Coaching Youth Football Players Of a Lesser Talent: Are We Helping or Hurting Their Growth?

They run 8-second 40’s; they can barely do a pushup; they shed tears during conditioning drills; they cringe in fear during full-contact drills; but they show up every day and they give good effort. As coaches, we’ve all had them on our teams and we’ve all had to try to figure out how to work with them. But most coaches make the wrong decisions when it comes to working with athletes who really struggle talent-wise.

The first thing an inexperienced or untrained coach will do is lower expectations and accept less than adequate performances. But when we, as coaches, lower our standards (and more often than not we convince ourselves that we are somehow doing this in the best interests of the kids and the team), we are depriving these kids of the opportunity to learn how to compete with confidence. In fact, we are instilling a false sense of confidence and achievement, we are putting their safety at risk and we are compromising our impact as coaches and teachers.

Is it admirable to teach our kids that it’s okay to perform on a less-than-acceptable level as long as they are giving some effort? Or is it more beneficial to adopt the philosophy that as long as our players are on the field giving effort it’s our responsibility as coaches to ensure that this effort goes to learning the proper physical and mental game skills? Because there’s something more important at stake than just teaching these kids how to block and tackle properly—we are teaching them a process by which they can, far removed from a sports venue, learn to utilize knowledge and skills, a process they can use to achieve positive results in other areas of their lives. And if we leave these kids with the impression that effort trumps performance, we are setting them up for failure.

Should our children’s school teachers accept below-average performances in the classroom when our children are struggling with the lessons being taught? Should the teachers just label them “bad students”, accept their C’s and D’s and move them on to the next grade level? Should they say, “it’s okay Jimmy, your answers aren’t quite right, but I can see you’re trying, and that’s all that really matters?” Would we, as parents, accept this philosophy? Is this in the best interests of our kids?

When our kids grow up and enter the workplace, should we expect their employers to accept sub-par performances on the premise that at least they are showing up on time and putting forth some effort? Would you expect to keep your job if you performed at a less than acceptable level? As an employer, would you want to hire such an individual? And would you want to work for a company that espouses such a philosophy? Most people, young athletes or otherwise, who are given low expectations tend to perform at that level.

The process of teaching fundamental skills and a solid work ethic has to start somewhere. And what better venue than youth sports? But it has to begin with good coaches. As coaches, we cannot lower expectations and we must not accept less than adequate performances when teaching proper skills becomes an inconvenience or because it’s affecting the flow of practice. We cannot move onto more complex activities with these kids if they haven’t learned the basics just because we have a schedule to keep. It is our responsibility to take the time to ensure that every player on the team understands and can execute the fundamental techniques of the game—even if this means taking the less talented players aside and working with them until we are confident they can perform at an adequate level. To do otherwise would be putting them in harm’s way. And to do otherwise would be cheating these kids out of the opportunity to learn important life skills. It may very well be that one of the things they learn is that their primary skills do not lie in sports at all. That’s perfectly ok, because what we teach on the field just might help them develop skills in those things that they do well. But we cannot know this unless we, as coaches, have earnestly provided them every opportunity to succeed. In fact, accepting less than adequate results from the less talented players is the biggest tragedy of all, because these are the kids who comprise the largest percentage of those who quit youth sports by age 14. And what have they learned from us?