LAX

Lax

I recently got a call from a Lax coach. He had just finished coaching a game. The indoor game was played on a beardless field and was composed mainly of high school kids. It was a normal off season game in many respects. Except for a stretch were one team allowed a bunch of goals it was a pretty even contest. Final score 9-3 Lots of kids got to play and for the most part good sportsmanship was on display, until the end of the game.

The coach of the winning team decided, with two minutes to go in the game that he would play stall ball. That’s right with two minutes to go and a running clock he decided to do everything he could not to lose. I purposely said not to lose instead of playing to win, because that is what happened. So, for two minutes, to satisfy the coaches’ ego, every kid “playing” in that game at that time stood around and basically did nothing. Let me tell you why, on so many levels I disagree with the strategy.

First and foremost, no one was improving during the last two minutes of the game. Let’s say the losing team popped in a couple of goals and started to make a game of it. What would be the result? Increased competition and positive stress. Exactly the things you should want your kids to experience when they are playing youth and high school sports.

Next what message was being sent to everyone there? In a meaningless game the coach was modeling a behavior that everyone there had to accept. The final score of the game, with him winning was more important, not the most important thing to him on that night.

Each and every kid on both teams saw what was happening and logged it into their brains that this was acceptable behavior and when they got older they could repeat this style of coaching. They would log into their psyche that winning is more important than development.

Where had the winning coach seen this style of coaching? Did he see a pro game? Did he coach a youth sports game where the other coach did this to him? Was he watching a game when this course of action took place? A

And when he saw it, why did he think it was an acceptable instead of saying to himself”that’s not any fun for the kids. I’m never going to do that.” Why didn’t he look at the kids faces through their masks and see what the kids were feeling.

Wouldn’t it have been great if he went back to his team and said “Guys, I just watched a coach stall for the last two minutes of a game and no one was having any fun or getting better so I am going to make sure we never do that as long as I am coaching?”