I coach two basketball teams for the YMCA. It\’s a ton of fun and we have a great group of kids. You start to recognize and even know the other coaches from prior years and the vast majority of them are great people. They really make it fun for the kids which is what sports should be at that level. The other weekend, we played a team where the coach completely flew in the face of everything I just complemented. He was screaming at the kids and keep in mind, we\’re talking age 6-7. It ruined the game not only for the kids but for me. How could he be so clueless? After screams of \”TAKE HIM! TAKE HIM!\” to the same two kids on his team…one of them obviously his son, I just wrote it off to him being a very small man trying to live vicariously from these poor kids. The YMCA handled it perfectly after a few coaches complained and that was that but it touches on what we want to encourage here at PrepSportFantasy.com with our prep players. Respect the Game and Respect the Players. Sports should be fun and we want to be a part of the fun…not the dysfunction.

The funny thing about the coach mentioned in derision above is that the kids under his \”care\” will probably burn out and hate the sport by the time middle school rolls around. Look, the only way you\’re going to get skills needed to play prep basketball well is with hours and hours of doing it. There\’s no easy way to learn dribbling than to have a ball in your hands and ideally in a game setting. What the coach above and many over aggressive parents fail to understand is that a kid will play the game if it\’s fun. If they play it at school during recess or lunch, that\’s hours of practice. Maybe 100\’s of hours in a given year. That\’s the only way you get there and if the sport is associated with yelling, abuse, and strictness…guess what…that young kid probably won\’t like it. It needs to be fun. A lot of pro athletes didn\’t pick up the sport till middle school. They loved it so much and had a natural talent/inclination which drove them to spend the countless hours needed to excel. This feeds into our goal here at PrepSportFantasy.com.

Keep in mind that the kids that are participating in the network are kids. They\’re really into their sports and their having fun with a site dedicated to their prep sport and high school sport worlds. The Fantasy league allows them and fans to participate in this journey but it\’s got to be positive or we all lose. It is a community after all. It\’s one thing to talk trash with an upcoming opponent. It\’s quite a different thing to go after kids in your fantasy league. This kind of behavior is very rare but there\’s always someone in any community who doesn\’t get it. When this happens in our prep sport community, we\’ll kick em out and never look back! A healthy community starts with a healthy respect for the prep sport players. It\’s the reason we got into sports to begin. It\’s got to be fun!

Author Bio: Dennis Jarvis writes about the world of Prep Sports including high school sports such as high school football, basketball, and baseball.

Category: Sports
Keywords: respect high school players,high school football,high school sports,prep football