Youth Inc. Co-Founder Greg Olsen Answers Questions About Youth Sports

Youth Inc. Co-Founder Greg Olsen recently answered questions about Youth Sports for The Athletic through their Peak initiative, which covers leadership, personal development and performance through the lens of sports. To read more from Olsen, click here.

Greg, I coach a 5-on-5 co-ed flag football team, ages 11-14. We try to rotate kids in as much as possible, but do you have any practical advice on how best to keep kids engaged who aren’t on the field as much as others? — Craig Custance

There are two parts to this question. There is the practice component and then there is the game-day component.

The hardest thing about structuring a youth sports practice is doing everything in your power to keep as many kids engaged and doing something as humanly possible. When kids stand around and are bored, that’s when it becomes a distraction. They don’t want to play, they want to play a different sport, and you lose them. So the No. 1 thing is: How can you keep practice engaging? If you can recruit another mom or dad, give them a specific drill during practice to do. If you’re working with the receivers, you need someone else to work with the other group on flag pulling, for example. Make sure everyone is always doing something worthwhile — a skill, an activity — something to keep them engaged so they don’t feel like, All the attention is on that group and I’m just sitting over here.

That’s the biggest thing about practice: small groups, no standing around, keep everyone as into it and as active throughout as much of the practice as humanly possible.

Game day is more difficult. Let’s say there are 10 kids and it’s 5-on-5, so half the kids are playing while the other half are standing on the sideline. That’s the biggest challenge for any youth coach. Depending on the level of competitiveness, if the 10 boys and girls are relatively similar, get people in. Give everybody a role. That’s your job as a coach: To make them feel that their role, big or small, is the most important role on the team.

If you’re on the sideline, maybe your job is to be a great teammate and make sure the water bottles are filled and call out different things. Give them something to do, active, on the sideline that makes them feel engaged. And don’t keep them on the sideline too long.

Stimulus and being connected to the team is the hardest job a coach has, especially when the idea of wins and losses creeps in. And no matter how much people say it doesn’t matter, when game day comes, everyone’s immediate reaction is: I’m going to do what I have to do to win.

That is just human nature and it is a challenge for coaches.

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