If they don’t care, they shouldn’t be playing. If they’re going to play, then they actually need to play, not just buzzkill the kids who actually do want to play the sport they signed up for.
Not at all. I’m not saying competitive games are all that needs to happen. There are practices, drills, whatever. But playing the real games identifies the skills that need work, and gives focus to the whole endeavour. Also, it’s not just about each kid’s individual abilities; there’s also learning teamwork and sharing challenges.
I have no problem with not keeping score for grade schoolers, let them enjoy their childhood. But once they get Jr. High/Middle School, they’re being prepared for “the real world” and “the real world” involves keeping score, and not just in sports. I’m suprised nobody’s channel Herm Edwards yet,“You PLAY to WIN the game, HELLO!”
Now this would get me interested in watching youth sports.
I think through elementary school, kids shouldn’t be playing to win - they should be playing because it’s fun and good for them and they like it - but they should be keeping score. There’s no reason not to, and if you’re not keeping score in a soccer or baseball or basketball game, then you’re just eternally practicing with none of the payoff. I was horrid at softball, but loved the ‘being on a team’ aspect of it and played all through elementary school.
<Martial arts hijack>
I think that’s kind of a different problem. A decent MA class, regardless of the age group or style, will be led by an instructor who can give his students plenty of motivation even just to meet training goals for the sake of improving their martial arts skills (e.g., learn this new technique/pattern so you can do it smoothly. Beat that other guy in an in-class sparring match. Keep working on that pattern until you can teach it to someone else/spot their errors. etc). The problem you’re getting at, I think, is that there’s an ungodly number of martial arts “instructors” who either don’t know or don’t care how to do it right, and parents who are too dumb to see or care about the difference. (I’m, luckily, the product of both a teacher and parents who did care. 8 years of TKD from the age of 10, still drop in on a class when I’m visiting my parents. Never entered a single tournament.)
I just don’t get why you would bother trying to, say, get the ball into the hoop if there’s no reward for doing so. That’s what scoring is. You get to keep track of how well you are doing.
You need the reward system. You need something to motivate you. Without it, it’s only the natural athletes that ever bother to actually play. It’s stupid to make the coaches have to be the sole motivators.
You know how my coaches motivated us? By keeping score and telling us what we did wrong, so that we could improve ourselves. And I’ve never seen a group of parents who didn’t keep score.
Now ice hockey, on the other hand…
Six or seven is the right time to begin keeping score. By that time everyone has the counting and basic math to do so and it is time to make it an aspect of the game. The problem is that all to often sports culture becomes far too focused on winning and loses sight of the original concept of a friendly game played for enjoyment, exercise, and camaraderie. When this happens people are driven away, feelings get hurt, bullying and excessive aggression is praised, etc… Not keeping score was a rather misguided attempt at nipping that in the bud; but it does ruin the game and removes the point of it. Score should be kept, but not *focused *on seriously until middle school. There should be winners and losers, and trophies should be reserved for teams to hold collectively, not individuals. The team won the season that you were a part of. That drives home the lesson to the superstars as well as the shabbiest member of the team.
You bother to get the ball in the hoop because it’s so obviously better than not getting the ball in the hoop. And you know what keeping score does? It makes weaker players afraid to touch the fucking ball, because now everybody has a legitimate reason to hate them for not getting the ball in the hoop.
What coaches SHOULD be doing is coaching – telling kids HOW to do what they don’t know how to do – but they’re not really any good at that. Which is why this kid didn’t learn that batting had anything do with his goddamn LEGS until he was thirty.
Are you sure that not being good at sports is a legitimate reason for hating a classmate? There is always the fat kid to hate, or the dumb one, or the poor one, etc.
SSG § Schwartz
Unless the oft used words, “HUSTLE, PEOPLE!” count for something.
My son is 7 and has been playing organized team sports for a couple years now and the kids definitely keep score, even if the adults don’t. He’s playing football this season and the score is kept (and they’ll have playoffs and a championship game). The kids know each team’s record for the season and how they did last year. Almost everyone does fine with this, except for a couple kids who get really upset when they lose. There is a direct correlation between these kids and their parents’ behavior. The one boy that gets especially upset has the dad that’s at every practice yelling at his son from the sidelines to “kill him!” and “knock him out!”
I will say that football has been one of the better experiences for my son, but mostly because his coaches demand much more of the kids than the t-ball or basketball coaches do. They work a lot harder, are expected to show much more respect to the coaches and officials (yes, sir…no, sir), and they frankly get yelled at a lot more. Instead of purely positive feedback, they’re told when they’re doing something incorrectly and they’re expected to be paying attention at all times. Screwing around gets you laps or push-ups. My son has learned a ton and he’s actually enjoying it much more than he does the other sports.
This is what I expect from organized team sports. I see nothing wrong with this.
By schoolyard rules and evil kid logic, it’s legitimate. They never gave a crap what I thought then and I doubt kids would give a crap what I think now.
Billy Martin speaks for me: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Olk8hnGrQXU
1 minute interview snip.
But I think they should keep score from as early as the kids understand what keeping score means. They should be trying to win. I don’t mean sliding into second cleats high but they should be trying to win.
I am a coach of junior basketball both at a local and representative level. We keep score from day 1 and I think that we should always keep score. What a coach and parent needs to do is point out what their kid did in a positive way. As a coach I am disgusted by parents as they are the ones who ruin it.
Kids keep score.
You have got to be kidding me. My daughter is a Sophomore which is grade 10. You are saying that they should not have been keeping score in her soccer games until a year or two ago. Earlier tonight she was on the phone with the coach from a division 1 school in Baltimore (hint… it has a great hospital attached) discussing her visit there later this week. She has his cell number because she can contact him but he can’t contact her at this age. There is a very good chance that she will get a terrific education at a fraction of the normal cost. This is one of several universities that has expressed interest in having her play for them. Do you really think this would happen if they didn’t keep score? By the way… by the time she was 7 she had been playing for 3 years and was well aware of the difference between winning and losing.
My son as well is in 8th grade… his team is in the top 10 in the nation. They didn’t get there by not keeping score. Oh, and your comment that High School sports are more competitive made me laugh. College coaches don’t give a crap about your High School… it is all about your club play, which typically starts at 8.
No, I said in post #7 that there’s nothing wrong with modifying rules when necessary to encourage learning. I’m open to that including not keeping score. I also said it’s fine to keep score when appropriate. As others have pointed out, it largely depends on the situation, goals of the league/team, coaching quality, etc.
I sincerely hope that’s true, because it’s relatively rare by percentage of high school athletes. Pretty low numbers. Which means it’s little more than a pipe dream for most kids - even good players from good programs. Low enough that an NCAA official in my second cite says:
So I’m glad for your daughter, but most of the kids served by athletic programs have different needs. With that in mind…
Two answers:
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Very possibly. If she really has the chops, I don’t think a little game modification is going to hold her back too much. Again, we’re talking about lower levels of play for learning purposes, not JV or Varsity.
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The point isn’t necessarily to produce legions of kids who are going to play D1. Very few will no matter what the coaching methods. If you feel she has the knack for it - great - find a league that suits your needs. But if the rest of the team needs different approaches to encourage learning, I have no problem with that.
What a bunch of blame-the-system whining. Your kids’ team screws around so it must be the league’s fault that it doesn’t keep score? Why do the other teams in the league not have this problem? Of course, it has to be someone else’s fault and their responsibility.
The real issue is that your son ended up on a team with the wrong mix of kids, parents, and coaches. There wasn’t a critical mass of parents that took the season seriously. As a result, the kids spent the season goofing off and not learning anything. It sucks, but it happens and the best recourse is to step up and coach next year. Or if you are not going to coach, then find out who is coaching and request one of them on the sign-up form.
And all this whining posters are doing about leagues not keeping score and ‘pussifying’ sports is a bunch of over-emotional, chicken-little BS. As other posters have stated, the kids know the score. They know who the best players are, they vote for them for the All-Star league, they know which ones are in the travel leagues, they know which ones are scorning the runs, goals, and baskets. They are learning lessons about competition just like we did as kids. I’ve watched my kids in countless games and the kids always knew the score. They were always disappointed when they lost and excited when they won. They know the reality even if someone doesn’t write it down and post it on a website.
Every kid gets a trophy at the end of the year? So what? The kids know that they all get one and that it worth exactly that – no more. They know which teams were the best and who played the hardest. All that’s happened is that the trophy is de-valued. Who cares?
I think the real reason scores are not kept has nothing to do with the kids. It has to do with the parents and the coaches. The more emphasis the league puts on scoring, the more likely a coach and parents will put together a team of the best players. Even in my kids’ un-scored leagues, there are parents and coaches that work out elaborate schemes to game the system and get all of their kids on the same team. If Billy’s sign-up forms asks for Bobby and Billy’s twin asks for Tommy and the assistant coach’s kids asks for… And that type of strategy is counter-productive to the entire experience. The good kids don’t get real competition and the rest of the kids are so dominated they don’t have a chance to learn. This type of imbalance isn’t a good reflection of sports competition later in life (except maybe the Yankees?)
I never understood all of the emotional complaining about leagues that don’t keep score. I’d like to hear a non-emotional, factual reason why it matters because my personal experience doesn’t support the position.
I fully agree, and know that my kid is the exception and not the norm. My point though is that there are some kids who do hit this level, and not keeping score just isn’t realistic. Even at a young age when they aren’t supposed to be keeping score… the kids know the score.
I’ll briefly share how I made her cry in second grade when after winning a local rec championship she mentioned at dinner something about “when I play in college” and I tried my best to use logic to tell her how bad the odds are. All these years later I still feel like an asshole for that moment, and I’m pretty sure she has pushed herself just to prove me wrong on that night. :smack:
Since Dopers seem to be skeptical, I’ll just add that she has a 4.35 GPA so it will likely be a combination of athletic and academic money.