There's no such thing as stupid players, just stupid coaches.

The coaching fraternity is a rather tight and well understood club. It doesn't matter what level of sports you coach, the conversations between coaches are generally the same. Before the start of most basketball games it is customary for coaches to sit down and make small talk before the game. In baseball, the conversations are often had while you're waiting for the game before yours to come to an end. Coaches often seek each other out as an opportunity to vent about frustrations that your husband or wife either doesn't understand or is just tired of hearing about. It's a chance to find somebody who understands and can commiserate with your frustrations over parents or your teams performance. For some, these small chats are the therapy we need to keep forging ahead in a rather thankless job.

Personally, I have never really enjoyed these conversations for a number of reasons. Usually before games I'm focused on any number of scenarios that may present themselves, all of which involve how I can find a way to make this opposing coach's life even more miserable. I don't want to feel bad for him or her before the game. You're supposed to be the enemy, the opposition, the challenge that our team has been preparing to beat over the past few days. I'm pretty sure neither one of us will feel bad after the game if their team comes on top. Yet, we coaches often times seek each other out for these few moments of comfort. It's nice to talk about those things that make our hair gray. However, I always steer clear and strongly dislike a topic that comes up quite frequently in these short chats. Way too many times in recent years have I heard coaches say that I'm sick of my team because we're just so stupid. When I hear those words come out of another coach's mouth I know everything I need to about them and their team.

As a coach we have all had teams and kids who were much "smarter" than the current ones we may be dealing with. However, I strongly believe that a good coach must always ask themselves why their kids are so "stupid." The problem can usually be traced back directly to the head coach and what the kids have been taught, or more importantly, what they haven't been taught. I often find that "stupid" kids have coaches who are too stupid to teach them how to learn from their mistakes.

Coaching sports involves witnessing a lot of things we might consider stupid. However, as a coach the first thing I ask myself is, "Why did the kid do that?" Before getting upset with the kid it is important to ask yourself if the mistake that occurred was something that has been repped in practice. How many times has the kid been put into that situation before? Is it something that the kid has physically been through in games and practices before, or is it something you have only talked about? Is it something that we as coaches think is stupid because we have watched it done the right way at the professional level? As a coach, we must ask ourselves how did we learn that what the player did was stupid. How many times did we see or do something ourselves before we learned not to it?

What separates the good coaches from the stupid coaches, is the good coaches will identify the mistake and then rep it again in practice until the kid truly understands the mistake. Yes, it can be truly maddening because for some kids and teams you are repping the same things the entire season that some teams only needed done once or twice. Some players may get bored doing these same drills because a couple of their teammates just aren't getting it. Yet, those same players will be just as happy when their teammates succeed in those game situations. Those same teammates will start to gain trust in those teammates when they see a reduction in the stupid mistakes.

As a coach, it is important to make sure everyone feels free to make mistakes, and that if they make a mistake they will get a chance to correct it. In life we are always making mistakes, so does that mean we're all "stupid." Just because somebody verbally told me how to fix my washer/dryer or showed me once a couple months ago, does that make me "stupid" because I don't know how to do it. Coaches shouldn't expect their players to instinctively know what to do because they were told or shown once.

Some coaches will whine and moan that their players don't have any instincts, and that they have to keep doing the same things over and over in practice. Yes that can be very frustrating as a coach, but in reality it makes your job pretty easy. If your players keep making the same mistakes; in theory, it should be very easy to figure out what to do in your next few practices. For a good coach, the biggest challenge is what to do with those kids who have great instincts and need a great coach to keep pushing and developing them even further. Those are the players and teams you spend the most time thinking about how to make better and to keep practices fresh and exciting.

Yet, most youth coaches just throw their hands in the air and treat every team or player the same way. If they don't get it or keep making the same mistakes, well it's just because they're stupid. Too many coaches are determined to show off how much they know by doing things that the majority of their players aren't ready for. Instead of working to develop the players who lack some of the instincts, they focus on those that do and continue to erupt or complain about their "stupid" players. They somehow expect their players to all magically know how or what to do a few others can because we talked about it that one day, or because we worked on it for 15 minutes during that one practice four weeks ago.

As a youth coach, there is nothing better than when an opposing coach comes up to me before or after a game and asks me how I get my players to do certain things so well. That is always the easiest question to answer; I always tell them, "Because we practice it all the time." There will be more on that later.

So while I enjoy the conversations and ability to commiserate with other coaches, I will never call any of my players or teams stupid. Every team and group of kids is different, and the best coaches find a way to reduce the number of stupid mistakes their teams and players make over the course of a season through effective practices. While it can be maddening, if your team is making the same stupid mistakes over and over again, it's probably because you're making the same stupid coaching mistakes over and over again.