Coaches Coach, Players Play, Parents Cheer

Coaches Coach, Players Play, Parents Cheer. The mantra should be simple. Should be. But emotions get involved. And it often falls apart with the parents. I’m not saying coaches don’t have flaws, but the main issue in youth sports today is the parents. For the record, I am guilty of letting emotions derail my good intentions, as many parents do. I have made every classic mistake as a sports parent. Over time, through countless experiences and interactions, I’ve come back to this simple mantra again and again. 

Coaches coach. Players Play. Parents Cheer.

I am the father of three boys who all played competitive sports through high school, and one is still playing in college. As a self-professed sports nut who played D3 soccer in college, my competitive nature didn’t magically disappear when I graduated. That is true for most people. We love competing so we continue playing in adult leagues. Whether it’s soccer, baseball, softball, basketball, etc. we keep playing. It keeps us active, healthy and provides us an outlet for our competitive nature.

As a young father, I transferred my competitive nature into my son’s sports. That is the original sin. And it is SOOOO hard to avoid. As my boys grew up, I was growing up with them. And there was a moment when I realized where I went wrong and was making their sports about me and not about them. Specifically with my oldest. That hurt. When you come to this realization it isn’t pretty.

Bottom line is it isn’t us playing anymore, it is our kids. We need to allow them to experience it without us getting in the way. Because they will act according to how we act. If they see us overreact, get upset and blame others, that is what they will do. That is not healthy. If we let them play without trying to influence it, they will grow to love the sport and the competition on their own. Or won’t. And that’s okay.

We need to let the players play. If we make it work for them instead of play, it ruins the whole thing. When we were kids, we played because we LOVED the game and the competition.

As you can imagine, I was very involved as a coach. Between coaching and being a parent for a sport that I had no experience in (Ice Hockey), I really started to think through the mantra of Coaches Coach, Players Play, Parents Cheer. The contrast of experiencing what is said in the stands about coaching and coaches compared to my experience of what ACTUALLY happens on the sidelines is when this mantra came to me.

As a coach on the sidelines, you are 100% focused on managing the game. Because Coaches Coach. That is what we do. At the very young levels, you make sure all kids play the same amount, and in the contact sports, you worry about safety. But you don’t want to put a kid with less ability in a position to get hurt. There is a balance as a coach. It is hard for parents to believe their kid may be one with less ability, so this is a delicate situation. Add in a parent coach and you also have the issue of daddy ball which is a separate topic unto itself. I will only say that the kids of a coach have it objectively worse than those who aren’t because we demand more of them to avoid the daddy ball label.

As I am now watching as just a parent, I see the emotions from the parents NOT on the sideline or bench, and I see MY emotions. I have embarrassed myself more times than I can count in a hockey rink yelling at refs. I am not proud of that. Even after everything I've been through, I still get caught up in the emotions of the game. Let me state for the record, I understand that, and I am not saying anyone should be emotionless at these games. But there needs to be perspective.

Yes, you should be invested in the game. Yes, you should be excited or upset when something happens in the game. You have watched your child, and many times your child’s friends, invest time and effort in something, and you want to see them succeed. I get all of that and support all of it – even getting upset at an incorrect call (Just don’t get thrown out of the rink because you couldn’t stop yourself). A great rule of thumb a friend relayed to me on this is to stop after the first sentence. Once you start a second sentence about a ref, nothing good happens. It’s usually the follow up sentence(s) that causes problems.

The things that impacted me while I was on the sideline were the complaints about the coaches and playing time. The conspiracy theories. I used to tell other parents, “I can promise you that those coaches are not on the bench conspiring on how to screw your kid. They are trying to decide what strategy to use to win the game.” I couldn’t believe I had to say it. All my years of coaching and never had there been a thought on how we could keep a kid out of the game. Is this what parents really think??

That is when I started having conversations about how Coaches Coach, Players Play and Parents Cheer.

I know it’s upsetting when your kid isn’t getting the playing time you think they should. I’ve been through that. It isn’t easy. When your kids are younger, you can certainly ask for a respectful conversation with the coach about where your kid stands and what he/she can do to earn more playing time. As our kids get older, we absolutely need to give our kids the confidence and the tools to have that conversation on their own. But to best serve our kids we need to allow them to participate only if they want to, not because of any pressure or emotions we are placing on them. So Coaches Coach, Players Play, Parents Cheer is a simple thought for how to better handle the emotions of youth sports as a parent.