Youth Sports Tryouts, Team Selection, and Subsequent Rejection

[Buff]

My daughter had a similar situation in Spring rec soccer here in Lethbridge... none of my kids had good experiences playing in the spring rec soccer leagues here in Lethbridge.

My daughter was on a fun team in the spring when she was 6. The next year her team had one girl on her team from the previous year. About the 2nd or 3rd week a team she played was the entire time from the previous year minus the two girls. We found out that the coach hand picked his entire team and chose players that would make his daughter look like the star of the team... These teams are supposed to be randomly chosen because it is rec soccer. I don't know if they still do it but you had to pay an extra fee to request your child to be on a certain team, whether it be a coach or a friend. My daughter was crushed and chose not to play soccer again.

I'm glad because at that point I was done with soccer. My oldest was a good player but found himself on bad teams, and was threatened by another parent because a kid sucker punched mine on the field and my kid stood up for himself (that kid got suspended and mine didn't) - and yes, cops were involved, the coaches called them right away.

I never liked soccer and my kids' experiences have made me hate it with even more passions..

[undercoverbrother]

Originally Posted by Buff

My daughter had a similar situation in Spring rec soccer here in Lethbridge... none of my kids had good experiences playing in the spring rec soccer leagues here in Lethbridge.

My daughter was on a fun team in the spring when she was 6. The next year her team had one girl on her team from the previous year. About the 2nd or 3rd week a team she played was the entire time from the previous year minus the two girls. We found out that the coach hand picked his entire team and chose players that would make his daughter look like the star of the team... These teams are supposed to be randomly chosen because it is rec soccer. I don't know if they still do it but you had to pay an extra fee to request your child to be on a certain team, whether it be a coach or a friend. My daughter was crushed and chose not to play soccer again.

I'm glad because at that point I was done with soccer. My oldest was a good player but found himself on bad teams, and was threatened by another parent because a kid sucker punched mine on the field and my kid stood up for himself (that kid got suspended and mine didn't) - and yes, cops were involved, the coaches called them right away.

I never liked soccer and my kids' experiences have made me hate it with even more passions..

Yeah Soccer Sucks

[RichieRich]

For the kids as an adult ya gotta lead by example. And by that I mean have your post-selection (or post game loss) pity party and get it over with quickly. Then move on. Don’t need to spend days on the woulda coulda shoulda. Part of building resilience is accepting the situation sucked, and then what’s next? Learn and/or accept. Move forward or laterally but don’t stay stuck emotionally or psychologically. Find the positive, seek it out, pursue. Strong adults are born from this. Weak adults often can’t leave their past behind (what’s done is done) and positively affect their future potentials.

[Samonadreau]

Originally Posted by lazypucker

Tryouts, auditions, competitions, even "lucky draws" always have favoritism in play. But sometimes you have to accept that you may not be as good as you think you are, be it your skills or your connections.

Unfortunately that's life...

Our town brings in 3rd party evaluators. They do timed drills with bracelets and gates and the then 2 scrimmages moving the players around. Causes no favouritism.

My son has made the top U11 team both years now and there are still parents that accuse it of being rigged. I agree without the 3rd party there will be favouritism, but with most of these parents that are upset now they really just have to realize that their child is slotted where they should be.

[Buff]

Originally Posted by undercoverbrother

Yeah Soccer Sucks

Preach!

[fotze2]

Originally Posted by Bill Bumface

I would say the most important part of this, is for you to work through the above as quickly as possible.

Your happiness or self worth needs to get separated from the achievements of your children. Your son needs to know that your sad that he's sad, but otherwise couldn't give a rat's ass about what team he's on, what sports he quits or any of it. You'll be there to cheer him on, encourage him, and do your best to make sure he's having fun and enjoying his life regardless.

Be the rock that he knows won't be affected by any of the upsetting things that happen in his life. They're hard enough for him, he doesn't need to worry about them affecting others as well. They can always tell.

So he's being ridiculous and not loving his kid as well as he could?

[manwiches]

Originally Posted by Bill Bumface

I would say the most important part of this, is for you to work through the above as quickly as possible.

Your happiness or self worth needs to get separated from the achievements of your children. Your son needs to know that your sad that he's sad, but otherwise couldn't give a rat's ass about what team he's on, what sports he quits or any of it. You'll be there to cheer him on, encourage him, and do your best to make sure he's having fun and enjoying his life regardless.

Be the rock that he knows won't be affected by any of the upsetting things that happen in his life. They're hard enough for him, he doesn't need to worry about them affecting others as well. They can always tell.

Absolutely 100%. What little thought we had for ourselves (my wife and I), is immediately replaced with our son's well being. Frankly, neither of us care. But it's just a basic emotion and thought. We've found who really actually cares in the past couple days, as they found out and reached out. it's the silence of the others that we learn. It's funny, that even as adults, we aren't immune to such behaviours.

Regardless, our son's well being comes above all.

I guess an update, he woke up pretty sad, but he came home for lunch, i took him for a ice cream, and we talked. He's feeling much better and is trying to find a way to channel his emotion. We're going to write down a game plan on what HE wants, not what I want, and then build small goals to reach from there for him. He's a very analytical kid, and goal oriented, so we think this will resonate with him a lot.

[nfotiu]

I was so happy when my kid switched to golf and our tryouts are stricly based on scoring average over 3 rounds. No subjectiveness, politics, sucking up to the coach, or any other nonsense.

[CliffFletcher]

Originally Posted by 2ArmBands

Its been rocky so far this year to start... However I can tell you this. 2-3 practices, 1 out of town tournament, and a couple of league games and her switch has totally flipped. She has a new friend group and some fresh coaches that are taking some different approaches with her. She is settling in. It has only been a couple of weeks and the sadness and pain already feels distant.

It’s a cliche, but kids are resilient. Once they’re in a new team, playing and bonding and making friends, attachment to the previous team will fade.

[undercoverbrother]

Originally Posted by Buff

Preach!

Every Chance I ####ing Get!

[CaptainCrunch]

I don't know much about the hockey world, but I wanted to add on some things from my perspective. I've been coaching now for something like 16 years at various levels of football and with a few different organizations.

I've coached, High School, Woman's tackle, Bantam and what is now referred to as Spring.

A few things that are important for coaches.

1) Never promise players anything from the start. I'm not promising you a starting role, or even a position at the start of tryouts, I don't care how good you or your parents think you are. I need to see it, and even after that quick June or July 2 week camp without pads, I want to see you with pads on and taking hits and giving hits. I also want to see which kids have the work ethic. If I distribute a playbook, know it, it might take a week and we will run through it time and time again during install and scrimmage. But if after a week of camp when I ask if you've looked at a playbook and you answer no, that effects.

As a player its important to be coachable, listen to the feedback, and understand its not criticism. But coaches can get frustrated too. In any sport there's a lot of work that goes into coaching besides just showing up at the field and on the ice.

Just to give an idea of commitment. I'm an offensive coordinator and associate head coach. When my season ends, Bantam for example, I have 5 months until Spring starts. In that time I have to come up with a strategy and a playbook, that takes a lot of hours. Then I have to get my position coaches to buy in on it as well as my head coach. When we go to camp, I have to come up with a practice plan for the offensive players, come up with drills with my position coaches that adress what we want to teach. Come up with a limited playbook. At the same time we've got to evaluate anywhere between 60 and 90 players and work with the head coach and defensive coordinator on who goes there. At the same time we have to teach safe contact.

When we get to main camp its more of the same with a heavy install on the playbook. So a two hour practice 4 days a week, add another 4 to 5 hours on prep evaluation, planning etc.

When we get to regular season. We usually practice on Tuesday, Wednesday and Thursdays 2 hours each. So I usually need about a hour a day on top. Then there's the game and I usually need to take a few hours to scout and gameplan for the opponent, decide on my starting groups etc. After the game lets say its on Saturday, I usually have to spend 8 hours on Sunday and Monday to break down our film, evaluate what happened and plan what we're going to do in practice. I also have to break down scout film and put together a scouting report, film session and game plan for the players to get on the Monday so we can practice on Tuesday.

Now here are some things I want to put out there and sorry to sound mean or harsh.

1) If you're a former player or have coached and you sign your kid up to play. Don't over promise your kid or give an opinion to your kid about his coaches. "Ie these coaches don't know what thier doing. In Peewee you rushed for x hundreds or yards and x touchdowns. You should start in your first year and get the ball 30 times a game and your coach is an idiot for not believing that." Parents do a lot to create these crushing defeats of their kids as well as coaches.

2) Please for the love of god as a parent don't coach your kid when he's not at practice. Let him leave the practice behind and do something else. Don't counter what the coach is trying to teach. "You're coach is an idiot, in my day when I scored 6 TD's for Polk Highschool I ran my counter steps like this". I don't care, your counter steps or routes, or how you block are not how I want them done.

3) Don't confront your coaches and yell at them for not playing your kid as much as you want them to. Don't back bite your coaches and poison other parents.

4) Cheer your kids from the stands. Don't swear at the refs, or the opposition coaches or your kids coaches from the stands.

5) Don't volunteer to coach if your specific interest is to coach your son. First of all it creates major clashes with other coaches. If your a position coach that wants to coach your son the wide receiver, it creates clashes with me, especially if you are ignoring other kids to coach your son.

6) If you want to talk to a coach, maybe ask for feedback on what your kid needs to work on. I don't care about your former coaching experience. I don't care that your kid was a star in Pewee, for example Bantam is a huge step up and because of puberty, there is a real disparity in size. Your 4 foot 9 son who lit it up in peewee against other 4 foot 9 kids is likely not going to be able to go into traffic in Bantam against the kids with growth spurts like a 5 foot 10 175 pound LB'er.

7) Look I'm a friendly guy I used to really like to talk to parents. But parents now days seem to be in constant attack mode. Then after any conversation they go back and bitch to other parents that they are friends with.

8) Oh and this is important. So let me clear my throat. If your telling me that your 12 year kid has NFL aspirations. Good on you for supporting his or her dream unless your the one feeding your kid that dream. But be prepared, you're creating that level of disappointment when your kid is cut, or is slotted in as a back up. In my 15 years of coaching I've had 8 running backs that I've coached in Bantam go onto a Canadian University career and 3 Receivers and 1 QB. That's it.

9) So what can you as parents do. Get to know your coaches before you sign up if you can. What are you doing to protect my kid against Concussions. Are all of your coaches certified. What's the head coaches philosophy. You can tell a coach that you want your kid to be a running back or QB, but trust their evaluation when that doesn't happen, don't poison your kid against the coaches.

Don't volunteer to coach at your kids position, just don't its good to volunteer, but if your kid is a QB go coach defense if you have that experience. Don't coach your kid in the back yard on weekends or after practice. Don't be angry when your kid has a bad game. Don't start your stories with when I was an all star QB. Just come out and cheer your kid on good or bad. If you don't like the amount of playing time that's fine, find out why in a respectful manner. In football if you really don't like it your free to ask for your kids release to find an other team to join and try out for.

Every year at the end of it, I wind up at the end of each season (2 per year, 8 months total coaching) asking myself if I still want to do this, if I have the energy or desire to put in the work and take the abuse. I don't have aspirations beyond this. I don't think a CIS or CFL team is going to look at me and pluck me out to a paid coaching gig, no matter how many titles I've won, wins I've had, or that I've coached and evaluated at a very high level.

Oh and yes some coaches deserve to be vilified. There are a lot of coaches that I've come across that do the stuff that you guys are talking about where they are there to make their kids a star, or wins and losses and titles mean everything. Or there are coaches that scoff at safe contact. Or run stupid Oklahoma drills to build toughness in players. Look nobody is going to care that I won a city Championship in 2015, nobody is going to care that I destroyed another team in the Bantam Bowl, or that I won a High School Championship in the early 2000's. Hell I don't even care all that much about it.

You know what I care about? That a kid learns something, that they made some life long friends. That they got to fall in love with football, that they won when they could win. That I got to meet some really incredible kids that remember me when I run into them somewhere years later.

Anyways rant off.

[indes]

Ha I forgot we had another one last summer for u9 lacrosse. They don't have tryouts for u9, just a couple of floor times to see the kids and try make the teams as even as possible. Well they had the coaches make the teams and there was only 1 coach who coached u9 the year before.

Long story short there was one team with mostly second year players that destroyed all the other teams by 20+ goals each game. The ironic part is that the coach of that team's son maybe touched the ball twice in the entire game that they played us. I couldn't imagine trying to create a "dream team" in a U9 sport with no tiering or standings lol

[Strange Brew]

Originally Posted by Bill Bumface

I would say the most important part of this, is for you to work through the above as quickly as possible.

Your happiness or self worth needs to get separated from the achievements of your children. Your son needs to know that your sad that he's sad, but otherwise couldn't give a rat's ass about what team he's on, what sports he quits or any of it. You'll be there to cheer him on, encourage him, and do your best to make sure he's having fun and enjoying his life regardless.

Be the rock that he knows won't be affected by any of the upsetting things that happen in his life. They're hard enough for him, he doesn't need to worry about them affecting others as well. They can always tell.

The bolded is so true. Kids have been getting cut from teams since the dawn of organized sports. But what has changed dramatically in the last two decades or so is how involved parents have become in their child's sporting activities. It just becomes too much at some point and it detracts from their experience IMO.

The days of dropping your kid off at the rink and picking them up when it's over are gone I guess.

[Locke]

Originally Posted by Strange Brew

The bolded is so true. Kids have been getting cut from teams since the dawn of organized sports. But what has changed dramatically in the last two decades or so is how involved parents have become in their child's sporting activities. It just becomes too much at some point and it detracts from their experience IMO.

The days of dropping your kid off at the rink and picking them up when it's over are gone I guess.

Ahhh...yeah.

Again...I'm a rare commodity in that I started coaching as a non-parent coach, so when you're putting teams together its very eye-opening.

"I want this kid, this kid, etc and so forth."

And I watch that and think....'what?' If I want to build a contending team its not going to look anything like that. Were you even watching? Do you know anything about this sport?

I remember being tasked as an assistant coach on a U16 Tier 1 team and we're going through player selection and the head coach starts penciling in kids and immediately I'm telling him:

"These kids are Tier 3 players...maybe 2...at a stretch...you cant select them. There are a dozen other klds here who are better and Tier 1 category."

"Yeah, but they're my kid's buddies."

I. Don't. Care.

You have to be consistent with your objectives.

When I'm coaching teams in Tier 3, everyone gets equal playing time, if that means we lose then we lose. We're here for fun, I'm not benching a kid for the Win because he's not as good as others, thats not the objective here.

When I'm coaching an Elite Tier 1, we're here to win.

Its something I have a hard time with regarding coaches and evaluators. Can you not handle changing your expectations depending on category and objectives?

I mean hell...I coached 9 and 10 year old girls one time...I didnt treat them the same way as 17 and 18 year old Tier 1 boys...that would be insane.

And boys are crazy. Possibly clinically insane. Coaching boys was wild.

[FireGilbert]

Sorry for your son. Try outs are always a crap shoot with small sample sizes impacted by bias.

I recall playing hockey being the final cut from the A team with friends in favour of the league president’s son. Was devastating but it worked out for the best. Ended up being captain and had a great time going on a playoff run. Meanwhile the A team had a miserable season finishing last.

[manwiches]

I appreciate all the comments. Much of it resonated with me, and while I've been through this myself, nothing really prepares you, when your children go through it, and you see their pain.

A small update. While it's only been 5 days since he found out, yesterday was the first day he came home from school and wasn't sad. The night before, a non hockey friend reached out randomly to go public skating with him, and he skated so hard and had so much fun.

My wife and i have started goal planning with him, in the hopes that we can harness this emotion/energy into giving that drive just to be better. In everything. So far, he has taken to it really well. He's a very goal oriented person, so seeing these goals, and something measurable to look at and work towards, seems to have resonated with him.

For example, after thinking about it, he really wants to work every day at hockey related things. So I put together a 30 day dry land program, about 30 min a day, that he can do that will improve his footwork, stamina, and explosiveness, which are the things that he needs to work on. This also transfers over to this soccer skills too. So thus far, he's done 4 days of this, and we've been logging his progress. He's already seen some progress, and the smile on his face when he knows he's beaten yesterday's record, has been warming.

Regardless, our hope is that this sparks a fire in him that we've been trying to light. it doesn't even need to be hockey. just everything. I'm glad he's learning this lesson young, versus much older. When faced with adversity when he's older, he'll be much more adept at dealing with it.

And lastly, our overall goal is just to make sure that he knows mom and dad are there for him no matter what. We're his biggest supporters and cheerleaders.

[Knut]

Challenge him to be a leader on his team. To help others improve their skills and to help the coaches put away pucks etc. It will go a long way to help him going forward.

[MBates]

Originally Posted by MillerTime GFG

Being able to relate has always helped. I also use a current Cavalry player as an example. He played tier 2 and 3 growing up with Foothills, and now plays professionally. I might recommend finding a similar story in the hockey world as an example. Not to say your kid wants/needs to go pro, but I do find this can help on the competitive side.

Picture it manwiches, Caroline Alberta, 2002. A small speedy defenceman tries to make it to the Midget AAA team in Red Deer. When he is cut, his exit interview seems as bad as it could get - he is told in no uncertain terms he is just too small to be able to play at that level of hockey. Down to the AA team in Innisfail he goes. At this stage, this could have been a soul-crushing career-ender. However, he comes from a background where giving up is not really an option...and he decides to use this set-back as a development opportunity and make it his mission to prove the Red Deer AAA folks just how wrong they were.

In doing so, he ironically would never play Midget AAA hockey.

Instead, he spends his next 4 years with the Medicine Hat Tigers, including 2 years as their Captain and a CHL All-star. Manages to pick up a couple Gold medals with the Canadian World Junior team, a couple WHL Championships, and CHL Defenceman of the Year awards.

He eventually goes on to make about $32 million playing for 5 NHL teams (is an assistant captain on a great team for a stint) with this stat line: GP 912 G 48 A 206 PTS 254. In the playoffs he adds another GP 60 G 3 A 17 PTS 20.

He also played in two World Championships for Team Canada.

The bio on his last NHL page recalls that he first converted from a forward to a defenceman at age 10 (I never hesitate to take an opportunity to point out I was part of that decision ).

The point is, most of the time players end up about where they should be, even though there are always some objectively unfair results from the tryout process. Getting told you are the only one being separated from the pack is never easy. Being initially emotional about it is totally fine.

But, it is U11. At that stage, Kris Russell was only just starting to play defence and was still years away from that "bad cut" he would face in Red Deer.

If your little guy loves the game then that is all that matters. If he finds the motivation to reach his personal best in the sport because of this experience, there is a decent chance he (and his parents) will look back on this one day as possibly the best thing that could have ever happened to him.

[Bill Bumface]

Originally Posted by MBates

The bio on his last NHL page recalls that he first converted from a forward to a defenceman at age 10 (I never hesitate to take an opportunity to point out I was part of that decision ).

Was it because when he played forward he kept pissing off his teammates by getting in the way of their shots?

[MegaErtz]

https://www.cnn.com/2023/10/19/us/st...ach/index.html