

3) Whenever possible, use their efforts as positive examples. Point out during practices what the player is doing well to the rest of the team. This gives them the recognition and satisfaction of knowing that the coach is noticing them.

4) Focus your “awards” to areas that bench players can excel. Many coaches give out daily, weekly or seasonal awards for various qualities. Rather than recognizing the MVP or the All-League players (the starters), choose awards for Hustle, Unselfish play, Effort and Sacrifice to the team. Maybe you recognize Spirit, Sportsmanship and Dedication. Focus on these types of awards and in your presentations, give those players their much deserved recognition.

5) In any communication, game summaries, school paper stories etc… give recognition to some of the bench players for the roles that they have. Give recognition to them for working hard as the scout team and that’s why the team was so well prepared. Again, give them recognition.

We’ve included more ideas from our video series on handling coaches from Coach Mac. Locate the top scroll down bar next to Playlists and go to “Bench Players”

Handling the bench players:

• Takes a conscientious effort on the part of the coach
• Can help build great team chemistry
• Can make it a positive experience for all players, coaches and parents

As coaches begin their new season, they will be communicating their expectations to their parents and players. Often times, coaches will substitute or supplement their expectations with Team Rules. “Don’t do this… and Don’t do that…” Then the coach will spell out the consequences for violating the team rule. BIG MISTAKE!

Coaches, here is some friendly advice from the experts at Kudda.

When you spell out specific consequences to violations of specific team rules, you’re boxing yourself into a corner. What if your star player is 2 minutes late for practice? According to your Rules, he will not play in the next game. However, it appears that the player was late because his car broke down or the bus broke down. No what do you do? You’ve boxed your self into a corner with your RULES.

Unfortunately many coaches only relationship with their players is that as a Rules-enforcer. They will only talk with that player after that player has violated a rule. The entire coach-player relationship is predicated on rules. Not healthy.

Rather than spelling out specific rules and specific consequences, why not make positive statements? Explain what they SHOULD do.

• “Players WILL make good decisions in the best interest of the team”
• “Players WILL be positive citizens within the school community”

And if you feel the need to add consequences, make it simple

• “Failure to do so will be handled on a case by case basis”

You’ll still be able to handle the players in a consistent manner, which is very important, yet not be predicated to act based on a RULE.

Two thoughts to take with you;

1. Focus on developing a relationship based out of respect…not fear or enforcement of rules.
2. Avoid creating a set of consequences for violating rules.