coolblue007
Player Valuation: Pssssht
I spent five years in my early 20s refereeing youth football over here in the U.S. The thing about the sport over here is the age where kids leave the sport for something else. Sure, it's by far the most popular youth sport here. Everyone takes their kids to play, but "just for fun." There are tons of leagues for kids aged 5 through 12 or so, but the coaches (for the most part) don't know squat about tactics and sometimes don't know squat about fundamentals. So, you can get a kid who play youth soccer (football) for six or seven years, but who really doesn't know anything about the game except "Pass it to Timmy, because he's good and he'll score and we'll win."
And for many of these kids, they hit age 12 (which is when they go to Middle School, and that's their first real experience with organized schools sports) and jump to American football or they start playing baseball year round or just stop playing alltogether.
What we need to do is find a way to teach your everyday rec coach about the intricacies of the sport. We need more coaching clinics, in other words.
Another thing, most of the football is played in suburbs, where there is all the room needed for fields. There is a massive percentage of the youth population in inner cities who can never play because no one can find a pitch on which to play. People cop out and say there's no room, but that's bogus because there's always room for little league baseball fields.
I was watching Fox Football Fone in a few weeks ago, and there was a guy on there talking about a youth academy in the western portion of the U.S. (can't quite remember where) ... that's a good start.
And for many of these kids, they hit age 12 (which is when they go to Middle School, and that's their first real experience with organized schools sports) and jump to American football or they start playing baseball year round or just stop playing alltogether.
What we need to do is find a way to teach your everyday rec coach about the intricacies of the sport. We need more coaching clinics, in other words.
Another thing, most of the football is played in suburbs, where there is all the room needed for fields. There is a massive percentage of the youth population in inner cities who can never play because no one can find a pitch on which to play. People cop out and say there's no room, but that's bogus because there's always room for little league baseball fields.
I was watching Fox Football Fone in a few weeks ago, and there was a guy on there talking about a youth academy in the western portion of the U.S. (can't quite remember where) ... that's a good start.
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