The WATCHING MYTH

The advantages of sitting on the bench and watching have been brought up to me on numerous occasions and I would like to address the issue. It is exponentially better to play than to sit on the bench. The example of Aaron Rodgers sitting on the bench learning from Brett Farve was used as an example. Let’s look at Aaron Rodgers stats from 2008 to 2011.

Year Team G Att Comp Pct Att/G Yds Avg Yds/G TD TD% Int Int% Lng 20+ 40+ Sck SckY Rate

 2011 Green Bay Packers 15 502 343 68.3 33.5 4,643 9.2 309.5 45 9.0 6 1.2 93T 64 13 36 219 122.5

2010 Green Bay Packers 15 475 312 65.7 31.7 3,922 8.3 261.5 28 5.9 11 2.3 86T 54 10 31 193 101.2

 2009 Green Bay Packers 16 541 350 64.7 33.8 4,434 8.2 277.1 30 5.5 7 1.3 83T 55 17 50 306 103.2

 2008 Green Bay Packers 16 536 341 63.6 33.5 4,038 7.5 252.4 28 5.2 13 2.4 71T 48 16 34 231 93.8

In the professional ranks there is a lot more to the game than just playing. There are many variables to consider for the athletes. They need to learn, where to live, where to avoid, where to bank, whether to buy or rent, where to eat, where to get dry cleaning, where to buy a car, endorsement opportunities, and who to hang around with, workout partners and schedules, grocery stores, etc. If married with kids what schools are available?  I think you get the picture.

            Now this has nothing to do with youth sports. A child sitting on the bench during a game gets bored, plain and simple. You could literally turn the child around and not face the field, send the child in to play and the child’s play would not be that different than if they watched the proceedings. Why? Children join a youth sports team to play not watch.

It was mentioned to me that they could learn while sitting on the bench. It is true that coaches will lecture players on the bench as to the mistakes the players are making on the field playing, but that just frustrates the players sitting on the bench. Why correct them, they are doing nothing wrong. At work would you want your boss coming to you complaining about another employee’s work and not let you get a crack at fixing the problem?

It was also brought up to me that coaches don’t put players in games because they don’t want them to fail and quit. Did the coach ask the players if that was the case? NO. Another comment by a coach was that if a player was too small and they put them in they might get hurt. Again, did you ask the player? Did the coach explain that paradigm to the player when they joined the team? No, of course the coach didn’t.

Does a coach ask the players who didn’t play much during the game what they learned after the game was over? Well. I have. Here are some of the answers.

“Learned what?” “From who?” “No, I just want to go home.” “Yeah, a little, I guess.” One boy even told me, “Yes, this is no fun.” Go ahead and ask. Don’t frame the question though to predetermine the answer. Don’t ask leading questions like, “Did you see what Johnny did out there, what did you learn?”

Now ask the kids who played what they learned while they played. I have those answers also, but I think it’s best that you hear them for yourself. Sometimes they don’t even know they are learning when they are playing, and that is when they play the best.

Let’s look at the player’s sitting on the bench a little more closely. If they already played, they are probably tired and need a break. It’s called a break, not a sit and watch. If a player has not played at all his mind has wandered and he is trying to figure out when he will get a chance to play.

Here’s what h does learn by watching. Other players out there are not that much better than him. They are only better because they get to play more. They learn that being a teammate does not mean the same to each player on the team. They learn to get t frustrated and tense. When it is their turn to finally get in the game they realize they can’t make many mistakes for fear of getting pulled out of the game. They learn to be robots doing the coaches bidding. They learn that it is not fun to play youth sports.