Every roster has one. The kid who drags their feet at drop-off, stares at the grass during your pep talk, and only laces up because a parent told them to. It’s tempting to write them off as a lost cause or, worse, to make them the example of what not to do in front of … [Read More…]
It’s one of the most confusing situations in coaching: the kid with the most natural ability on the roster starts coasting through drills, showing up late, or checking out mentally during practice. Parents ask what happened. Teammates notice. And most coaches default to the wrong fix — more pressure, a benching, or a lecture about … [Read More…]
Six-to-ten-year-olds don’t stay focused through long technique explanations, and they definitely don’t stay motivated through drill repetition for its own sake. The coaches who keep young wrestlers coming back season after season are the ones who turn fundamentals into games — so kids are building stance, motion, balance, and grip fighting without realizing they’re “drilling.” … [Read More…]
A gym full of six-to-ten-year-olds on their first day of wrestling can feel chaotic if you try to teach too much too fast. The fix isn’t a bigger playbook — it’s a smaller one. A handful of foundational moves, taught in the right order and drilled until they’re automatic, will do more for a beginner … [Read More…]
Relay races are the loudest, most emotional moments of any youth swim meet — and the ones where a coach’s prep work shows up fastest. Get the rotation wrong and you lose seconds or, worse, get disqualified on an early exchange. Get the pre-race talk wrong and nervous kids swim tight and slow. This guide … [Read More…]
Anyone who has stood on deck for a 4,000-yard practice knows the moment it happens: swimmers start drifting on the wall, stroke count goes out the window, and the group that was sharp during warm-up is now just surviving. Long sets are where age-group swimmers build the aerobic base and stroke habits that carry them … [Read More…]
The hardest part of coaching a beginner group isn’t the swimming — it’s the planning. Kids who just learned to swim don’t have the stamina, attention span, or stroke technique of a seasoned age-grouper, so a practice copied from the senior group’s whiteboard will fall apart in ten minutes. This guide covers everything a new … [Read More…]
Twenty kids, 45 minutes, and one whistle — it sounds impossible until you stop running practice like a single-line drill and start running it like a rotation. The teams that get the most out of a short practice window split players into small groups, keep every station under six minutes, and never let a kid … [Read More…]
Teaching a nine-year-old to tackle safely is a completely different job than coaching a high schooler. Bodies are still developing, attention spans are short, and one bad habit learned early — like ducking the head into contact — can take a whole season to unwind. The good news is that youth tackling doesn’t have to … [Read More…]
Every offensive line coach eventually gets a kid who has never lined up in a stance in his life — doesn’t know what “down” means, doesn’t know where his hands go, and looks lost the second the ball is snapped. That’s normal, not a red flag. Offensive line is one of the most technical positions … [Read More…]
Every coach and parent hits the same moment: your best pitcher is cruising through the fifth inning, the count is close, and someone asks “how many pitches has he thrown?” Guessing wrong here isn’t a technicality — it’s how kids end up with elbow and shoulder injuries that follow them into high school. This guide … [Read More…]
Nothing stalls a youth volleyball practice faster than a line of kids who can’t get the ball over the net — but a different, quieter problem trips up just as many players: the serve that’s automatic in warmups and dead reps, then falls apart the moment a real set is on the line. A parent … [Read More…]
Not every team gets a turf field with two sets of goals waiting at practice time. If your group is stuck in a gym, a parking lot, a half-field shared with soccer, or someone’s backyard, you can still run a practice that builds real stick skills, decision-making, and conditioning. This guide walks through how to … [Read More…]
If a young lacrosse player only has time for one thing between practices, it should be wall ball. A rebounding wall turns every throw into an instant, honest repetition — no teammate needed, no field required, just a stick, a ball, and a solid wall. This guide lays out a practical wall ball routine you … [Read More…]
Coaching a team of first-year U10 players is less about strategy and more about reps, fun, and keeping every kid moving with a stick in their hands. At this age, USA Lacrosse’s youth model prioritizes skill development over winning, which means your practice plan should look very different from a high school session. This guide … [Read More…]
Handing a brand-new player a lacrosse stick for the first time can feel like handing them a foreign object — the ball rolls out of the pocket the second they move, and their instinct is to grip the shaft in a death clamp. Cradling is the skill that turns that awkward stick into an extension … [Read More…]
Every flag football coach eventually runs into the same math problem at practice: 13 kids show up, or 11, or 9 — never a clean multiple of 5 or 7. You don’t want to bench someone just because the numbers don’t divide evenly, and you don’t want a scrimmage that feels lopsided or confusing. The … [Read More…]
If you’ve ever called “run a slant” and watched a seven-year-old sprint straight into the parking lot, you already know: young kids don’t think in routes. They think in shapes, colors, and “run to that thing.” Trying to teach a route tree the way a high school coach would is a fast way to lose … [Read More…]
Every flag football coach hits this wall in week one: a defender sprints in, panics, and grabs a fistful of jersey instead of the flag. It’s not defiance, it’s instinct — grabbing cloth feels more certain than snatching a thin strip of fabric off a moving hip. The fix isn’t yelling “no grabbing” louder, it’s … [Read More…]
Coaching flag football players who are 5, 6, or 7 years old is a different job than coaching any other age group. Most of these kids have never worn a flag belt, don’t know what a snap is, and will lose interest fast if a drill runs more than a few minutes. The good news … [Read More…]
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