Monkey_Driven wrote:When is it appropriate to hit a child on my son's basketball team? I'm the coach and the kid never listens or does what he's supposed to. He pretended to be a cat for 15 minutes last practice. I'm all for creative expression, but he's going to be a real weak link out there when the games that matter start.
How old is he?
7
Been there, done that. You talk to the parents.
One of three outcomes.
1. He shapes up.
2. You tell the parents he is no longer welcome on the team if he doesn’t.
3. He just quits.
Monkey_Driven wrote:When is it appropriate to hit a child on my son's basketball team? I'm the coach and the kid never listens or does what he's supposed to. He pretended to be a cat for 15 minutes last practice. I'm all for creative expression, but he's going to be a real weak link out there when the games that matter start.
How old is he?
7
Been there, done that. You talk to the parents.
One of three outcomes.
1. He shapes up.
2. You tell the parents he is no longer welcome on the team if he doesn’t.
3. He just quits.
Yep, speak to parents. It's a basketball team. The kids that want to play actual basketball are having to deal with his shit. If he doesn't want to play then do something else.
Tough convo but the needs of the many and all that.
All your weird cat shit aside, Higgs nailed it: As bad as it is for the coaches to handle that, it’s just as bad (unfair) to the other kids. Doesn’t matter if is a sport, the school play, a class project, whatever. If a kid is distracting the rest of the team I don’t want them there. Period.
My #1 rule as a coach is to be a good listener. If they aren’t the most skilled players, I don’t care. I want good attitudes.
Carl Sandburg wrote:There is a wolf in me . . . fangs pointed for tearing gashes . . . a red tongue for raw meat . . . and the hot lapping of blood—I keep this wolf because the wilderness gave it to me and the wilderness will not let it go.
There is a fox in me . . . a silver-gray fox . . . I sniff and guess . . . I pick things out of the wind and air . . . I nose in the dark night and take sleepers and eat them and hide the feathers . . . I circle and loop and double-cross.
There is a hog in me . . . a snout and a belly . . . a machinery for eating and grunting . . . a machinery for sleeping satisfied in the sun—I got this too from the wilderness and the wilderness will not let it go.
There is a fish in me . . . I know I came from salt-blue water-gates . . . I scurried with shoals of herring . . . I blew waterspouts with porpoises . . . before land was . . . before the water went down . . . before Noah . . . before the first chapter of Genesis.
There is a baboon in me . . . clambering-clawed . . . dog-faced . . . yawping a galoot's hunger . . . hairy under the armpits . . . here are the hawk-eyed hankering men . . . here are the blonde and blue-eyed women . . . here they hide curled asleep waiting . . . ready to snarl and kill . . . ready to sing and give milk . . . waiting—I keep the baboon because the wilderness says so.
There is an eagle in me and a mockingbird . . . and the eagle flies among the Rocky Mountains of my dreams and fights among the Sierra crags of what I want . . . and the mockingbird warbles in the early forenoon before the dew is gone, warbles in the underbrush of my Chattanoogas of hope, gushes over the blue Ozark foothills of my wishes—And I got the eagle and the mockingbird from the wilderness.
O, I got a zoo, I got a menagerie, inside my ribs, under my bony head, under my red-valve heart—and I got something else: it is a man-child heart, a woman-child heart: it is a father and mother and lover: it came from God-Knows-Where: it is going to God-Knows-Where—For I am the keeper of the zoo: I say yes and no: I sing and kill and work: I am a pal of the world: I came from the wilderness.
Last edited by tragabigzanda on Tue January 13, 2026 8:31 pm, edited 1 time in total.
i was coaching a bunch of 10-year old boys the year before Covid. one asshole didn't want to be there, wouldn't stop talking while we were trying to give instructions, and was distracting to the other boys. i was at about the free-throw line furthest from the team (meaning, across almost the entire court) which was standing on the furthest baseline. i took the ball and chucked it toward the kid, hoping to have it bounce within about 10 feet from him at his side to just get his attention. but as soon as it left my hands i knew it may be trouble. it bounced about five feet in front of him dead on, and it came up and caught him square in the chest. a foot further and i would've drilled him straight in the nose.
doug rr wrote:what is your coaching record to this day?
Probably just a tad over .500 at basketball. My son’s teams sucked; they probably didn’t win more than twice in any given year. My daughter’s team was unstoppable because of one girl that was better as a 4th grader than 90% of any 8th grade boy. She dropped 36 one game with a running clock and me sitting her for half the game.
