Characteristics of a Good Youth Football Coach?

What is a "Good Youth Football Coach"

A good coach doesn't size up his players on registration day and make assumptions as to they're playing ability based on what he thinks a "running back", "lineman" etc. should look like!

A good coach doesn't silently assign his player positions even before the first day of practice based on his returning players. Every season should afford the opportunity for new kids to compete for the highly coveted positions!

A good coach makes sure EVERY KID on the team gets reasonable playing time! Only the morons have trouble figuring out how to do this and still field a team that has a chance to win!

A good coach encourages, and teaches his strong players while instilling confidence in his weaker ones!

A good coach knows that when it comes to YOUTH football, winning should be a direct result of GOOD FOOTBALL INSTRUCTION!

As a former college football player and longtime strength trainer and youth football coach I've witnessed more bad coaching than you could ever imagine and I've heard the same cliche from "bad coaches" every year which is "Yea, I want the kids to have fun, but loosing isn't fun." When it comes to KIDS this statement is ridiculous! Playing football is fun! You're not going to have the same amount of talent every year so let ALL the kids feel like they're part of a team by playing at least ONE full quarter and balance this by playing 5-6 strong kids at all times in key positions while alternating your average-weak players in the other positions. What the hell do these "win by any means" coaches think they're going to win anyway? This isn't the NFL, College, or even High School. Infact, as a coach, your objective should be to boost these weaker kids confidence even more instead of silently wishing they didn't even sign up for your team.

My son is 11 going on 12 and will be playing in the 13-14 division this year because of his rare ability. He scored 18 touchdowns in 8 games last year (missed one game due to a family vacation) and his team won the championship. He also scored three TD's in the all star game against the best the division had to offer. I could have insisted that he stay in 11-12's but what benefit would it be to him to score five-six touchdowns a game against kids that were so much weaker, and slower than he is. The objective is for him to become a better football player! The objective of a GOOD coach is to make all the kids on his team better football players! After all, we're talking about KIDS here!