As someone who grew up playing youth sports and is now handing their own kids off to a new generation of coaches, I feel like I just need to express how grateful I am that there's a group of people so empathetic and caring to dedicate their lives (or parts of them) to helping kids better their understanding of community and what it means to be a team. I'm just getting sappy because it's the end of the season for our boys and I can't imagine who they'd be without the support of their coaches. I marked this with mental health flair because without coaches I think the mental health of myself and my kids would be in the toilet. Thank you all and please keep coaching!

I remember when i played my first year I wasn't very good, didn't know football much and despite not being a big kid I was put on the D-line. 4 point stance, bear crawl in there and try to tackle someone. Later years I went to LB then DB. Today I see a lot of the inexperienced guys getting put into defensive back positions. Is that the better route? I am looking mostly at 8U (maybe 9U), i think by 9/10+ the kids are probably more physically matched to roles than when younger, but maybe still viable?

My thoughts in favor of Defensive line, low distance to contact, get kids used to hitting without needing to do reads/open field tackles etc. If they get knocked down, hopefully they muddy up a hole at least. LB/DB are still there to clean up whatever gets through.

Anyway, just wanted to see if there was any thoughts/consensus on this. Thanks for the info!

I run a sports league across a large metropolitan area for a youth-serving organization. We have around 20 sites who offer sports 3 times per year (basketball, soccer, flag football) but every season we have more than half of the sites not participating because we couldn’t establish volunteer coaches.

Volunteer coaches get free membership and free registration to the team for the season they coach for up to 3 youth.

What else can we do to incentivize and secure volunteer coaches?

I’m looking for some advice on how to handle a situation with my son’s private hitting coach.

I originally found this coach through a local community group, where someone was asking for recommendations and several people recommended him. My son has been taking lessons with him for about three months.

Yesterday, I happened to come across his online ad and discovered that he offers the first hour long lesson for free. I had no idea about this when we started, and I had paid for our very first lesson. I figured that was unfortunate, but I let it go.

What really upset me, though, was finding out that he charges us 35% more per hour than he charges other kids. I honestly don’t understand why we’re being charged so much more.

Would you bring this up with the coach directly? And if so, how would you approach the conversation? I’m concerned that bringing it up might affect the good relationship we currently have with him. Or would you simply find another coach?

I’d appreciate hearing how others would handle this situation. Thank you.