Leftovers' Talent

Hi Seadog

You have asked an honest question of your self, and perhaps you have asked the most important question a coach in a recreational league can ask. The fact that you have asked the question speaks volumes about your integrity and your concern for the kids. As long as that question is in the back of your mind, you can't go very far wrong.

My "leftovers" were often quite gifted. It's just that no one had glimpsed their gifts yet or had evaluated them properly. In a lot of cases those gifts simply hadn't been developed. In a LOT of other instances the kid simply had not received enough encouragement or enough cheers.

It was also exciting when a handicapped kid came along to help him figure out how to make a genuine contribution to the team effort.

We always won a lot more games than we lost, and most of our losses occurred early in the season while we were still coming up to speed.

I always tried to do one thing very consistently: "loan them some of my confidence in them until they could build some of their own in themselves".

...Great fun watching the light in their eyes when it happened.
Best regards
Kenneth Bean