A Coach's Diary

1 – Have Fun The number 1 goal for a youth league should be that the kids have so much fun that they want to play again next year.  The league, the referees, each coach, and each parent should understand their role in making sure that their kid has a great experience.  While keeping score is important, and understanding early that there is a winner and a loser is important, the most important thing is just having fun playing the game and learning to love the game, learning to love being active, and learning how to play with their friends.  A big part of that is helping them learn how to handle both success and failure.  We have to teach the kids how to accept success in a way that is gracious and humble and in a way that encourages continued hard work to continue to have that success.  We have to teach and model for them how to accept failure and adversity as teaching tools for life, and to use setbacks to teach them the importance of working hard in practice ...