Summer workouts, what teams/coaches are doing?

[CRLionDawg]

The school district we live in here in MI has a lot of programs going on during the summer.

Basketball: girls and boys. : Open gym, m-th 5:00-9:00, manned voluntarily by the coaches. Leagues 3-4 weeks, 12-16 organized games. Several camps: MSU, CMU, EMU, Oakland U, etc. Boys AAU. All are broken down by : Middle School, Freshman, JV, and Varsity.

Football: Conditioning, MWTH 1100-200, and 400-700. Passing camps for about 6 weeks throughout June and July. Season opens up with a overnight football camp at a state park for 4 days. All conditioning.

Softball: Conditioning, Skill Camps, and Travel Teams, all organized by the Varsity Coach.

Soccer: Travel teams and skill camps. Coordinated by the Varsity Coach.

Baseball: Over 3/4 of the boys play on travel teams and attend showcase skill clinics. Several have private trainers to accelerate development. All supported and directed by the V coach.

There is some communication and coordination between the various sports to minimize interference.

Is this a model? It works from the stand point all activities are very well attended, you dont hear a lot of complaining, and the teams are successful.

[ham55]

At Bedford, lifting for football is in the morning, monday wednesday friday, mandatory voluntary thing there, basketball is in the evenings which can conflict with and more than likely does with baseball, legion anyway, because teener league is monday and wednesday night and basketball is tuesdays and thursdays. other than that, there isnt much more going on, there are some free style wrestling camps and that sort when topper was the coach, but since he is no longer there, i dunno what the deal is with that. Thats what it looks like for Bedford, i dunno how much talk goes on between any of the coaches or anything like that, it could just be pure luck, but thats what happens here.

[CoachK]

You know in a perfect world this year round conditioning, coordinating with other coaches in other sports, carry over conditioning from one sport to the next for 9 to 10 months out of the year may get results, but realistically it is a breeding ground for total burnout guys. I believe totally in multi sport athletes, but I have to go with larry on this one. These "YOUNG KIDS" must have lives. Not every athlete is an "Arod" or a Manning or a Bryant, and practicing and conditioning them year round is not necessarily going to make them super stars either. Let's keep it real. Get good quality coaches, who are in it for more than their own special interests (their own kids). Coaches who KNOW the game, and who want to coach for the LOVE of the game. Teach the kids the basics and fundamentals at each level of the game, in each sport. Allow them to grow and mature in the process. What makes kids good athletes besides their God given ability is they must posess a desire and have the drive behind their ability, in other words they have to want to do it. Exhausting them in the process only weakens drive and desire. Allow them to starve a little bit and come in hungry the next season. Giving them things to work on in the off season or summer leagues is good and if they have the drive and desire they will work at it. Let's push our kids the 3 to 4 months we have them. Have them work extremely hard to be the best they can be, but not push them into burnout. Let them live. I love the 3 sport athlete. They are still out there, and they will always be out there as long as we as coaches keep our noses in our own seasons.

[CRLionDawg]

Coach K, in some ways your thoughts are more idealistic than mine. Primarily because of the world we live in. Reality is that coaches are going to coach year around, they are going to put pressure on kids to work out and attend off season practices/camps.

I am not endorsing that approach, just recognizing that it exists and asking/offering solutions.

Sure it would be great if kids would only be expected to work on their sport when it is in season. Unfortunately that is not just going to happen on its own. And for those who are "Nazis" among us, placing the PIAA as a policing unit to set rules and enforce them would be a huge step backwards.

[longball5]

you mean such as utilizing the rules that the PIAA used to set and enforce would be a step backward??? when we have off-season rules, we didn't have these multiple sport problems.....and, it seems to me, that the NCAA is more restrictive than the PIAA, and they don't seem to have problems, even with one-sport athletes....

[CRLionDawg]

Why were those rules changed or done away with?

How well staffed is the PIAA to set more rules and then assume the responsibility of enforcing them?

Isnt it better to allow summer programs to function than to shut them down. The question is what would they do with their time if they didnt have these activities to participate in?

[longball5]

what did they do before every sport had a summer league??? I guess it would be pretty much the same.....and we had athletes...and people survived...and they improved.....and we had higher participation.....and everyone played by the same rules.....and athletes had time to be kids....

[CRLionDawg]

I hear you. But why were the rules changed?

[longball5]

who knows...probably because people weren't following them, and no one had the guts to do anything about it....the point is, are we better off now than we were???

[CRLionDawg]

That is a great question. Not sure how you quantify something so subjective and compare.

Are there more athletes today?

Are the athletes stronger, faster, and more skilled today?

Do athletes have a better balance of academics and sports?

What is different in our society as a whole that adds challenging dynamics to this issue?

Lots of questions.