Defeating the Cobra Kai Just Like The Karate Kid
I have a lot of fun coaching youth sports (4 seasons of soccer, 2 of basketball so far), but I never really planned to coach. When my oldest daughter first joined a soccer team, I offered to help the coach -- my idea was to be like the team gopher, because I didn't know very much about soccer. I discovered two things very quickly: (1) the coach knew even less about soccer than I did and (2) her temperament made her unfit to coach young children. In fact, she was removed from the league after chasing her own daughter across the practice field with a belt. I very unexpectedly was promoted from gopher to head coach. Every season, I see two very different approaches to coaching young children. On one hand, there is the Cobra Kai method with lots of yelling, punishment for poor performance, and the explicit belief that winning is all that matters. On the other hand, there is the Mr. Miyagi approach of learning the game, trying to have fun, and the explicit belief that we like to win