Many years ago, the ninth-grade baseball team I was coaching led our opponents 9-4 as we batted in the top of the seventh (and last) inning. With one out, I flashed the “steal” sign to the runner at first base, who easily pilfered second on the ensuing pitch. That moved the opposing coach to call time, walk from his dugout directly to the third base coaching box where I was standing, and berate me about what a low-life, no-class, ignorant, bush-league bad example I was setting by trying to run the score up like that. Once his righteous indignation had been expressed, he turned and stomped back to his bench.

Some people believe stealing a base with a five-run lead in the last inning at the pro level is a low-life, no-class, ignorant, bush-league thing to do. However, this was a Western Connecticut Conference freshman game, and that opposing coach wasn’t aware our team had lost all four of its previous games, allowed 15 runs or more in each drubbing, and was badly in need of a morale-boosting victory. But I was. That’s why I was employing strategy designed to turn a five-run lead into a six-run lead.

Some time later, I was an assistant coach for a high school basketball team destined to finish its season with 20 losses in 20 games. We took some fearful trouncings that year, but none worse than a 104-39 pasting at the hands of the eventual conference champs, whose starters were still full-court pressing at the start of the fourth quarter. Our apoplectic head coach was beside himself, sensing our opponents were “rubbing it in.” But how did he know the other coach’s rationale for such strategy? Our more-talented opponents had a big game coming up later that week against significantly better opposition. Was it their fault we were that weak? Their coach apparently thought playing his starters for the last eight minutes was more beneficial than inserting the JV team just to avoid the appearance of running up the score. Was outscoring an already humiliated opponent 30-4 in the fourth quarter appropriate strategy that night? I probably wouldn’t have done it, but the fact was their coaches were better qualified than I to determine what was best for their team.

Coaching young athletes to the satisfaction of their parents is even more challenging these days than it was a generation ago, and that’s too bad. No rational adult hires a plumber to fix a leaky faucet and subsequently second-guesses him over which wrench he uses, nor does anyone reasonable take a car to a mechanic and then tell him how to change the oil. Why then would any parent openly second-guess the coach of a youth athletic team? When an individual presumes a game with five, six, nine, 10 or 11 players on a side revolves solely around his or her youngster, it’s unsurprising that the child in question ultimately begins to believe it as well.

Loudly questioning or criticizing an opposition coach at a youth sports event sets a poor example, but it’s not nearly as counterproductive as people openly or furtively casting aspersions on the adults in charge of their own offspring’s team. There’s far more to coaching youth sports than knowing what the pros would do in a given situation. The dynamics of any team in any sport at any level are completely unique. Achieving optimal results requires players to fully believe in the coaching staff as completely as they do in one another. It also requires said team’s supporters to refrain from trying to actively participate in an endeavor that they are not (and should not be) directly involved in. Failing to remember that undermines everyone involved.

A youth sports coach truly deserves criticism or outright censure when he or she engages in behavior that belittles, humiliates or questions the integrity of players or officials, but such actions should be handled by appropriate league authorities. In an ideal world, those individuals who are first and foremost intent on building dynasties consisting of teens and/or pre-teens would be weeded out. However, since most youth leagues depend upon volunteers, this doesn’t always happen. It would be nice if one of the requirements for coaching a sport at any sub-collegiate level was the successful completion of a year of officiating it first. Such a regulation would likely curb at least some inappropriate behavior on the part of those aspiring mentors who take winning a tad too seriously.

Parents, friends and others who follow local high school and youth sports: Let the officials officiate and let the coaches coach. But most importantly, let the kids play.

— Andy Young teaches in Kennebunk and lives in Cumberland.

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