This thread is a good addition to the subject of coaching youth sports, something I did for the first time this fall.

The ultimate thing to remember is the idea of youth sports is not to win or even get better at the sport. The whole point is to make the kids better people. It's easy to forget, though, and unfortunately, winning and getting better at the sport do assist in helping the kids become better people. Waldman's point that winning is more fun than losing, and that kids who win will want to play enough seasons to become better people is the challenge I guess.

I coached co-ed basketball one year, a team of 1st-3rd graders. We were trying to teach them the basics and thought running an offense would make the games less enjoyable and, somehow, even more chaotic. Most of our games were against teams coached by truckers and bankers and nurses, people with better things to do who just wanted to help out. The kids seemed entertained and enthused. Then we played a team made up only of girls, coached by a woman who runs a girls-only sports program. Most teams only played defense inside the three-point line; she encouraged her players to trap the ball-handler at every opportunity. I told my players to defend shots "straight up" so that players could take the shot (they almost always missed); she demanded all defenders "go for the ball," leading to at least two dozen blocked shots, the least fun activity in sports. After the game, which her team won 38-4, I mentioned it wasn't very much fun to play against her team. She looked at me like I had just accosted her in a parking lot demanding her purse. "Fun?! You people and your FUN!" I suppose I wasn't the first nor the last person to point this out to her.