Do you like to win? Of course you do. It’s biologically ingrained in our competitive nature as humans. Whether it be in sports, work or life in general, we prefer winning over losing. We are a competitive society and we think winning validates the work we put into something. But what about losing? Are all […]
Category: Philosophy
What Age Should Kids Start Tackle Football?
Fall is here and with it comes the familiar sights and sounds of football teams starting their seasons. Fall football is always a highly anticipated event, but in recent years, I’ve noticed some changes in the sport. The most obvious change to me, is to see an almost complete disappearance of flag football. Seems nearly […]
Get Ready for the 2019 Fall Soccer Season
The 2019 Fall soccer season is just around the corner and you decided to sign up to coach a youth team. You made the right decision! When done correctly, you’ll be giving the kids a wonderful sports experience and you’ll find it very rewarding. So thank you for taking your time to coach a youth […]
Our Undefeated Season and What We Learned
Every professional coach is striving for an undefeated season, every season. Their jobs are dependent upon winning games so it makes sense that their goal would be a perfect record. The possibility of an undefeated season also entices plenty of youth coaches, even Balanced Coaches. I recently completed my first undefeated season in almost 20 […]
Get Fired Up With a Pregame Team Breakdown
Many teams take part in a breakdown before taking the field. But a good number of those teams are simply going through the motions. That’s because the coach doesn’t recognize the value of getting the team fired up with a great breakdown. Follow these tips to decide on a good breakdown for your team and […]
Measuring Success of Youth Coaches
As a coach, how do you know if you’ve been successful? Traditionally, people measure the success of a coach by championships or win-loss record. The list of the winningest college football coaches is full of names considered to be the most successful coaches of all time. So is that it? Should people measure your success based […]
Remember to Explain the Basics
My first coaching “gig” was for a fourth grade flag football team. I was excited and eager to be taking on this new role, but looking back, it was one my worst coaching performances. Learn from my mistakes and understand the importance of explanation to your players. My Failure to Explain the Basics I was […]
The Balanced Coaching Philosophy
In an earlier article, I explained three components of a youth coaching philosophy: winning, development, and fun. In that article, I described attributes of coaches that favor one component over the others. I went so far as to call them one-dimensional coaches. This website is called Balanced Coaches for a reason. And it’s not because […]
Tournament Teams vs League Teams
There seems to be debate among the youth sports community on the best format of play for a team. The conventional wisdom of today is that to be a “good” team, you must focus on playing tournaments. The flip-side of this argument is having a team that plays in a regularly scheduled league. Using today’s […]
Three Components of a Coaching Philosophy
Every coach has a coaching philosophy even if they don’t sit down and plan out what it is. If you asked a youth coach to describe their philosophy, you’d likely get a wide variety of responses. This is because they lack a consistent way to describe their preferences as a coach. I have observed three […]