Justifications of a Youth Sports Politician

Following up on my recent post on youth sports, I want to tackle the issue of politics in local youth sports organizations.

I've been involved on the Boards of two youth sports organizations in my town, and I've coached both sports for almost ten years.  I constantly hear about people in town pulling their children from various sports due to the "politics" of the Board.  I don't know how often I've heard someone pontificating about the outrageous unfairness of his/her child being blackballed from the travel team due to a political decision, while a gaggle of other parents nods in understanding, often contributing their own unjustices to a sympathetic audience.

And it's often quite true!  So as I entered leadership roles, I was determined to use objective decision-making processes in choosing travel teams.  I was also determined to make sure coaches were chosen based on one criteria only: Who will provide the best experience for the kids.  Nobody "deserves" a coaching position based on what he's done for the organization or (obviously) based on his relationship with the leadership, or because he's coached that team in past years.

So that's what I did.  On more than one occasion I replaced an incumbent head coach with someone who hadn't done it before, in response to complaints from families of kids on the team, or because a better candidate presented himself.  Each time the incumbent coach has gone completely ballistic, accusing me of destroying him for some nefarious purpose.  Sometimes "politics" is thrown out as the reason for my transgression.  But of course what's really happening is that the incumbent coach is requesting that politics be used to tip the scales, in his favor.

And just the fact that the coach gets so outraged about the stealing of his birthright is itself confirmation that he's in it for the wrong reasons.  He may say he wants to be part of his kid's experience, etc, etc.  But I've rarely told a coach he couldn't assist on the team- there's plenty of opportunity for him to be involved just as much- he just wouldn't be in control, which is what it's really about.

When a father (or mother- in my town it's virtually all fathers) commits to coach a team sport, he agrees to coach and provide a positive experience to all the kids on his team, not just his own. At the risk of sounding hyperbolic, it's a sacred trust.  I want coaches to bend over backwards to make sure they're not favoring their own, whether their own is the best or worst player on the team (when the best player on the team is coached by his father, by the way, I think it's bad for the kid- he's better off being pushed by someone else).

I mentioned in my last post on this topic that I'm more of a fit for coaching Rec level sports.  But I have kids who are travel-level players.  Fortunately, there are a number of great coaches in town who provide excellent competitive experiences to my kids, much better than I could provide.  Why wouldn't I want them doing the coaching?  For some of these experiences I've helped out, been involved with my children. learned a lot about the sport, and watched my kid grow athletically and socially.  I'm really glad I never named myself to coach one of these teams.
Stay tuned for my next youth sports post, about "politics" in the choosing of players for travel teams.