Little League Football Coaching Tips

Coaching youth football presents many challenges including evaluating the skills of each player and ensuring that players get the required playing time. A youth football league coach also must manage the players' parents. Keeping a professional relationship with parents and separating that from a coach's evaluation of a player is important for a youth football coach.

  1. Delegate Duties

    • If you are coaching your child's team, have at least one assistant coach in order to avoid the appearance of favoritism. Eparkers.org recommends having an assistant coach make the decisions regarding the unit, either offense or defense, that your son plays on. This will remove you from the decision-making process and limit the chances of parents feeling that you are giving your child special privileges. The assistant coach should be responsible for determining your son's position and playing time.

    Minimum Play Rules

    • Many youth football leagues have minimum play requirements, meaning that every player must play a specific number of plays. When determining which players get the most playing time, create a depth chart for each position. Give the majority of playing time to those at the top of the chart. If a player is ranked low at one position but in the middle or at the top of another position, make sure he gets playing time at his best position. This will balance playing to win against getting every child playing time. Instead of setting the depth chart early in the season and failing to adjust it as the season progresses, create new rankings each week. This allows you to reward players who work hard at improving their skills.

      If a parent of a child who played only the minimum number of plays in several games confronts you, explain the skills in which that child needs improvement. If the child's parents do not attend practices, invite them to attend practice so they can see how their child compares with the other children on the team in those skill sets.

    Aggressive Parents

    • Some parents will want to have input on every aspect of your team. You are the head coach and not required to bend to their wishes. If you start making changes because of a confrontational parent, other parents will notice this and you could end up with multiple aggressive parents. Caving in to their wishes could result in your losing control of your team. If a parent wants to influence how the team is run, ask that parent to become an assistant coach. As they attend more of the team's practices, let the parent know that you value an assistant coach's opinions, but that an assistant coach will help with apsects of the team that do not include their child. This will help you determine if the parent is seeking to help the team or is more interested in his or her child's performance at the expense of the team.