I posted the following as a response to a Purple Pride post regarding playing time in middle school sports. However, I wanted to post it here for more to see and hopefully get more responses.

 

Situation: 7th grade ms basketball team. Overall team/class is fairly down in talent, struggle to win games, struggle at the pg and C spots especially. Have 16 kids on the 7th grade team. Coach brings in the 6th grade pg and C to play up on 7th grade team, and though they might not start (yet), they get the starter minutes. Yes, the 6th graders are better than the 7th graders at those two spots. Yes, they make the team a little better, but still not really winning games. Question: Should the 6th graders play up or should the 7th grade coach use what he's got and try to develop them?

 

Actual situation and I know all the kids and parents involved. Been talking about this for a couple of weeks, two distinct lines for thought on it for sure. I don't know if either is right or either is wrong, but I have my opinion of what should happen. Opinions?

I posted the following as a response to a Purple Pride post regarding playing time in middle school sports. However, I wanted to post it here for more to see and hopefully get more responses.

 

Situation: 7th grade ms basketball team. Overall team/class is fairly down in talent, struggle to win games, struggle at the pg and C spots especially. Have 16 kids on the 7th grade team. Coach brings in the 6th grade pg and C to play up on 7th grade team, and though they might not start (yet), they get the starter minutes. Yes, the 6th graders are better than the 7th graders at those two spots. Yes, they make the team a little better, but still not really winning games. Question: Should the 6th graders play up or should the 7th grade coach use what he's got and try to develop them?

 

Actual situation and I know all the kids and parents involved. Been talking about this for a couple of weeks, two distinct lines for thought on it for sure. I don't know if either is right or either is wrong, but I have my opinion of what should happen. Opinions?

First of all, what is a middle school team doing with 16 kids on one team. Two teams of 8 would be MUCH better, even if they weren't that good. You can't do justice to 16 kids playing 6 minutes quarters no matter what you do. Secondly, winning at the middle school level is not a priority, it is used to prepare kids for later years. With that said there is NO justification for bringing 2 sixth graders up. Now you have 18 kids to deal with. I don't care how much better it makes the team. That is irrelevant. You only bring kids up from a lower level when there are not adequate numbers on the higher grade team. This is a no brainer in my opinion.

Yep, 16 on the team and bringing up kids to play. Even without the 6th graders coming up to play, several on the 7th grade bench weren't seeing the. Now the starting pg and center are riding the bench a lot of the game.

Given that they kept 16 players, it seems that their goal was to develop as many players as possible. In this situation, why bring up 2 more at this point? So, I would say not to.

However, I think that middle school ball is the first level where it's a privilege, not a right, to play. If the 6th graders are better then they should play up. If it's about developing MORE players, don't shaft those that are most deserving by letting them play at a level that doesn't challenge them. It would then be logical to say not to play them at both the 6th and 7th grade levels because it is taking up spots from TWO age groups.

By playing such players up (and not double playing them), you are still developing the same number of players while more fully developing those that are better (at that age).

Middle school athletics should be first and foremost about development. You can have quality play AND development of ALL kids. It's not mutually exclusive. All middle schools have an A team for basketball. If you're good enough to make the A team you should get minutes every game. I've done it with very good 8th grade teams. Heck, I've lost games in the regular season where I could have won had I played the best players when it got tight. I wanted my other guys to get that exposure and experience. We were better for it in the long run.

 

I watched the Conner 6th grade girls team last year. They were loaded with talent. However, the coach decided he was going to establish his reputation as a "great coach" by playing a short bench and blowing teams out. His 12th girl could play. However, winning was his priority. That's insane. The guy should not be allowed to coach middle school teams.

 

If I'm a high school coach I tell all of my middle school coaches to get minutes for everyone so they all get better. Selfishly I don't want some gung-ho "look at me" coach running off players that might help me in the future as varsity players.

 

This has nothing to do with "participation trophies" or "lets all get ribbons." That's pure nonsense and shows some of you guys type without thinking.

Edited December 4, 201312 yr by JokersWild24

Ask people in Clay County if they feel middle school sports changed the basketball culture there. For the longest time, there were only grade schools that went up to 8th grade. Lots of kids getting lots of playing time, competing against one another in highly competitive grade school games. If I'm not mistaken, there might have even been a 7th grade team and 8th grade team at each school, with the younger kids playing on B teams or something similar.

 

Middle school opens in the mid-1990's. IIRC, the first class to graduate our high school where every kid went to the middle school was 1998. Clay County's last real shot at winning state was probably 1994. Last back to back trips to State were 1998 & 1999. Lots of people back home don't think that's a coincidence. It has nothing to do with the coaching, because our middle school teams had pretty good coaches, but more to do with the number of kids the high school ended up getting to pick from under the new system.

I read a study recently about adolecent coping skills, or the lack there of. To sum it up, children are not able to cope with failure because they don't experience enough of it as they mature. Meaning, the world doesn't give a flip about your feelings, and it will beat you to your knees and keep you there if you let it! Failure teaches perserverence and work ethic. We learn through failure, we do our kids an injustice when we help with everything, allow them to succeed without earning it, and teach them the world is fair. Who in the sam heck said life was FAIR!!!???? They have to learn that at an early age, otherwise they WILL fail, and NOT get back up. Within that same study it was mentioned that this current generation, overall, will be the first to NOT do better than their parents. I don't blame the kids for this, it's our fault as adults for allowing it to happen.

I think there's a difference between "equal playing time" and "development". I haven't seen anyone on this thread that strikes me as an "equal playing time" person. I have seen a lot of good responses about "development" over "let's do whatever we need to so we can win this middle school game" though.

Ask people in Clay County if they feel middle school sports changed the basketball culture there. For the longest time, there were only grade schools that went up to 8th grade. Lots of kids getting lots of playing time, competing against one another in highly competitive grade school games. If I'm not mistaken, there might have even been a 7th grade team and 8th grade team at each school, with the younger kids playing on B teams or something similar.

 

Middle school opens in the mid-1990's. IIRC, the first class to graduate our high school where every kid went to the middle school was 1998. Clay County's last real shot at winning state was probably 1994. Last back to back trips to State were 1998 & 1999. Lots of people back home don't think that's a coincidence. It has nothing to do with the coaching, because our middle school teams had pretty good coaches, but more to do with the number of kids the high school ended up getting to pick from under the new system.

 

I know the same thing has happened to a couple football programs over the years. County schools where the 4 or 5 K-8 community schools all had 7th-8th teams to go along with the 1sr/2nd, 3rd/4th, 5th/6th. For years, there were in upwards of 25-35 freshmen rolling in (that was on average, some years it hit 40)....then came the ONE middle school with ONE team and then numbers started falling off drastically and so has this high school football program since then. We arent talking about a 6A school either.

Practice makes a player.

 

The problem with middle school basketball is that the amount of practice time is so limited. No one is developing players in games.

 

If a school was really interested in developing players, the number of games would be limited and the number of practices increased. I'm pretty sure most teams can work all 12-17 players into the drills and scrimmages of a practice.

Play the 6th graders up.

 

Play the best kids...if the 6th graders are better, play em! This isn't pay to play, a coach is not obligated to play a single kid other than those who give the team the best opportunity to be successful. Heck, how many times have you seen an 8th grader start on the HS Varsity level? I can think of quite a few. Best players play.

A high school coach mentality, in most cases, is play everyone and let them develop. They need to know who is improving, who works hard, who is a team player, who has what skill sets, etc. I would wnat the MS coach. if they feed one high school to use the same system in any sport as the high school does, also. And... we have seen this many times, some kids develop later than others and some kids just don't get better because they mature physically at a younger age and they can no longer dominate as they could in MS or 9th grade.

 

 

Agree. The middle school coach who throws the 6'2 seventh grader who probably isn't going to grow anymore in the post and letting him play bullyball before all the other kids have physically caught up to him is doing the kid a disservice.

Something that I think people are underestimating is the amount of things competing for kids' time, especially at some of the schools where the parents typically have higher incomes.

 

If you are a 12 year old kid or so, would you rather be at practice when you are the 10th man and never leave the bench aside from getting in during the last minutes of blowouts or go to a Bengals game or Perfect North with your family? Playing the new Xbox you got for Christmas or running laps? You all act like every kid in the school cares half as much about their high school's athletics program or school spirit as most of the people who post on here.

 

Kids aren't stupid and at some point will get tired of being practice dummies. Then they quit or stop going out. Predicting how kids at from 11-14 are going to develop is a pretty inexact science and you end up losing out on some kids that could have helped you win at the varsity level, and probably would have stuck it out if there was more in it for them than being a practice dummy while they waited to hit their own growth spurt.

Something that I think people are underestimating is the amount of things competing for kids' time, especially at some of the schools where the parents typically have higher incomes.

 

If you are a 12 year old kid or so, would you rather be at practice when you are the 10th man and never leave the bench aside from getting in during the last minutes of blowouts or go to a Bengals game or Perfect North with your family? Playing the new Xbox you got for Christmas or running laps? You all act like every kid in the school cares half as much about their high school's athletics program or school spirit as most of the people who post on here.

 

Kids aren't stupid and at some point will get tired of being practice dummies. Then they quit or stop going out. Predicting how kids at from 11-14 are going to develop is a pretty inexact science and you end up losing out on some kids that could have helped you win at the varsity level, and probably would have stuck it out if there was more in it for them than being a practice dummy while they waited to hit their own growth spurt.

Something that I think people are underestimating is the amount of things competing for kids' time, especially at some of the schools where the parents typically have higher incomes.

 

If you are a 12 year old kid or so, would you rather be at practice when you are the 10th man and never leave the bench aside from getting in during the last minutes of blowouts or go to a Bengals game or Perfect North with your family? Playing the new Xbox you got for Christmas or running laps? You all act like every kid in the school cares half as much about their high school's athletics program or school spirit as most of the people who post on here.

 

The ones that end up successful in high school normally do care about their high school athletics programs. They are playing to be a part of it one day.