Another week, another lesson in the politics in of little league. 
As we were warming up, I kept looking for the team we were supposed to play because I knew we couldn’t be playing that team of 11 year olds who looked like the cedars of Lebanon.
I was wrong. Dead wrong.
The director said - “Well, they should have moved up to the next league this year but they didn’t want to. They’ve been playing together for 3 years now, since they were 8.”
At the end of the season, I’ll write down my thoughts on the ’system’ but I knew none of that was going to help my team get over the intimidation factor. The first half was brutal. It was practice for them. They scored like 9 jillion times. My guys were just starstruck.
Halftime we sat around, drank our juice boxes.
“So…what did you learn?”
“They are older than us. They are bigger than us. They are killing us.”
“True. But they aren’t better than you. You just wigged yourselves out. Ready to go out and try it again?”
Much better second half. We played them even until the last play of the game when they pulled out an incredible run for a touchdown. And it was an incredible run. We had a goal-line stand. We moved the ball up and down the field. Cooper had another touchdown, this time as a receiver.
At the end of the game, one of the kids said - “Hey…we did alright in the second half.”
“No, you did awesome in the second half. That’s the ‘best’ team in the league and they should have been promoted to the other league. You did awesome.”
Now, my thoughts on i9 sports league. So far, I’m not impressed. It’s a great concept poorly run. The idea is that you show up an hour early for your game and practice. It keeps families from having to run all over the place during the week for practice. Great idea but beyond that, they have some major holes in how they run things.
First, both teams we’ve played so far have been together for at least 2 years and have older kids on their team. My team for example has mainly 8 and 9 year olds, with Cooper being the only 10 year-old. Half the team are rookies, none of them have played together ever. The league is set-up with the two extremes - those that start the year knowing what they are doing and those that don’t. It also could lead to stacked teams - although this isn’t as noticeable in football as it would be in basketball or baseball.
A better option would be to have a field day with 8 or 9 drills with every kid in the league/division running through the drills with the coaches observing. After the drills, coaches sit in a room and have a draft. If a coach wants his own kid on the team, that’s their first round pick. I actually saw this work in Little Rock, Arkansas.
The second big request would be to pair rookie/inexperienced officials with vets. Last week we had two vets. This week - two rookies. It showed. It puts us as coaches in awkward places when we know the rules of the game better than they do. It sets us up to correct them and that’s not exactly what we want our kids to observe.
The last observation is the age span. 7 to 10 is to big of a gap developmentally - physical and mental. It’s obvious inside a huddle. Shorten the age gap, let kids compete with other kids their age.
But for now…we keep chuggin and keep getting better.
Tag: Flag Football