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I live on Long Island where you either have 8 year olds playing for “nurturing” teams or you have them on leagues where the parents are like animals taking the athletic maneuvers of their children way too seriously. I agree that it gets kind of ridiculous to have teams that want to win, but do not give them the tools to do so. However, neither do these teams have try outs, which enables just about any kid to join. If you have that kind of dynamic , then how can a coach refer to a standard? My sons were involved in soccer, little league and football. They were very good athletes and were frustrated at times with the boys who were not. This was certainly true when they were elementary school age and the majority of boys are pampered. I always felt this was so because parents today like many parents of all generations, tend to live vicariously through their children. Surely this was the case at the schools my children attended. These were predominantly high achieving public schools in a certain Long Island Jewish neighborhood. These kids were on every team and were cheered on encouragingly by fathers who in their youth most likely were not even asked to haul water for the athletic Irish kids on the team. So now that they hold the cards in their districts, their children are not going to go through the same disappointment as they did. For these kids all this coddling is ultimately meaningless, sportswise, because once they enter the 9th grade the team sports are over. The risk of injury is too great, I was told, to threaten future surgeons.If they play a sport at all, it is tennis. I know it sounds silly, and maybe it is because I am a mother and not a father, but I thought it was kind to have all kinds of kids on the team when they were little. When my sons were in high school, their team was not coddled, and I recall the coach doing a lot of yelling. I don’t know. They say the British Empire was created by the public (private) school boys who were cricket players in their youth. They took it very seriously.