Coaching Minor Sports: If They Come Back, You Got It Right

25 lessons on helping children build confidence, belonging, and a love for the game

GIVING BACK – Coaching Minor Sports

Coaching minor sports is not about winning games.

It’s about building confidence, creating a sense of belonging, and giving kids a reason to come back.

I always measured my success by how many of the players signed up again the following year.

If they came back, we got it right.

Many of my posts focus on building organizational culture and developing people. This one is one of the ways to build community by volunteering to coach children and youth in minor sports.

These are a few tips and lessons that people shared with me, and I believe made a significant difference in helping me coach and helping the players learn the game, have fun, and learn about teamwork.

Connection Comes First

1. Learn your players’ names the first time you meet them. I coached many children ages 5–10, and nothing builds connection better than making the effort to remember their names. Some coaches tape names to hockey helmets, but that’s not enough and the players know that.
2. When coaching or talking to small children, kneel down and speak to them, making eye contact. I believe everyone responds better when you are at their level.
3. I introduced myself as “Paul,” not “Mr. Wagenaar.” Some parents and other coaches disagreed, saying I wasn’t teaching respect. I never found that to be the case, I aimed to be approachable and to earn their respect regardless of their age.

Set the Tone Early

4. As the coach, always be the first person to a game or practice. You set the tone, you set the stage, and very often, players and parents would start to come early too. Sometimes, the quietest and hardest-working players would be there the earliest, and I would use that time to talk, connect, and provide “tools” they could use immediately to improve.   
5. Prepare, whether a game or practice, have a plan on how you want things to go. Make sure the plan is flexible and based on constant development and encouragement.  Lineups should be balanced, flexible, and fair.
6. Practices are often more important than the games. As a coach, tailor your drills to develop the overall skills of your players, but work on the things that they are not good at. Try to develop your strongest players and your weakest players equally.

Make It Fun, Make It Fair

7. Make all your games and practices fun; that is why the kids are there.
8. Everyone gets the same amount of playing time. I coached house league players, and my passion was to teach them how to play individually and as a team, but always to make sure they had fun. I always measured my success by how many of the players signed up again the following year.
9. As a coach, it can be tempting to play your best players all the time, but I always partnered stronger players with weaker ones. My center might be more experienced, and the wingers would be brand new players, and even though they were only 7 or 8 years old, most times they learned to help develop and encourage the weaker players.
10. Teams sit together.  For games like soccer, have the players who are not playing sit together, teach them they are a team, and encourage them to encourage their teammates. Teamwork and fair play are more than just slogans; they are the basis of everything we did throughout the season.
11. Encourage parents to bring their children to every practice. In a game, players often spend as much time on the bench as they do in the game, in practices, everyone is engaged for the full length of the practice.

Teach the Game and the Person

12. Only part of a coach’s job is to teach them how to play the game; the coach also builds and develops the fundamentals of personal skills, and also how to be part of a team.
13. Teach the players how to play every position; however, in a game situation, it is okay to try to have a plan and a strategy.
14. Teach positional play, teamwork, and develop skills. Successful players, people, teams, and organizations all play smart and learn small “edges” to succeed. For example, in a practice situation, place two pylons in the corners of the net. Not only do the players trying to score have to beat the goalie, but they also have to hit a pylon to make it count. Teaching players early to keep their head up and aim where the goalie is not sounds simple but watch how many older kids and adults will shoot the puck or the ball right at the goalie.
15. Which end is yours? For many new players, they can get caught up in the game, reminding everyone when the teams switch ends and which way they are going. I have seen many small kids score beautiful goals on the surprised goalie of their team because they forgot which way the play was going.
16. Do the same drills you ask your players to do and do it with them.  It’s fun, sets a good example, and its important.

Winning, Losing, and Sportsmanship

17. Teaching the players how to win is important, but it is more important to teach them how to win well. My teams tried to never to run up the score; if we were ahead, we insisted that the better players move to defense, and we gave the other players more of a chance to play.
18. Teaching the players how to lose well is equally important. I never worried about the score during the game; my focus was on making sure that each player and the team played the game and each shift to the best of their abilities. This approach did not change whether we were ahead or behind. We won as a team and we lost as a team.
19. Sportsmanship is the key; I taught my players to play hard and try their best, but never to denigrate the other team or players.
20. Respect the officials. Usually, we had young officials for our games; it is important to encourage them and to realize that they are just kids too. Too many parents and some coaches lose sight of that.

Consistency and Responsibility

21. Pacing. Always make sure that everyone gets the same playing time but appreciate that you should teach them how to “change on the go” if they are tired and that it is okay to need a rest.
22. My teams always took the ice or the field together. The goalie leads the way. At the end of the game, we shook hands together with the other team, goalie first, coach(s) last.
23. We always had a goal for the season of making sure that every child scored at least one goal; it might not seem like much of a target, but every kid wants to score, and it is important to let every player experience that feeling.
24. Bad shifts will happen, mistakes are going to be made, and it’s all part of coaching.

What It All Comes Down To

25. Care

At the end of the day, that’s what it comes down to.

The players know if you care. The parents know if you care. And it shows in how the team plays, how they treat each other, and whether they come back the next season.

Coaching is not just about teaching a game. It’s about creating an environment where children feel supported, included, and confident enough to keep going.

If they come back, we got it right.

Paul