Which Is it "whine" or "wine"?

One of the more difficult aspects of coaching we have all had to face is making decisions about player's future. What do you do when the reality strikes that you have a number of juniors who are on the varsity team but you have some sophomores and freshmen who are more skilled and athletically talented? To my knowledge there is no manual for when or

how you go about determining who plays and who does not. I do believe,

if you have seniors on your squad and they do not know their role, you are

probably going to have unhappy players.

You do sometimes run into older players who think they will just get better with age. I call this the "wine" syndrome. They are just going to get better with age. Some players may also believe because they are older they deserve to play. Entitlement is real and can be a team morale killer. Somehow, "seniority" in terms of who has been in the program the longest, should take precedence over playing ability. At lease some players may feel that is the way the system works. As I have previously stated, we spent time and energy evaluating the individual players after the season was over. During the evaluation process, we gave our players suggestions about what they should/could do to improve their skills. We all know some players are NOT going to follow our suggestions on self improvement. I was always amused to have parents tell me How MUCH their child loved the game. Even though, I seldom if ever, saw them at camp, open gym, etc. Some players love the idea of being a player but it does not translate into actions. Our approach was to play juniors on our junior varsity team if

they were not in our top 8 or 9 varsity players. We wanted them to play

and understand they could contribute to the varsity as a junior BUT they

would have to earn varsity minutes not be entitled to minutes.

One of the advantages that some sports have such as tennis, track, and golf is it is fairly simple to decide who plays #1 singles or who your top three sprinters are etc. You take them out and show them on the court,track, or course. It is more difficult in basketball. When you decide to play a younger player over an older player, you may experience the "whine" syndrome. WE ALL KNOW WHO'S FAULT IT IS NOW! If player's were equal in terms of their contributions to the team, I tried to give the older player the starting spot but eventually YOU have to do what YOU believe is best for the team. Players and parents may not agree. One year I decided we needed to change the starting lineup and I moved two seniors to bench roles and started two juniors. We won seven straight games after the change ..... yet I was the bad guy. One of the seniors played so much better coming off the bench but it didn't matter. It's very difficult to tell a player or a parent that your child does not handle game pressure very well and we (the team) are better when you fill a certain role.

Did this net wear out from use or neglect?