Too many touchdowns?

[chickened]

I have a 15 year old that plays football and can relate to this story, what have we done? Why keep score?

http://www.yardbarker.com/all_sport...coring_too_many_touchdowns/7123075/?gt1=39002

 

[welasharon]

I guess we should all just be the same...no special talents...How crazy was that?

 

[Ridgerunner]

I can understand the rule, having been on the other side (sort of) as a baseball coach at the playground. When the playground manager stacks one of the team with the best players, where is the competition? If you wanted your kid to win championships, you better be real active in the playgound boosters club and really butter the playground manager up. Kissy, kissy. It defeats the purpose of sports at the playground level. This is not sour grapes either. If you line up every kid and let them race for 50 feet or 100 yards and practically every kid on the one team finishes before practically any kid on the other teams, that team is stacked.

With this kid, he is so good you don't need to stack the team. He can do that by himself. And I'm sure he will dominate on defense as well as offense.

I do not believe in trying to make sure nobody is allowed to excell. Really the opposite. I like to see kids excel. I think kids should be allowed to develop their talents, whether on the athletic field or in the classroom. And I know fully well that life is not fair. Some are born with advantages. I think the playground or the classroom should be designed and managed to held the majority of the kids, not hold them all back because of the ones dragging up the rear. The ones that are the cream of the crop should be further developed and not help back by the middle of the pack.

That means that kid probably should not be playing in that league but somewhere against better competition. He's not going to get much better against inferior competition, possibly just arrogant and disdainful of the hard work required to actually get better. It could easily hurt his development to keep him in that league. With proper coaching and development, that kid will probably be heard from at a major college level some day. But if he does not keep his head screwed on right his potential could be totally wasted.

I know I am assuming a lot here, but anyone that derides this rule is also making a lot of assumptions. We don't know what is really going on. We are not really involved. And again from my playground coaching experience. The safety of the other kids is important. Some of the kids I coached did not have the skills, reflexes or even attention spans to be able to protect themselves from a hard hit ball. Nine or ten year old kids. I had to be careful who I put in the infield, not just to have someone who could make plays, but for their actual safety.

 

[chickened]

We have a rule that if one team is ahead say 35 to 0 at the end of the 3rd quarter the game is called and it is called by the refs. A good coach has the responsibility to teach, at this level especially good sportsmanship but on the other hand why keep score? It seems confusing to the kids as they are competing as a team to win.

My friend has a girl that plays football at highschool level a junior as I recall and she scores regularly she is a RB and they have never suggested pulling her out and she is very good. I wonder if they would have done this if this were a girl.

 

[cupman]

Dumb. I played baseball all throughout my youth and the only mercy rule that we had was if you are ahead by 10 or more points after the 4th inning you automatically won. I don't like the idea of mercy rules or not keeping score, the kids know what the score is, even if you don't keep count. Besides, how can you appreciate a win if you've never lost?

 

[ChickenAlgebra]

It's for youth football, once they get to an age where college recruiting can start, the rule isn't used. Doesn't bother me. Matthew got it all the time in basketball, he'd get over a number of points and the team was ahead by a number, he'd have to sit for a while.

Then he stopped playing basketball and took up wrestling instead.

 

[Southernbelle]

Doesn't bother me. My son is the star of his soccer team. He's 9-years-old and the best player in the entire U10 league, 1st one "drafted" when the coaches were picking teams.

His coach is a good sport and doesn't like to run up the score on the other team. One recent game, Matthew scored 4 goals in the 1st quarter so Coach moved him to defense, where Matthew wouldn't let the the other team get the ball past the mid-line. Occationally he'd let Matthew back on offense, after it got to 6-0, Coach told Matthew that if he gets within scoring distance, to pass to another teammate, so he did and 2 of his teammates scored with his assists. So now the score is 8-0 with only a few minutes left, so to give the other team a chance at the goal, Coach benched Matthew. The other team scored 2 goals while Matthew was benched.

I don't think it's good sportsmanship to crush the other team and I'm not upset at my son's coach at all. I'm proud of my son, he never makes a big deal at all when he scores.

 

[ECBW]

This is a hot topic in my town. We actually have 2 tiers, recreation and travel.

Travel is to win. You sign your kids up knowingly. If your kids are not good, they may be on the sideline more than others.

Recreation is about participation. The recreation coaches must distribute playing time evenly. If you can't handle a loss because your best player has to sit, this not the league for you. The coaches will voluntarily hold back players if the score gets ridiculous.

Generally, this works well enough to keep the players at the right levels.

 

[Ridgerunner]

Quote:
You obviously have not lived near a high school that is usually nationally ranked. They recruit the playgrounds for their players, usually as young as 9 or 10 so they can get them in the feeder program. The one near me where I used to live had a 4th grade team that ran the same plays as the high school. And yes, recruiting at that level is against the rules. But rest assured, the top high school coaches anywhere near that kid know all about him.

I've coached at a level where score was not kept. The kids clearly knew who won.

This is just another form of the mercy rule. The mercy rule is not about stopping competition or not keeping score. It is about bullies and rubbing your nose in the dirt.

 

[ChickenAlgebra]

Quote:
You obviously have not lived near a high school that is usually nationally ranked. They recruit the playgrounds for their players, usually as young as 9 or 10 so they can get them in the feeder program. The one near me where I used to live had a 4th grade team that ran the same plays as the high school. And yes, recruiting at that level is against the rules. But rest assured, the top high school coaches anywhere near that kid know all about him.

I've coached at a level where score was not kept. The kids clearly knew who won.

This is just another form of the mercy rule. The mercy rule is not about stopping competition or not keeping score. It is about bullies and rubbing your nose in the dirt.

Not for football, but basketball. Like I said, they routinely sat the kids if they were running the score up. Not even just couldn't shoot the ball directly, they sat.

It doesn't bother me. Then again, none of my kids stayed with basketball ever because they don't overly like it. So I don't really much care either.