Who knew?

Football will be dead soon, can’t wait.

9 years old, Santini. No, none of us who played football going back decades practiced those kind of hours - including all the guys who went on to the NFL.

It's not required for their development, fun or to learn plays.

Too much practice for the sake of practice (“that’s how we did it!” “Gotta pay your dues!” “No participation trophy here!”) results in tired players. Tired players forget fundamentals and drop their heads when tackling. Results in more head/neck injuries. Coach needs to be a better, more efficient coach. Sadly, that won’t be the end result in little league since it’s just dads who are volunteers.

Challenge the coach to fisticuffs and settle it the old school way.

Exactly. So all of the assholes at work that can’t function on a team learned jack shit playing sports.

Stupid argument.

Kids shouldn’t play any sports. They might get a concussion.

It is better if they  play fortnite for 60 hours a week.

How is your world so binary?

LOL what sort of living vicariously sad ass coach is demanding that much time of 9 year olds ?

Damn seems like a lot

I think we only practiced twice a week for bantam 9-10 and 11-12 year old teams

What’s amazing is how our junior high football program was so much better than our high school program

In high school it was way too much during the season

Not hard to see his mindset reading ARFcom threads.

texas high school football has an 8 hour rule

for a reason

your coach is an idiot trying to run too many schemes and not teaching fundamentals

Yep

Attached File

My son has been in Pop Warner since 5.  He's 11 now.  1st 2 weeks is every day (M-F) conditioning for 2 1/2 hours.  In Arizona.  It was 106 degrees today. Tomorrow's high is 114. Next week its either 3 days a week.  But they do conditioning work starting around March or April.

Then again his team won 3 state championships and last year's regional.  Went to Florida twice and made it to final National Championship game.  Won every game but the last.  I guarantee the team they lost to, practices a lot harder.

He has really good coaches and players.  I'm not sure how some think it's too much.

BTW, ALL teams do this here.

Let me know if he still likes playing this hard at the ripe old age of 18 or if his injuries have slowed him down.

He's been enjoying it and he wants to join the Marines since he was 5. So I doubt he will play beyond HS since only about 4% play beyond HS.  Thanks for your concern but it's not needed.

If he tears his ACL he can forget about the Marines, and that's a damn common injury on the football field.

He’s better off hiking a ton and lifting once he gets to HS.

All the Uncle Rico types trying to relive through their kids. lol

When my son played 3/4 football they practiced 4 days a week at least three hours a night.   I should add that after looking at all the highschoolers in their knee braces, casts, and crutches we didnt object when he wasnt excited to play for a third season.

He plays lacrosse now and its still three days a week two to three hours a night and games on saturday.

What would Allen Iverson do?

Sounds like a great way to make kids hate sports and possibly put them in the hospital, or worse.

that's barely over 2 hours per weekday. Not excessive.

Are you talking about 11 hours of on-field practice time, or that's the total amount of time between when parents drop them off to when they pick them up? If it's just the amount of time parents are droppign them off, they have to lace up, gear up and warm up (stretching, etc...). Then the end of practice meetings. I could see all that taking 15 minutes before and after each practice.

I remember weekday schedules being 1 hours in the weight room every weekday (had to sign in/out), 1/2 hour of scouting film in the coaches offices maybe 2-3 times a week, and then 2 hours practices on the field. Game day was game day. The "off" day was about 1.5 hours of watching the previous game film and then 1/2 hour of conditioning.

what is that... 17 hours of activities not including game day?

Suck it up buttercup.

Too much. I'd expect that at the high school level but that's absurd for 9 year olds.

Youth sports (and their Uncle Ricos) are bordering on absurdity.  There are literally 7-8yr old kids on travel teams, travelling 100 miles or more to play soccer and baseball.  8yr olds, Dude.  And they do this just about every weekend of the season (soccer teams here have two seasons).

What parents don't realize, the kids are burned out by the time they're in high school.  Most of the fun has been removed, and now feels more like a chore to the kid.  Problem is, though, a lot of the kids who do wait until 8th or 9th grade to start sports are severely behind the curve.  Doesn't mean that the truly talented kids can't still excell, its just they have some catching up to do.

My 11 yr old is in soccer, and they practice around 3 hrs a week.  The soccer field is literally 4.5 miles from my house, so what did my wife sign him up for this year?  Travel soccer.  Instead of playing each game 5 minutes done the road, we get to drive an hour plus every other weekend to play in some random city across Georgia.  Don't get me wrong, the competition is better, but I don't see the point at 11yrs old.

Pull him out and spend those eleven hours on something useful like learning a language, an instrument, computer programming, woodworking, etc.

Gridiron football is a stupid game for stupid people.

Association football and rugby are also stupid, but they at least have the virtue of not requiring absurdly expensive equipment and stadiums.

I see them out at the field 6-9 pm 4 nights a week in my town.
I am not saying it is right or wrong but they are out there.

Look up the show “Friday Night Tykes”. Those teams are ruthless at a young age.
Gotta get that National Championship Yo.

Did I make it in before someone who is barely literate randomly declares pads and helmets are for pussies?

That is more than we did for varsity hockey or football in Minnesota

WAY too much for that age.

We have 5.5hrs a week for soccer (12 year old playing Athena).
she's a goalie so she's got an extra hour that the other members on the team dont.

before they changed her GK Conditioning component of the practices she would have an extra 1.5 hrs on top of what's stated above.

school is the priority, not sports. so.....

In 7th-8th grade football we put in 10-12hrs a week practice. Full contact with pads.

This is what happens when you cater to snowflakes. How much time is that now allowed with actual contact drills? We are already acutely aware of CTE and take that into consideration.

The local youth league is a total of 8 hours. Right now it's 8 hours of practice, but when games start they are part of the 8 hours.

It's excessive for the age group.  My son played rugby last year and they practiced 2-3 hours a day.  I thought that was a lot but they won state championships for their division so I couldn't argue much.

Back in high school (late 80's/early 90's) we practiced 40 hours a week for two weeks in 2 a days.

We reduced that to 22 hours a week when the coaches had to go get ready for the school year.

Once school started it was 16 hours mon - thur and whatever time it took for the game to play out, including travel Friday.

The middle school and midget league mirrored the high school program to a slightly less rigorous degree.

We won a state title, were ranked number one for many weeks during the other three seasons, and won tons of games.  The middle school didn't lose a game in four seasons and the midget league was one of the best in the state.  The high school was one of the best programs in the class for our state for 8 or 9 seasons.

At some point parents started bitching, practices slacked up to nothing and the teams started looking like all the other teams around us.  Parents were complaining that it was too hard on the kids.  Well winning takes effort and there isn't any fun in losing.

We were driven hard and fast.  Water breaks were few and far between but we were tough, we executed razor sharp, and we loved to finally get to beat on kids who didn't like pain like we knew it.

It wasn't anything to go by the field at 8PM and see 3/4 of the team running through individual or positional workouts with the upper class men leading them.  The coaches would be there but they wouldn't be on the field.  The only fun I can remember from football was winning the games.  Everything else was a full time job.  I remember BOE members coming by the field one evening to ask the coaches why we were practicing so late.  He told them go ask us, because we won't leave, practice had been over for an hour and a half.  He said if they want to be here then they aren't out drinking and causing trouble so I let them stay until they want to leave.  Hell, I'd run the 3 miles around the bypass of the town the long way just to get home.  I was never tired in a game, and halfway through the third quarter when I was still sprinting out the decoy routes I could see the realization in the eyes of the kid guarding me that the game was barely half over and I wasn't stopping.  The lineman said the same thing.  We knew when we had broken the other kids and we poured it on.  I realize now we had won most of those games in august on a dusty field in 95 degree temperatures, on the edge of heat stroke.

If you think it is too much then it probably is.  Someone has to be the team that is down 42-0 at half time.  Somewhere else the other team is practicing their ass off.

Fair point. I mis-stated the hours per week completely upon re-reading it. We have 3 practices a week (60-75 minutes long each) plus 1 game (call it 90 minutes total). The league rules stipulate that we can not have a combined practice and game time of more hours than the player's age (10 hours maximum would be for all practices and games that week for a 10 year old). In reality we, as coaches, capped it at 5-6 hours total.

The problem is that everyone thinks that no matter what level of play they are at, its the ticket to a big league.

It is horrible in Hockey as well. AAA, I get it. You're very close to going somewhere.  House B, Select House, A and AA.. it's ridiculous.

We have been fortunate not to have, and I have been part of the coaching and training, that my sons team(s) aren't on the ice for more than 1.5 hours only a few times a week.

Every parent with a kid who plays wants to get their coaching card and get right in high level of play...they can't even run a practice for mites correctly and they are hammering the kids. The tourney's all have lights, shows, blaring music between puck drops, etc..

Knowing football parents, I can only assume its worse in Football.

Practice is shit if you focus on game play itself.

Your last sentence says it all. “Winning cures all”.
Start losing and the complaining will start.

I don't think that's excessive

My son just turned 13 and the new season hasn't started yet, but as a 12 year old he was doing 12-15 hrs of swim practice per week

My daughter is 9 and does 15 hours of gymnastics per week... more if there are clinics or private lessons.

I coach 11 year olds. Prior to school, there's not a limit beyond 2 hours per day. Once school starts it's 6 hrs plus games.

That's excessive, especially for 9.  My 19 year old practices less than that in a high end junior hockey program.

11 hr's a week on the field for 9 year olds ...lol

The coach's are kidding themselves if they think the 9 yr olds can absorb and apply that much info.

Stupidly inefficient use of practice time for the 9 yr old game.

Maybe that much time all in including memorizing plays/responsibilities outside of practice.... but on the field, heel no.

(that typed ... puking in football at this age pretty much happens no matter what type of practice it is .... just sayin.  Generally has more to do with sickness, mental stress, emotional stress, the pound of gummy worms they had for breakfast, or total lack of conditioning than the heat.  Am not condoning running padded 9 yr olds for 11 hours @ 90+ degrees .... just saying some puke and tears are not uncommon at this age even in well run/good fundamental practices.)

What? We have 30 kids this year for flag, that my 4 year old plays.  He loves it.

My 7 year old it’s his first year doing tackle and wasn’t going to sign him up but he begged. Thought no way would he enjoy it because he is on the smaller side, but he loves it. Covered in sweat and smiling.

Most of the coaches are ex high level players who are professionals in the community. Hell the director was a long time ranger and now a sgt at a local department. Guy is very chill and runs a great program. We have the largest program around at one of the smallest schools. Highest number of kids going from flag to tackle. Amazing program and the kids WANT to play.



My 4 year old is behind him. They only practice Tue and Thur

18 years ago at that age, we practiced about 5 hours a week

Seems excessive for the age group

9 yr olds vs High School .... big difference

When I was playing football at this age, I think we did three 2.5 hour practices a week plus games. Sometimes with one extra practice if we did bad.

That seems like a lot. Not High School a lot, because that was 5 hours a day, but a lot for kids.

Completely justifiable response.

If my child had a legitimate path to free (or heavily discounted)college education and decided to turn his nose up at it... he better be planning to take out loans or enroll in ROTC, or enlist.

I’m not paying $100k extra or more because my kid feels like being a special snowflake. Some of life’s best lessons are learning to untilizing the advantages you’ve got, even when you’d rather do something else.

Well if they're 9 they probably suck and need lots of practice.

All future NFL stars !

My 14yo gymnast does 16 hrs every week and 20 hrs every other week.

Eleven seems like a lot for a 9yo.