I have said before, and will again, that high school sports is about winning and the players that see the most action should be the ones that are the performing the best. Playing time should not be determined by who has the best attendance or whose parents are on the school board.
However, at the lower levels of sports, especially elementary age, focus should be on simply playing and getting everyone into the action. I am not suggesting that a log be kept and every kid gets exactly the same amount of playing time, but coaches should try to keep it equal.
As kids get older it will become apparent who the better athletes in a class are and as possible players get older the number seeking playing time will naturally thin out.
I will use myself as an example. I loved sports from a very young age. One of my earliest memories was watching Browns Hall for Famer Leroy Kelly running on TV, this would be the late 1960’s. I clearly remember the first Indians game I attended in person. It was bat day and we were playing Boston. They won and Carl Yastrzemski hit a home run. I lived and died with the Cavs during the “Miracle in Richfield” days. Joe Tait just brought those games to life.
However, I also knew early on that I was not going to make my living playing sports. I was a career .273 hitter in the Bellville little league. That would be a solid major league average, not hall of fame, but solid. But, the best kids in little league were hitting over .600. Nuff said.
I really liked playing basketball and was a decent shooter when nobody was guarding me. It was just my luck that they want to guard you and being a 5’6″ kid that can’t jump it was difficult for me to get a shot off. I believe the guy that came up with the phrase “white men can’t jump” was watching me play.
The fact that I weighed 120 pounds when I graduated from high school should tell you football wasn’t my game either.
That’s why by the time I was in the fifth grade I knew I wanted to be a sports broadcaster and that is exactly what I have become. In fact, in Ms. Carlin’s sixth grade class at Bellville Elementary in 1977 I won some kind of award for an impression I did of Howard Cosell. My cousin, Denette, named after a watch, portrayed Franz Klammer and Dorothy Hamill in this little skit, funny she didn’t become a skier or an ice skater.
But, the thing was, I was able to learn that I wasn’t going to be an athlete because nearly everybody was better than me and that’s the way it should be.
In little league baseball every kid should get the same coaching on hitting and throwing technique and then we can find out who can do it and who can’t.
In elementary-aged football we should find out who can take a hit and who can’t.
Basketball should be the same, give everyone the chance to prove they can make baskets when people are guarding them, unlike me.
Of course, what gets in the way of all of this? That’s right, parents, they think their kid is always getting his shot blocked because the coach doesn’t know what he is doing.
After years of toil and sweat behind radio station microphones, longtime broadcaster, Jeff Swank joined the new generation of sports followers on the web.
Swank launched his internet radio station with nothing more than some wire, a box with some knobs and switches, and an itch to do much more than just scratch the surface of everything sports.
Richland Source is proud to introduce Jeff as a writer focused on high school sports. He will contribute a weekly column and analysis of a featured game of the week from one of our area high schools.
In addition to his work at Richland Source, Jeff provides complete high school sports coverage for over 70 Ohio schools at his web site, http://www.swankonsports.net76.net/.
