This was distributed as part of an email prior to the start of our playoffs, Max:

"4.      League Rules and Playing Time. The spirit of the league is that, within reason, each player should get a reasonable amount of playing time, assuming good attendance at practice, attentiveness to coach’s instructions, good behavior, etc. We know this can be difficult during the heat of playoff games, but please do your best to follow this guideline. Reasonable does not have to be equal, but it does mean that you cannot leave your best players on the floor throughout the game as you rotate in substitutes. We have seen some games this season in which teams were short 1-2 players and left their top players in for most or all of the game. Your best players need to come out of the game."

The guy whose team we played on Monday must have not gotten this message, because his point guard played 38 of 40 minutes ...

Max wrote:

Those guidelines sound very much like ours, with one further clarification that it is made explicit that some 6th grade girls already have several years of experience in Swish and ACES, while others have never played B-ball (my daughter). 

The coaches daughter is on the team and she already looks and plays like a pro at 11 years old.  She played for about 1/2 of the second half, during which time she probably had 10 steals and 20+ points.  The 40-6 problem was caused because, as mentioned, 6-8 of our team would qualify as 'the best player' on the other team.  None of those 6-8 played more than about 25% of the total time.  The team is so large that it is divided into two teams, with one taking the first half and the other taking the second half, and in all practices they learn to scrimmage against each other.  So far so good.  It looks like it is the occasional parent who will be the problem, if there is one.

Were these teams from different towns, or the same town?

Max wrote:

Both are from rural areas outside the "town" of 9000.  A five minute drive separates them.

So I'm reading the organizers loaded up one team and shorted the other? Good for your daughter. Bad for the 11-12 kids on the other team who will probably give up the sport for life because they played on a team that lost, 40-6.
Our in-town basketball league has 10 teams of fifth and sixth graders. The board of directors chooses the rosters. The league also sponsors two travel teams, which each have 12 players - presumably the best from each grade. Eight teams get three travel kids, the other two get two travel kids. I'm one of the coaches who has only two travel kids, but they're both sixth graders. My concession is I have another sixth grader who is about 5'8" and probably would have made the travel team but opted not to try out because he also plays hockey.
So in theory, everyone starts out on the same plane, right? Wrong. The board reserves the Celtics (all our teams are named after NBA teams, and a team in a town 13 miles from Boston Garden called the Celtics *has* to be good, right?) for their own kids and, in one instance, grandkid. All their sixth graders played on the undefeated 6th grade football team from the fall, and of their five fifth graders, four are among the best half-dozen athletes in the grade. The 10th-best player on the Celtics is better than the fourth-best player on my team.
It's still a better system than what we have in youth baseball, which involves a draft that results in the most harrowing three hours of the entire year. My wife has for years encouraged me to write a book about my coaching experiences, but I'm not sure there's a publisher who will accept a tome entitled "Youth Sports Are A Breeding Ground For Assholes" from a first-time author.

forsberg_us wrote:

Max, I hate to burst your bubble, but if you think youth sports are about team work and sportsmanship, you're in for (or have probably already experienced) a rather rude awakening.

Most parents are convinced that their kid is the next Albert Pujols/Peyton Manning/LeBron James, etc...  Also, many of the parents are trying to live out their own athletic failings through their children.  It's pathetic, but you may as well be aware of the realities.

I presume this is common knowledge at this point. I've only ever seen one parent rein himself in, and I'm still not sure how it happened. About 15 years ago, when I was covering HS baseball regularly for the paper, there were about a half-dozen good prospects all going into their senior year. One kid went to Wake Forest, another went to Georgia Tech, two others were drafted by the Dodgers, one went to South Alabama, one went to Maine (which had a good baseball program at the time) and the best of the bunch went to Boston College, and eventually got as high as Triple A with the Giants.
So there were college and pro scouts at almost every game, and this one dad thought they were all there to see his kid, who was an above average high school catcher, but nothing particularly special. Every time I saw him, dad would start the conversation with "The Phillies are interested ..." or "Florida State might offer a scholarship ..." or something else equally implausible. I'd just nod my head.
I'm not sure what happened to wake the guy up, but I saw the dad the following fall and he told me the kid was "hoping to make the team" at Tufts, which is a terrific school if you want to be a veterinarian or a dentist, but it's not known as being a pipeline to the major leagues.

Max wrote:

To clarify, this is 6th grade basketball, as in public school extracurricular activity.  Whoever signs up for basketball makes the team.  The public school league contrasts with the local youth leagues (I think they are called "Swish" and "ACES" here).  As far as I know, the youth leagues play to win, the school league has the motto of playing for athletics, and so far that's the case.  It's just that my daughter's K-8 walloped the neighboring K-8.  Why our school has about two teams worth of talented 11-12 year olds and the other team has maybe 2-3 players who are OK, I dunno.  But so far, so good.  the only blight thus far was the dad from our team on the second night of practice yelling instructions to his daughter that included derogatory comments about the girl guarding his daughter--both girls on the same team.  Go figure.

Our setup is pretty similar, Max. The travel teams play to win, and the intra-town league is more for development. Of course, now that we're into the playoffs, emotions take over a little more. I just got off the phone with a guy who coached the team that finished in second place but lost his first round playoff game, mostly because the coach of the other team had his best five on the floor for about 35 of 40 minutes, and my buddy used his usual rotation.
I don't care if we get our brains beat in next Monday, I'm playing all 11 of my kids roughly the same amount of minutes. At least I'll be able to sleep at night.

Max wrote:

This here is like if K-8's had baseball teams, and we were comparing Little League for 11-12 year olds and the K-8's baseball team.  Some of the players are the same, but there is no connection, official or unofficial between the two.  Basically everything's changed since I was kid.  The only private sports leagues for kids were for baseball.  There was Little League, and something like a VFW league (VHF?).  Nowadays, it seems that for many sports the private leagues are considered more important a child's competitive development, say, if they want to play sports in college.  This seems to be true for soccer, volleyball, and a possibly others.  It's only now that I realize how the other kids have greatly surpassed mine in terms of athleticism.  My girls don't have an ounce of fat on them, but they don't have much muscle, either.  Some of these 6th grade girls are already pretty ripped from endless soccer, swimming, basketball, etc.

We were lucky enough to live near an elementary school with a janitor who let us use the gym after school, and we played basketball almost every afternoon. As soon as the weather got warm, we took everything outside and played baseball. On a Saturday, we'd start in the morning and play until the streetlights came on, which was everyone's signal to go home for dinner.
Everything has changed since we were kids. We've conditioned this generation to think that if an activity doesn't have uniforms, officials and five coaches per team, it's not worth doing. I get sad when I drive past the playground in our town on a warm summer day and see all four baseball diamonds empty, except for maybe someone playing fetch with their dog.
Of course, there are other issues these days. The kindly janitor who left the door open for us would probably get sued if some kid broke his leg playing pickup basketball, and the 30-something guy who would just happen to show up to watch a bunch of pre-teen boys playing baseball would probably have his mugshot on the wall of the police station as a level 3 sex offender.

"The thing I find shocking is how many parents encourage their kids to choose one sport so early.  Growing up, we were always involved in whatever was appropriate for the season (football, basketball or baseball).  I've tried to stress to the kids to try as many sports as interest them.  Just this weekend they both learned that the local CYC program has a track team and they want to try that because they're both pretty fast.  I'd much rather they try different things, have fun and figure out what they like/don't like than try to pigeon-hole a 10 year old into a single activity.  By the time he's 15 (and the parents have spent thousands of dollars), the kid might hate that sport.  Then what?"

This happened to one of my friends. His daughter was something like a level 9 gymnast when she was 12 or 13 (I think level 10 is pre-Olympic level) and they were talking about sending her to Beijing. By the time she was 15, she had gone from waif to waitress butt, and started suffering from stress fractures from all the pounding her legs had to endure. As most gymnasts who suddenly gain 30 pounds of saddlebags do, she tried diving, hated it, ended up as a high school cheerleader, and then went to one of those football factory schools in the deep south. She lasted a year, I guess, because the last time I talked to my buddy, he really didn't want to discuss what she was doing.

forsberg_us wrote:

Max wrote:

This here is like if K-8's had baseball teams, and we were comparing Little League for 11-12 year olds and the K-8's baseball team.  Some of the players are the same, but there is no connection, official or unofficial between the two.  Basically everything's changed since I was kid.  The only private sports leagues for kids were for baseball.  There was Little League, and something like a VFW league (VHF?).  Nowadays, it seems that for many sports the private leagues are considered more important a child's competitive development, say, if they want to play sports in college.  This seems to be true for soccer, volleyball, and a possibly others.  It's only now that I realize how the other kids have greatly surpassed mine in terms of athleticism.  My girls don't have an ounce of fat on them, but they don't have much muscle, either.  Some of these 6th grade girls are already pretty ripped from endless soccer, swimming, basketball, etc.

Max, if you are just entering into this world, it's much worse than you can imagine.

My son (5th grade) plays three sports--baseball, football and basketball.  Quite a few of the kids on his baseball team do nothing but play baseball year round.  The play in the spring/summer (the team Bobby plays on) and then play again in the fall (Bobby isn't on this team because he's playing football).  During the off-season, these kids participate in a variety of hitting and fielding clinics.

Some of the football programs are the same way.  I know that some of the teams in our division require kids to participate in off-season training programs and get together to practice and work on plays.  Come spring, a lot of the teams join flag football leagues so they can continue to work.  In addition, there are a variety of camps and clinics that kids can attend.

I know a lot less about basketball, but there isn't any reason to doubt that there are year round activities for basketball as well.

My daughter (2nd grade) plays softball and basketball and does gymnastics year round.  The gymnastics involves two 1 1/2 hour practices each week.  They wanted to move her up to a more competitive (and more expensive) program that involved three 2 hour practices each week, but we said "no." 

The thing I find shocking is how many parents encourage their kids to choose one sport so early.  Growing up, we were always involved in whatever was appropriate for the season (football, basketball or baseball).  I've tried to stress to the kids to try as many sports as interest them.  Just this weekend they both learned that the local CYC program has a track team and they want to try that because they're both pretty fast.  I'd much rather they try different things, have fun and figure out what they like/don't like than try to pigeon-hole a 10 year old into a single activity.  By the time he's 15 (and the parents have spent thousands of dollars), the kid might hate that sport.  Then what?

. . . Todd Marinovich!

artie_fufkin wrote:

"The thing I find shocking is how many parents encourage their kids to choose one sport so early.  Growing up, we were always involved in whatever was appropriate for the season (football, basketball or baseball).  I've tried to stress to the kids to try as many sports as interest them.  Just this weekend they both learned that the local CYC program has a track team and they want to try that because they're both pretty fast.  I'd much rather they try different things, have fun and figure out what they like/don't like than try to pigeon-hole a 10 year old into a single activity.  By the time he's 15 (and the parents have spent thousands of dollars), the kid might hate that sport.  Then what?"

This happened to one of my friends. His daughter was something like a level 9 gymnast when she was 12 or 13 (I think level 10 is pre-Olympic level) and they were talking about sending her to Beijing. By the time she was 15, she had gone from waif to waitress butt, and started suffering from stress fractures from all the pounding her legs had to endure. As most gymnasts who suddenly gain 30 pounds of saddlebags do, she tried diving, hated it, ended up as a high school cheerleader, and then went to one of those football factory schools in the deep south. She lasted a year, I guess, because the last time I talked to my buddy, he really didn't want to discuss what she was doing.

or "who"?

forsberg_us wrote:

One of the attorneys I work with has a kid who was an aspiring catcher. He played baseball year round, attended clinics when the weather didn't permit games and even went so far as to spend $100 an hour for several hours of one-on-one training with Mike Matheny.

An attorney bills $450 per hour and poor Mike Matheny only gets a hundred bucks???  What is he a G*dd%mm charity?

Turns out the idea of playing college or pro ball was much more the dad's dream than it was the kid's. He ended up with a couple of scholarship offers from very low level schools and he turned them down for a school with an academic curriculum that interested him.

forsberg_us wrote:

I encourage Bob to play sports because I'd rather he do that than master Guitar Hero or whatever is the latest must-play video game. He's attended a few football camps (his favorite was last summer at Mizzou which was conducted by several Mizzou players) and he's had a little personalized football training. But I just received an email about the Spring Flag League and when I asked him if he was interested his response was that he thought he had enough to do since he wanted to try track.

And so he'll be running track.

You just gave me an idea, which is turn the Berklee College of Music, Musician's Institute concept into a anti-Little League type thing.  Have the kids learning REAL guitar hero stuff, keyboards, drums, and vocals, dreaming of a full scholarship to Berklee.

artie_fufkin wrote:

Max wrote:

forsberg_us wrote:

One of the attorneys I work with has a kid who was an aspiring catcher. He played baseball year round, attended clinics when the weather didn't permit games and even went so far as to spend $100 an hour for several hours of one-on-one training with Mike Matheny.

An attorney bills $450 per hour and poor Mike Matheny only gets a hundred bucks???  What is he a G*dd%mm charity?

Turns out the idea of playing college or pro ball was much more the dad's dream than it was the kid's. He ended up with a couple of scholarship offers from very low level schools and he turned them down for a school with an academic curriculum that interested him.

forsberg_us wrote:

I encourage Bob to play sports because I'd rather he do that than master Guitar Hero or whatever is the latest must-play video game. He's attended a few football camps (his favorite was last summer at Mizzou which was conducted by several Mizzou players) and he's had a little personalized football training. But I just received an email about the Spring Flag League and when I asked him if he was interested his response was that he thought he had enough to do since he wanted to try track.

And so he'll be running track.

You just gave me an idea, which is turn the Berklee College of Music, Musician's Institute concept into a anti-Little League type thing.  Have the kids learning REAL guitar hero stuff, keyboards, drums, and vocals, dreaming of a full scholarship to Berklee.

Ever seen a Berklee student play baseball? Most of them throw like a girl.

Ever seen pictures of Jimmie Page before he became a rock star?  Not exactly a chick magnet.  But some REAL guitar hero skills can work wonders for one's sex appeal.

http://www.thespaghettiincident.com/2010_01_01_archive.html

Max wrote:

forsberg_us wrote:

One of the attorneys I work with has a kid who was an aspiring catcher. He played baseball year round, attended clinics when the weather didn't permit games and even went so far as to spend $100 an hour for several hours of one-on-one training with Mike Matheny.

An attorney bills $450 per hour and poor Mike Matheny only gets a hundred bucks???  What is he a G*dd%mm charity?

Maybe in your neck of the woods.  My rate isn't anywhere close to $450, and I damned sure don't see anywhere near $100 an hour out of it.