Must feel real good

[Sum1]

Fast-Forward 10yrs to when some of those small-town kids own enough land in their own name to have a gratis tag every fall, then see who's whistlin' Dixie!

Nope. When Bernie gets in he’s gonna take half that land from the farm kid and give it to the baller.

 

[Kurtr]

Fast-Forward 10yrs to when some of those small-town kids own enough land in their own name to have a gratis tag every fall, then see who's whistlin' Dixie!

Not one of the kids on my small town team have parents that own land

 

[Coalburner]

Things change so much from year to year when kids are at that age. One year they lose everything but when maturity and size catch up they are a different athlete the next year. It kinda depends on how hard they work at it. This is especially true when comparing small town kids and large towns. Often times larger towns have better coaches at the younger ages and also have better and more oppurtunities to get into facilites. If kids stick it out through the hard times they learn and catch up to better competition. I tell my boys you haven’t lost until you quit. No one talks about how good they were in 5th grade.

 

[Mushballer]

Big V I couldn’t agree more with your assessment. I came from a small town and did not have the opportunities kids do today but somehow still managed to get my college paid for from ball and after college competed on one of the best amateur teams in the state. I struggled with putting my kids on traveling teams due to the burnout factor which is very real. I have watched kids in my sons grade drop like flies and when his senior season came all of the “studs” where no longer playing due to being burned out my son included. To have a chance at the bigger schools you have to get them in traveling ball at an early age or they get so far behind other kids they won’t make it so it’s damned if you do or damned if you don’t. I do not see this changing in the future only getting worse with kids specializing in one sport due to the amount of time needed to succeed.

 

[SDMF]

Not one of the kids on my small town team have parents that own land

The towns the fielded teams in the tourney in question are all significantly smaller than Mo-Town.

 

[SLE]

I'll throw my quick rant out on this subject. Travel BB is more about the parents and their winning complex than the kids from what I've seen. My kids play some travel ball and other various sports both for the school and outside of the school programs. The ridiculousness that I have seen pulled by teams to win is not only un-sportman like, but what are we teaching these kids, win at all costs? Teams will expose what refs aren't calling and and then start pushing and shoving (even though it's still against the rules) where they can, and this starts early in grade school. Where's the morality, sensibility, sportsmanship and decency that we are supposed to be teaching our kids? Not every team is like this but there are many. The other thing about travel BB is the fact that it's highly unregulated. I've seen "subs" play that aren't on the roster (and are hand picked ringers). The only way to pick that up is be playing the same team enough to know who is actually on the rostered & registered team. I have no problem with kids playing up but it's really hard to call the ones out that through a few kids in that are playing down. My daughter played in a tournament last weekend in a 7th grade division, while I'm sitting in the stands I hear a parent of the other team talking about this being their 8th grade team! Go figure, every girl on that team had atleast a full head height advantage on every girl on our team and the other teams. They of course destroyed every team in the division by 25-40 points each game. Hope they felt good about it with there 1st place trophy! I've spent time coaching rec t-ball/base ball on my sons team. We've finished our seasons in both 1st place and last. I finally through my hands up because I'm wore out and tired of the antics and honestly tired of the parents, they are way worse than the kids. We're going to give try Cal Ripken Baseball a try this year which appears to have some fairness and real regulation down to having to provide a Birth Certificate to prove their age, and a try out day where the coaches actually get to see ALL of the kids signed up in the division practice and then basically do a draft to help keep the teams more level with each other. I'm sure some of the parents will be just as terrible but at-least the league appears to be trying to run a pretty even keeled ship.

At the end of the day, I look at sports as a way for kids to learn and hone skills, keep active, be part of a team, have FUN, and learn how be respectable sportsman in both losing, and winning. These are life skills. Most of these kids aren't headed for full college rides or the pro's, so every-time I see some coach chewing on the kids and kids crying and so forth at these various sports events below high school level, I have to ask who is it really for and what are they trying to really accomplish? Win a trophy? and for what? It's not for the kids, I can tell you that much.

End of rant, I'm out.

 

[Kurtr]

my kids a 6'5" seventh grader know how many times i have had to show birth certificate and other forms of id to prove he is only 13. We have another kid who is 6'1" and no one even questions him even though he is bigger than every one else on the other team to. I think the reffing can make or break how good the tournaments are also how they are ran. The one in Bismark was ran and reffed excellent also spearfish is really good. I like the refs that call it tight and keep the game under control and keeps the bad habits from forming in the kids

 

[Migrator Man]

Lets just get a few things straight here: I am the "Coach" of this so called ALL STAR team and neither I or my assistant was at this tourney and neither were our kids.(There was only 6 kids from our team at this tourney not 8) There is roughly around 10 teams in Bismarck and for the most part most of these teams are school centered. These kids work there ASSES off!! We practice twice a week and try to do as many tourneys as possible thru out the year. On their freetime alot of these kids go to the gym and shoot around just for the love of the game. I am Sorry that you got a little BUTTHURT about the scores of the games but if you would know anything about 5th grade boys is that you can't just turn off there competitiveness and frankly I won't!! It is not our problem that when we sign up for these tourneys we get matched up against kids that have not practiced as much or kids that there parents won't take them to a gym and help them learn the game! And on another note I was told from the Coaches that they had told the boys that they had to make three passes before attempting to score and guess what everyone on the team scored every game!! So before you go venting about a 5th grade boys basketball team get your story STRAIGHT!!

Well thanks for coming on here and enlightening us so you can go now. Your posts are all I need to convince myself to steer my kids away from sports. Coaches like you are why.

 

[FishSticks]

That is a tall 7th grader. Has he been dunking yet?

my kids a 6'5" seventh grader know how many times i have had to show birth certificate and other forms of id to prove he is only 13. We have another kid who is 6'1" and no one even questions him even though he is bigger than every one else on the other team to. I think the reffing can make or break how good the tournaments are also how they are ran. The one in Bismark was ran and reffed excellent also spearfish is really good. I like the refs that call it tight and keep the game under control and keeps the bad habits from forming in the kids

 

[Kurtr]

That is a tall 7th grader. Has he been dunking yet?

close in practice but not in games. He was going to try in one game but his feet got going faster than the rest of his body and he ended up laying on the floor twisted up like a pretzel it made every one laugh even him.

- - - Updated - - -

you know what really hard finding hunting clothes that fit him and size 14 boots i cant even where his stuff haha

 

[mills423]

Lets just get a few things straight here: I am the "Coach" of this so called ALL STAR team and neither I or my assistant was at this tourney and neither were our kids.(There was only 6 kids from our team at this tourney not 8) There is roughly around 10 teams in Bismarck and for the most part most of these teams are school centered. These kids work there ASSES off!! We practice twice a week and try to do as many tourneys as possible thru out the year. On their freetime alot of these kids go to the gym and shoot around just for the love of the game. I am Sorry that you got a little BUTTHURT about the scores of the games but if you would know anything about 5th grade boys is that you can't just turn off there competitiveness and frankly I won't!! It is not our problem that when we sign up for these tourneys we get matched up against kids that have not practiced as much or kids that there parents won't take them to a gym and help them learn the game! And on another note I was told from the Coaches that they had told the boys that they had to make three passes before attempting to score and guess what everyone on the team scored every game!! So before you go venting about a 5th grade boys basketball team get your story STRAIGHT!!

Whether you are from Bismarck, Mandan, Fargo - where ever - as a coach you know your talent level. I've coached school ball, travel, etc for a long time (no longer do) It's your job as a coach to challenge your kids. Any good coach knows it's way easier to make players better by challenging them. If you are a very good team and going to a tournament in Linton - why would you not play up a grade or even two if possible. 5th playing 6th, etc. Your kids don't learn anything in a 50pt win. They only thing they learn is when you get in a tough game and things don't go accordingly to plan they don't know how to react because they have never been behind or in challenging game. If you can't find competitive games then you need to travel more - that's the commitment you made. You need to travel to the Cities or Sioux Falls or Rapid City. If we were in a blow out game we picked up way more bad habits than we did making ourselves better. It's not fun to coach blow out games but sometimes blowouts happen - you never know who's signing up for a tournament - just use COMMON SENSE!!!

And I completely agree with the burnout statement. Kids are playing way more now starting in 2nd and 3rd grade - they are learning skills to be sure - but sometimes enough is enough. The attrition of players as they get into high school is crazy. They just get tired of it - not because of the coaching - but because of crazy parents that want to relive their crappy career through their kid.

 

[Red1Delta]

Well thanks for coming on here and enlightening us so you can go now. Your posts are all I need to convince myself to steer my kids away from sports. Coaches like you are why.

What did this coach do to convince your kids to stay away from sports?

 

[db-2]

Maybe for a starter the way this coach handled the criticism of him. Speaks volumes to me about being a fifth grade coach. db

- - - Updated - - -

some days one can not just win even when one is right. db

 

[Kurtr]

Maybe for a starter the way this coach handled the criticism of him. Speaks volumes to me about being a fifth grade coach. db

- - - Updated - - -

some days one can not just win even when one is right. db

how should he have handled it?

 

[pointer]

While I do believe that the coach did kinda come off as a d schnozzle in defense of himself, ( and I certainly hope he is not an English teacher) He did say they tried to call off the dogs a little but to keep saying that an ass whooping isn't always a bad thing he loses me on that. These are young kids not young adults little harder to encourage them after such a defeat.

 

[Red1Delta]

I'll agree with you Crank. Part of sports is sportsmanship and full-court pressing and pushing for baskets when you're up 50, if that's what they were doing, isn't cool. Throwing bombs when up 5 touchdowns in the 4th quarter, stealing bases when up 10 runs, sure it's not against the rules but it's called 'class.' You can argue 'well get better then' and there's some credence to that but I guess I was raised to not humiliate people - I can see that more in a high school game; these kids are 11. It's a little bit of a weird move for a stud Bismarck team to go to a tournament in Napoleon but who knows maybe there was a good knoephla feed at someone's grandma's house afterward.

You can debate the pros and cons of traveling basketball forever but I do hate to see scenarios like this. I think loading up a team with all the best 10 year olds in the city (most of these kind of teams have kids from several schools in my experience) is kind of counterproductive. We've seen participation numbers go down once kids hit middle school and I think this has something to do with it. You stack a team or two who beats everyone by 50 all through grade school and the other teams get the message that "well looks like basketball isn't going to work out for me" and they quit when they're 12 before they've developed physically. Girls especially will say screw it, boys more often hang on until they get cut. Plenty of kids on those stud traveling teams never turn out to be much since all they learn to do is press and make uncontested breakaway layups, or puberty doesn't treat them well. If they had to be 'the guy' on their own traveling team I think they'd develop more skills. Rant over

I believe this same team placed 4th last year in this same tournament!

 

[db-2]

Kurtr:
(maybe migrator should answer)
First off we are probably somewhat different in our thinking about this whole situation so that affects how we feel.

However be that as it may I feel a little more understanding (I assume a teacher, so as a former teacher understanding is a tract one needs esp. when your getting your ass chewed from little John's parents) , toning down his comments and not so defensive and with that understanding, starting out I understand your concerns, I never intended to run up a score, I never intended to embarrass anyone, and yes I will work on all the aspects of young kids playing ball that you bring up, I will spent more time while the kids are on the floor on fundamentals, running some new plays, ect before running up a score.
Hopefully he can understand why the other parents are upset but that is not shown in his comments. Nothing wrong with telling the piss off parent that I do not want my kids to not keep working out there but I also hear what you are saying. He says it is not his problem but in the long run there is a problem that he can correct and not keep the problem going without comprising his standards. Some of those ideals have been stated on here by others. And my English, no I was not an English teacher either. db

 

[Migrator Man]

Kurtr:
(maybe migrator should answer)
First off we are probably somewhat different in our thinking about this whole situation so that affects how we feel.

However be that as it may I feel a little more understanding (I assume a teacher, so as a former teacher understanding is a tract one needs esp. when your getting your ass chewed from little John's parents) , toning down his comments and not so defensive and with that understanding, starting out I understand your concerns, I never intended to run up a score, I never intended to embarrass anyone, and yes I will work on all the aspects of young kids playing ball that you bring up, I will spent more time while the kids are on the floor on fundamentals, running some new plays, ect before running up a score.
Hopefully he can understand why the other parents are upset but that is not shown in his comments. Nothing wrong with telling the piss off parent that I do not want my kids to not keep working out there but I also hear what you are saying. He says it is not his problem but in the long run there is a problem that he can correct and not keep the problem going without comprising his standards. Some of those ideals have been stated on here by others. And my English, no I was not an English teacher either. db

I could not have said it any better myself and I agree 100%. When your defense is to call people butthurt you instantly lose my respect if you are supposed to be the adult role model in the situation.

 

[Kurtr]

I am not a teacher i just volunteer my time and if little johns parents are going to do ass chewing I have no problem chewing back but if they wanted to have a discussion like a civil person i would do it. I am lucky we have a good group of kids a good group of parents and overall its pretty dang fun watching them all grow up.

 

[Migrator Man]

What did this coach do to convince your kids to stay away from sports?

My kids can do whatever they want, but some coaches are not instilling the kind of character and lessons I want them to learn. I have seen my fair share of youth coaches and some of it is shameful. I probably learned more from being on losing teams with great role model coaches than on winning teams with poor roel model coaches. I also don’t need to relive my life through coaching or pushing my kids through the same sports I played.