Youth Sports: What It's All About

I trust in God. I love my country and will respect its laws. I will play fair and strive to win. But win or lose I will always do my best.

Eleven years removed from my last Little League game, I still remember this pledge. It's the pledge that you will find on the back of a Little League rulebook. It's the pledge that is often recited before Little League All-Star games by its participants.

Often, people downgrade Little League baseball because of its lower competition level. It's true. There are travel leagues all across the country that have deeper fences, longer base lines, and better competition. I'm confident that I could have played in a travel league when I was growing up. It probably would have advanced my baseball skills at a faster rate, but I'm glad that my parents made the decision to put me in Little League. Little League baseball and youth sports in general are, or should be, about so much more than just winning and becoming the next superstar.

See, youth sports are where the foundations of sportsmanship are laid. The lessons learned on a baseball field should be about more than freezing on a line drive, using two hands, and keeping your eye on the ball. For the first time, you are learning how to interact with others in a competitive setting. You learn how to win and you learn how to lose. Winning means more when you've experienced defeat. At the same time, you learn that winning isn't everything. Even after losing a game, you get your juice box, snack, and you go home to a family that loves you. Sure, it sounds corny, but too often that perspective is lost.

People forget that youth sports are meant to be fun. Sure, winning is great. But, you can have fun without winning. I was an extremely competitive person, but I never had a compulsive desire to win. I just loved to play baseball. I enjoyed practicing as much as I enjoyed playing in games. In fact, I often had more fun practicing than playing. Why? Because parents often ruined the games. Too often the biggest problem in sports is the parents who "participate" in them.

My dad has said it to me for years, "Parents ruin youth sports." Jackson residents see (or don't see) the unfortunate effects of it every year. If it weren't for the parents, coaches, and athletic directors preventing it, you would see Jackson High and Lumen Christi play annually in football. But, because of the behind-the-doors bureaucracy, it doesn't happen. All students and players of both schools would love to play each other every year. Quite frankly, there's no excuse for the game not happening. It saddens me that adults refuse to set aside their personal pride, petty arguments, and unfounded beliefs for the happiness of kids.

Now, not all adults fall into this category. I know numerous adults who have dedicated countless hours to supporting youth sports for the right reasons. Unfortunately, it only takes a few adults to counteract the hard work of many. These people should be ashamed of themselves. When did the focus of youth sports fail to be the youth? Whenever it happened, society took a turn for the worse.

Sports have always been an effective way of teaching children the value of sportsmanship and the importance of having fun. Somewhere along the line, we forgot that. This blog is my plea. Restore the true meaning behind youth sports. The next time you're at a game and you see someone who has forgotten that meaning, remind them. Nike said it best. Sportsmanship and fun: just do it.

Looking at MSU and Looking Forward

Yesterday was somewhat of a reality check for Michigan fans. You just don't go from 3-9 to 12-0. It's a game that I had a bad feeling for all week. The first major road game for a true freshman and a still very young team is never easy. Add to the fact that Michigan was playing a coach who is absolutely obsessed with beating them, and they were in for a long day.


The Defense

The defensive line finally showed up. Brandon Graham was near unblockable all game. His hit on Glenn Winston was the type of play Michigan fans have been expecting from the preseason All-American all year long. Mike Martin got a great push in the middle, and Craig Roh was all over the field all game.

The linebackers not named Stevie Brown continue to kill the Michigan defense. Brown was making plays all game, but he wasn't getting much help. Obi Ezeh had a lot of tackles, but they were all 8 yards downfield because he was out of position. Jonas Mouton simply looked lost. Ezeh and Mouton could not find proper depth all day, and are a large reason that Kirk Cousins, he of the 5.4 40 speed, ran wild. To Cousins's credit, he did a great job of recognizing the positioning of the Michigan linebackers, and made quick decisions to take advantage of them.

The secondary outside of Donovan Warren needs work. JT Floyd is an improvement over Cissoko, but I would be as well. Mike Williams looked uncomfortable, but it was his first game back from injury, so I'll give him a break. I'm not sure if Troy Woolfolk was suffering from his early game injury, but he continues to be out of position and tackle poorly as he has all year. He brings speed to the safety position that Michigan hasn't seen in a while, but that speed is useless if he can't learn basic positioning and play recognition.

Lastly, the defensive playcalling has been bad and continued to be bad yesterday. How many third and longs did MSU convert yesterday? Now, give Cousins credit, he made some good throws, but everyone is making these throws against this Michigan defense.

My suggestions to Greg Robinson:

• It's third and long, BLITZ please. Your secondary is not good enough to cover any quality of receivers for 5+ seconds. On the rare occasions that you put pressure on Cousins, he rushed his throws and managed to throw two interceptions.
  

• Get out of the weak zone coverage. MSU's offensive coordinator did a great job of recognizing this all game. Whenever MSU had two receivers on one side of the field, Michigan played one defender about three yards from the LOS and another at least ten yards away. Whenever this happened, the inside MSU receiver ran a little bubble screen where the outside receiver blocked the near Michigan defender and the play gained ten yards. THIS HAPPENS EVERY WEEK, Greg.

• Consider this formation:

Graham Martin VanBergen/Roh
Kovacs Mouton Ezeh Brown
Warren Woolfolk Williams Floyd

Right now, Kovacs is one of your most valuable defenders in run support. He should not be used in coverage, ever. He's just too slow. Have him defending the run, blitzing, whatever. He's very good around the LOS. At the same time, if he's rushing Brandon Graham's side, you free up Graham from all the double teams he's seen all year. Blitz from there, and keep Donovan Warren on that side of the field, so they have to throw the ball towards him and not the bad half of your secondary. If you do this, you do a better job controlling what the offense has to do. As it stands now, the opposing offense is controlling everything and you are sitting on your heels the entire game.


The Offense

Michigan State had a great gameplan yesterday defensively. They really did a great job moving around defenders to confuse the Michigan running game. It definitely worked. The cues on the zone read were screwed up for pretty much the whole game.

Where it starts and ends is the Michigan offensive line. They just got abused yesterday. I confess ignorance in that I don't know much about Michigan State's defensive line, but they played very well yesterday. They beat Michigan's offensive line at the point of attack on nearly every play. There were just no holes for Carlos Brown to run through all day.

In that respect, I have to question why Brandon Minor wasn't in the game more. Yes, I realize he's hurt. But, he's been held out for the most part for two weeks. He touched the ball about twice all game. I know everyone falls in love with Brown's speed, but Minor is just a much better running back. He hits the hole ten times harder. So, when the holes are minimal and/or fast closing, it seems like Minor would naturally be getting more carries. Alas, it might not have mattered.

The receivers and tight ends were disappointing. How many drops did Michigan have yesterday? I've been harping for weeks that Kevin Koger needs to see the football more. Yesterday, he really disappointed. He finally got thrown the ball 4 or 5 times, and came up with at least 3 drops. Just about everyone in the receiving corps had a drop, it seems. Darryl Stonum might be the one bright spot, but he fumbled the ball twice. The talent is clearly there with Stonum though, and he's slowly bringing it together.

Tate Forcier... what can you say about this kid? He's just a special, special football player. He just has "it," whatever that means. I heard a lot of people say after the game that people are overreacting and that he played poorly in the first three quarters, but that just isn't true. First, he was pressured all day. For a large portion of plays, he literally had no chance to make a play. Second, people seem to forget the afore mentioned drops when discussing Forcier's game. Forcier was 17/32 (53%). You add in a minimum of 4 drops (and I think I'm being extremely generous there), and that would give Forcier a completion percentage of 65.6 percent. That's an insanely good number for a true freshman in his first road game against an in-state rival.

Ignoring that, what he did in the final drive was remarkable. He was clearly exhausted, but he led the team down the field 92 yards like a 4 year starter. It was Elway-esque. Maybe the most impressive part about his late game heroics have been his ability to have a short memory. At Notre Dame, it was forgetting the previous play's drop by Savoy and then hitting Matthews with a strike for the game winning touchdown. Yesterday, Forcier missed a WIDE OPEN Matthews in the endzone. Just a few plays later, he delivered a strike to Roy Roundtree (please play this kid more) for the game-tying touchdown. Sure, he threw an interception in overtime, but if you watch that replay, Odoms inexplicably runs behind the defender. Odoms had inside position when Forcier threw that ball.

What does all of this mean?

Not a whole lot. It means Michigan isn't as good as some thought and Michigan State isn't as bad as some thought. But really, Michigan played lackluster football for 43 minutes. Michigan State dominated in both execution and gameplanning for 43 minutes. Yet, still, Michigan found a way to send it into overtime. I don't want to make it seem like I am discrediting Michigan State, because I'm not. They deserved to win that game. But, please don't pretend like Michigan State is going to begin dominating the state of Michigan in football. It just ain't true.

We found out that Michigan's defense is still pretty bad. Yet, they always seem to find a way to play tough in the red zone to prevent a ton of scoring.

We found out that Tate Forcier is the real deal. His performance in his first five games as a true freshman has to be among the best in college football history. If I'm missing someone, please enlighten me. Having Tate means that Michigan is never out of games, because... well... the kid's a winner. We had been told how important the QB position is in Rich Rod's system, and we're really starting to see how true that is.


Perspective

Lastly, I would just like to point out to Michigan fans that the University of Michigan football team is 4-1 as of today. Before this season, I was asked a lot what I felt like Michigan would do this year. My response was consistent and unequivocable: 8 wins minimum. And, then I was always laughed at. Well, who's laughing now? Maybe they get to 8, maybe they fall just short. But, Michigan football is clearly on the right track. Rich Rodriguez will continue to get the guys to fit his system, and the Big Ten will continue to be in big trouble for years to come. If you don't believe now, you never will. If you're still on the outside, jump off the bandwagon and put on some green and white. The train is leaving the station.