Win at all cost?

Dear Eagle Coach:
You have answered your own question. You know the answer. The Answer is to do what is best for all the boys. That may mean not winning. I played pee-wee and jr high ball in the late 70's. In four years my teams won 4 or 5 out of 23-24 games. I still remember my love for my team mates though I have seen none of them for 10 years (one was my best friend as a child), and would follow Mr Riel or Coach Kelly into Iraq (as I did for some good professional soldiers in 91). It wasn't the winning that mattered, though it would have been alot more fun. I remember that they taught me to pay attention to detail, fight like a man (with rules and morals), to see that character and concern (love) for your team mates was the paramount thing. What I learned playing football from 10-14 years old saw me through knob/plebe year at The Citadel, a war, very difficult personal and professional life. Aside from my relationship with Christ and my family, nothing has positively a/effected me more. Oh, and do I love the game? Well, here as a complete layman I am keeping up with the game they taught me, hoping to help use it to teach and develop other young men.
If I may add something: The Will Rogers of our day , Rush Limbaugh once said, "all you need to know about living life, you can learn playing football."
Do what you know is right, the boys will learn more and care for you more than if your are a jerk who wins games for them.
Grace Alone,
Greg

Guys,

My own thoughts are in line with what Coach Campbell is saying in that the greatest disservice any of us could do to the game would be to turn a kid off from the game because of an undeserved lack of playing time or inappropriate coaching methods due to placing too much emphasis on the almighty "W" at our level. I personally think that striving to win in all facets of the game is critical to the development of any player, coach or team. I've often been prouder of my kids in a loss when we played well than when we won handily and played poorly. All of us want to win to different degrees and everyone needs some level of individual and team success to continue to make an activity or sport fun. A few wins can go a long ways towards making a season very enjoyable for your kids and their parents though if your sole focus is not winning but is more in line with doing everything we can in preparing to win. I use a phrase with the coaches in our league that I think kind of sums up my feelings on the importance of winning, "think about the other sideline". When I prepare my team to the best of my and their abilities, I go in expecting to and wanting to win. If things go the right way and we take control of the game, I soon begin to focus my thoughts on my opponents kids, coaches and parents as to how they can come away with a positive feeling about their team's performance, even in a loss. Shutouts and blowouts are never something I consider and frankly neither should any of you in my opinion at the youth level. When you've got the game in hand, think about that other sideline before tacking on an unnecessary score on a trick play or not substituting kids to make it possible for the other team to move the ball or to score once or twice. I want to win as badly as most, but it won't show up on the scoreboard in our games if I can help it. Thanks for the posts guys on this very important topic.

Thanks for your first post Jr2004Coach and welcome to the forum!

I'm a firm believer that our kids must be able to have fun even when the scoreboard turns out to not be in their favor. Should they want to win and be disappointed if they don't? Sure they should. Should it be our main focus that no matter how well our team or child played, a loss only represents "not getting it done" and therefore couldn't have been fun? Definitely not in my opinion.

Coach Sam,
I am one to always look at myself first. I do not wish to beleive that one would go out of his or her way to win, I have been proven wrong on many accounts. Yet, I still wish to give benefit of the doubt. Perhaps these five new players were either sick or had been on vacation with their families. It is possible. For instance. In October Coach Lansdales team with myself as Dline coach played a game with 6 of our starters out. Two on Suspension, One sick and Three others injured. so it is possible.
Hope this helped.
Coach Taylor