What Exactly Is The Coach Telling My Kid?

With three kids 10 and under and a likely misbegotten belief that sports are an important part of their development, I've been to many, many youth sporting events––an intentionally vague word I use as so many of them have been some kind of practice/game amalgam where there are two teams, but no actual competition.

All that to say I can see where the author of "What Parents Must Assume I'm Saying To My Youth Soccer Team" is coming from. Youth sports coach is one of the more thankless jobs there is. In fact, just a couple of weeks ago myself and the two other coaches of our daughters' basketball team had been a little more "verbal" than usual (okay, we may have yelled variations on "Hey, are you paying attention?" once or 15 times) and one of the players turned to another and said "I'm glad my dad isn't a coach."