playing time
- Thread starter mike37
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Playing time is usually a coach's judgement call that is usually based off of many variables. Sports help children grow into responsible adults, that being said this is a good time for your student to mature and go to the coach like an adult. Many coaches do not discuss playing time especially with parents but I believe most will meet with your player if they ask them what they need to improve on to earn more playing time. Just remember sometimes the player does not really want to improve or actually hear where they actually stand. These meetings can be hard on a student's ego if they believe they are better than the coach does.
A little irrelevant because major college basketball is much different than high school basketball, especially at the small school level but I read a great piece on this subject in Dean Smith's book. He had frequent meetings with his players to discuss how they are doing, how school is among other things but also where they stood in regards to playing time and their roles on the team. Not saying we as high school coaches have to do that in frequency but it may be a nice tool to use to show that player that coaches do things for a reason and maybe the student has that question answered for them or they have the confidence to come to the coach themselves. Parents doing it can cause more issues that is irritating to deal with because its the players time in question. Basket_ball hit it on the head, players need to learn responsibility, but maybe by doing those scheduled meeting like "The Dean", we coaches could help the situation.
Coaches coach. Players play. Officials officiate. Parents can cheer if they want, but they don't do any of the first three things. So since playing time is a coach's decision, and he'll always play who he thinks will help them win, there's no explanation that would make any unhappy person happy. It's a pointless question that no coach should bother answering to include coming from a player. "What can I do to get more playing time?" Which almost never means "help me become better" but instead means "Since they can't ask you, my parents put me up to asking why you stupidly allocate playing time?" Be positive, work hard, get better, and more playing time follows. End of story.
I like the answers. I really would like to see coachs do grade cards or have meetings with the kids to tell them what they need to do to get better. I still think there is a lot of favoritism that goes around. Play your friends kid or the board members kid. I agree with work hard and get better and then good things will happen.
I remember my daughter being frustrated her freshman year with not getting to play. So she asked the coach what she needed to work on to get playing time. The coach told her "oh you are as good as anyone on the team, I just forget you're here". She moved on the bench next to the coach and her playing time tripled. Lol. Sometimes it's ability, sometimes it's something much more simple.
I had a buddy who tried this one year... He got absolutely reamed by the parents because he told kids things they needed to improve on, not in a rude manner whatsoever. In fact, he was way too nice about most of it. The team won 5 games that year so I'd say everyone could've done alot of improving.
Point is, parents don't want to know how to get better or how to make their student athletes better, they want their kid playing with the 4 best players.
Point is, parents don't want to know how to get better or how to make their student athletes better, they want their kid playing with the 4 best players.
If your a coach, you have to ask yourself what's the most important thing to you as a coach. Playing the best kids and doing your best to give your kids a chance to win? Making the powerful families in the community happy? If your extremely luck they are one in the same, but we know have often that actually works out for you. So risk job and keep your integrity and do what's right or hope you have job security by playing the power kids. But then you risk losing games and then those same parents blaming you for the loses because you are a terrible coach and they fire you anyway. In a way those parents aren't wrong, you played the kids that were not your best players and that is the very definition of bad coaching. And with that being said, that's the catch-22. The old caught between a rock and a hard spot.
Don't disagree with that...but a grade card seems a bit out there for me. However, I did see Quin Snyder's binders on his players once when he was Mizzou's coach. Most impressive player analysis I've ever seen. Then again, he had a staff of about seven evaluating 12 months out of the year through film breakdown. But dang, it was impressive. Can't imagine his players had any doubt of the things they needed to work on from an individual standpoint.
When a player asks for more playing time, ask them "who's playing time do you deserve?" Which player should play less so they can play more.
Often they can't tell you, they just want to play more.
Coaching is about making the decisions about how to play your guys and most I know care about the group more than the individual.
We start the year asking the players to write down how many minutes they want....we add them up, it's usually about 300 minutes...problem is there is only 160 in a high school game.
So then we have the group sit down with 160 legos, each represents a minute of playing time. The team is tasked with dividing them among the team. The team has a hard time telling a guy he only deserves a minute or two....maybe less, but they need to understand that just like they need to understand some guys need 28-30 minutes.
This gives them a "visual" understanding before the season starts. Seems to have helped.
Often they can't tell you, they just want to play more.
Coaching is about making the decisions about how to play your guys and most I know care about the group more than the individual.
We start the year asking the players to write down how many minutes they want....we add them up, it's usually about 300 minutes...problem is there is only 160 in a high school game.
So then we have the group sit down with 160 legos, each represents a minute of playing time. The team is tasked with dividing them among the team. The team has a hard time telling a guy he only deserves a minute or two....maybe less, but they need to understand that just like they need to understand some guys need 28-30 minutes.
This gives them a "visual" understanding before the season starts. Seems to have helped.
I don't think playing time is a conversation parents of a player need to be involved in, at all. I agree with above statements regarding coaches giving players feedback but not necessarily grade reports. I am not far removed from high school ball and getting coaches feedback was crucial to me. One of my coaches would always ask us at pre-season open gyms, "Now what are you better at this year than you were last year?". I firmly believe it is the coach's right, and duty to put a group of 5 out on the court that gives the team the best chance to win the game, is job isn't to give every player equal minutes. Varsity sports isn't CYC sports, I'm sorry. It's a player-coach discussion to find out what can be done to increase potential minutes, simply asking to play more is silly. There's a reason that individual is riding the pine, and it's their job to find out what they need to do to change that. Just my two cents.
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