Playing Time: Guidelines for Coaches, Athletes, & Parents: Coaching Mastery

By Scott Rosberg

There is no issue in youth/school team sports that creates more controversy and emotion than playing time. Time and time again, the problems that come up in a team setting will revolve around playing time—who's getting the most, the least, and none at all. And while it is the biggest, most common problem that coaches, athletes, and parents will deal with, they often struggle to figure out how to navigate the contentious nature of the various playing time situations they find themselves in. Playing Time is written for members in each of these groups to help them better understand and deal with this issue, and ultimately, help all involved have a positive athletic experience.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Scott Rosberg
• Release date: Dec 17, 2022
• ISBN: 9781737312161

Scott Rosberg

Scott Rosberg has been a coach (basketball, soccer, & football) at the high school level for 30+ years, an English teacher for 18 years, and an athletic director for 12 years. He has published seven books on coaching and youth/school athletics, two books of inspirational messages and quotes for senior athletes and graduates, and a newsletter for athletic directors and coaches. He also speaks to schools, teams, and businesses on a variety of team-building, leadership, and coaching topics. Scott has a blog and a variety of other materials about coaching and athletic topics on his website – www.greatresourcesforcoaches.com.  Scott is also a member of the Proactive Coaching speaking team. Proactive Coaching is dedicated to helping organizations create character and education-based team cultures, while providing a blueprint for team leadership. They help develop confident, tough-minded, fearless competitors and train coaches and leaders for excellence and significance. Proactive Coaching can be found on the web at www.proactivecoaching.info. Scott can be reached by email at [e-mail] or [e-mail].

Book preview

Contents

Introduction 

Levels of Play

Youth Sports Leagues

Middle School

High School

Coaches

Communicating Playing Time Expectations

Addressing the Coach

Players

Parents

The Meeting

Getting the Kids Playing Time

To Cut or Not to Cut—That Is the Question

Athletes & Parents 

Accepting Your Role & the Coach’s Mindset

Dealing with Playing Time Issues

Talking with the Coach

The Meeting

After the Meeting

A Personal Note

A Final Thought

Introduction

In youth team sports, there is no issue that creates more emotion, conflict, struggle, or pain than playing time. I have been a coach for over thirty years and an athletic director for twelve years. Playing time is the biggest parent issue I faced as a coach and as an athletic director. In fact, most parent/athlete meetings that I have ever had have dealt in some way with playing time. When a parent sets up a meeting or comes into a meeting and says, This is not about playing time, contrary to what they say, it most certainly will be about playing time.

This book comes from my coaching and athletic director experience in three different states. I have coached four different team sports. As an athletic director, I was in charge of fifteen sports at the high school level and eight sports at the middle school level. Many of these sports had two or three levels of teams competing each year. Also, while I didn’t directly oversee them, we had various non-school affiliated youth sports programs (AAU basketball, Grid Kids football, etc.) that used our facilities. In all of these levels, playing time is an issue. At each level there are different dynamics that need to be considered when looking at playing time. I will address those dynamics in a moment.

Every coach, athlete, and parent involved in a team sport has to deal with the issue of playing time at some point during their involvement in that sport. It is just the nature of the beast. When you have only a certain amount of spots that can be played at one time, there are going to be people who are not playing as much as others. I wrote this book as a guide for coaches, athletes, and parents to better understand the dynamic of playing time and communicate better with each other about it. Also, I have created a specific focus for each group, as well:

Coaches - help them better understand and manage this dynamic to help the team achieve success and help the members of the team have a positive experience.

Athletes - help them better understand and deal with the role they have been given with regards to playing time.

Parents - like the athletes, help them better understand and then properly deal with the role that their child has been given with regards to playing time.

While there is no clear-cut, scientific method for handling playing time, there are some considerations to take into account when coaches, athletes, and parents are dealing with the issue of playing time. This book will attempt to address those issues. At the least, I hope you will be able to come to a bit of an understanding of what the other people involved in the playing time equation are dealing with. More than that, I hope to increase the awareness and the dialogue between all the parties involved in playing time issues, so that our team sports can be the positive experience that they are intended to be for all the