GG Galore: Ball Don't Lie
A mini-vent plus tons of interesting youth sports linkage!
Good Game is a 1-2x/week publication aimed at educating youth sports parents and coaches so they can best empower athletes.
Ah, another little vent in which it would be hypocritical not to mention that I too have been guilty. Because I need to be reminded of this stuff, too! It’s a bit of a delicate topic but here goes…
Your kid joins a new team. Or gets a new coach. Any sport. As youth sports professionalization, and subsequently, parental involvement has ramped up over the past few decades, so too has parental angling. We’re not talking fishing here!
Parental angling is simply when a parent preemptively tells a coach how great their child is and/or butters up a coach in hopes that it will positively impact their child’s playing time or positioning. It feels somewhat bitchy to write or even think but it’s increasingly commonplace. Why? Easy. This angling is a natural byproduct of a marketplace in which so many of us are doling out massive sums of money on youth sports clubs that market themselves as a red carpet to the next level. So yeah, we’re going to feel more invested in our kids getting opportunities. But that doesn’t mean it’s not super annoying to witness. Sometimes the coach courting can be so overt and cringe that it’s akin to vying for the first impression rose on The Bachelor.
A reminder that by interfering, we strip kids of the ability to advocate for themselves. We interfere with the coach-player relationship which can be sacred. We risk being a counterproductive force for our kids.
Of course there may be times to intervene if there is clear favoritism or a kid is too young or shy. There are a gazillion cases of biased or disengaged coaches and pay-to-play clubs making sure their members are getting some benefit. But there are more positive ways to approach this than others. For example:
❌ My child should be a power forward, why are you keeping her at center?
✔️ What would you recommend my daughter work on to help her reach her goal of becoming a power forward?
It can be challenging to sit back and task your kid with advocating for themselves or to subtly float a notion vs. shoving it down a coach’s throat.
But if a coach is truly qualified and neutral then no level of parent involvement is going to change the fact that ball don’t lie and the cream rises to the top. That qualified, neutral coach should also value effort, commitment, and leadership. Ultimately, it’s up to the kid to show the coach what they’ve got.
The best thing we can do is deeply research what we’re signing our kids up for and then let our kids figure it out. What is the philosophy? What skill set does that coach particularly covet? What is the vibe? What can I do to get more playing time?
Ideally, we’re just there to hang on the sidelines and show our kids how proud we are no matter what. Wouldn’t that be nice?
Now for some recent youth sports and commentary that caught my eye.
Three sister tribes met up in Colorado for the annual youth sports Ute Games. The games bring together youth from the Southern Ute Tribe, the Ute Mountain Ute and Ute Indian Tribes with the dual-purpose of promoting healthy activities and building unity and connection.
I really enjoyed this column titled, ‘Where Are All the Average Child Athletes?’ in Psychology Today about how we can support young athletes who are “bad” at sports. A lot of opportunities for empathy out there.
Speaking of mental health, here’s an incredible uplifting story about two struggling adult women who found sanctity and healing by re-enrolling in youth sports.
A well-researched piece by fellow Substacker Bill Coyne on the rise of injuries in young athletes - most notably, Tommy John surgery - and whether anything can be done to stop the bleeding.
14-year-old Cavan Sullivan became the youngest player to debut in any pro sports league in the United States when he took the field for the Philadelphia Union of the MLS
You know that thing I said at the start about deeply researching the youth sports situation you’re getting your kid into? Please always include a thorough Google search of the coach. You don’t want this guy or this one either. Yikes.
Finally, Nate Daniels with some truth serum to parents of young phenoms in a TikTok that went viral:
Tiktok failed to load.Enable 3rd party cookies or use another browser
Thank you for sharing, Melissa!