Originally posted by: badmouse
FIRST and SECOND GRADE, and you're asking this???
Play the damned game any way you want.
Then, go home and think about what you are doing to those kids. They don't need to be taught competitiveness, it happens all by itself quite nicely. At this age, they need to get out and play for fun. The ALL need to exercise and run and do all those sport-type things, and no one should EVER be on the bench any longer than anyone else.
The good kids should be thrown off the team because they skew things for everybody else. Ages 6 and 7 are too young to be doing all the complicated things that it takes to win consistently at this kind of game. Instead, they should be building up a base of fitness, cooperation, rudimentary rules, learning to take coaching, and good sportsmanship. It's much too soon for the kind of physical stress that comes with specialized positions and overly intense competition.
These are kids, idiot. They aren't grown enough to know who will be the right size and athleticism when they ARE old enough to play competitively. Your good kids will probably "burn out" and the ones that will turn out to be the REAL athletes won't play because they had such horrible experiences at this young age.
Can you TRULY go to sleep at night knowing that you have given a safe, appropriate, healthy play experience to EVERY KID on your team AND on the teams that they play against?
You know, I have no problem with you providing your opinion, but you completely lose your credibility when you start name-calling.
What may even be more absurd is your calling of throwing the better players off the team. That's akin, to throwing the smartest kids out of school. You want kids to play a sport, but only those kids that aren't as good as some others. That is rediculous.
The League is set up with competitiveness (among sportsmanship, fair-play, and teamwork qualities) in mind, but with rules to insure all kids get to play. Whether the league is competitive or not, though, you would be foolish not to believe that these kids don't know what the score is or who is winning. Hell, the kids count the TDs in the 4 and 5 year old division, though no score is kept. You would also be foolish to underestimate these kids in terms of their understanding and how quick they learn things. We have to teach all of the basics in 6 weeks of 3 1-hour day/week practices, as well as formations, snap counts and plays (which we have 30+) to 16-22 kids. That said, we do NOT have the time, though, to teach every position to every player. It is impossible.
Kids aren't stupid and are generally competitive by nature. Addionally, all parents know the league rules when the come in, if they don't like it there is always FFPS (Fun, Fair Positive Soccer), which doesn't keep scores in any age bracket. I have even recommended this to one of my parents when he stated "I do not teach me son aggressiveness". Well, what the hell are you doing playing football then?
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