Quote:
Originally Posted by miami_fan
Youth sports question of the week.
What is the main purpose of JV sports in high school? Winning games or developing players for varsity?
This has been a discussion amongst a few parents of kids on my son's JV baseball team. Obviously, the goal is to do both but which side should a coach lean more on? First a bit of background info. We have twenty six players on the current team, I believe there are five pitchers only and another 5 or 6 who can also pitch at various levels but mostly play other positions. We have a twenty one game schedule and then the district tournament. Last year, they had the same number of players including nine players who are now sophomores on this year's team. Last year's team won the district title but under a different coach. The new JV coach is an alumnus of the school who played and coached under the varsity coach. Most of the current sophomores did not play a lot last year. One of the PO's pitched one inning. An outfielder had three at bats. On the other hand, our current shortstop started about half the games last year as a freshman. I went to two or three games last year and the players on the field were dominant in those games. I don't know if it was explicitly stated that the sophomores were being developed for the varsity and thus were given more playing time or if that is what was assumed to justify the lack of playing time.
Fast forward to this year. We have played ten games so far and are undefeated. Six players have played every game, three sophomores and three freshmen. The top ten in plate appearances have four sophomores and six freshmen. As far as production stats, the class breakdown is similar. I went back and looked at the starting lineup from the first game. Six sophomores started that game and there was one sub due to injury with a freshman replacing a freshman. To my unrefined baseball eye, I only see an argument for one kid to get more playing time and he is married up with the third pitcher in the rotation. Not saying he can't catch the other pitchers but that is the way things are setup.
The parents of sophomores who are not playing are now complaining that the coach should be developing the kids for the varsity. They are not alone. We have a few freshman who began the season as starters who have been moved out of the starting lineup. Unfortunately for both groups, those kids are not playing well in one phase of the game(mostly hitting) right now and the kids that took their place are and the team is winning.
One thing that is becoming more and more obvious that I had not given any thought to is the kids and parents are struggling with the change from travel ball to high school ball. I think most kids and parents know that when they go to travel ball game/games, the player is going to play and more than likely going to start if they are a position player. The idea of going to a single game and not playing is not something most of them are use to. For me, winning the game is more of a priority. The unique nature of baseball subs being permanent makes it more difficult from what I can tell. As a basketball coach, I can get anyone five minutes in a game. Time at second base seems a bit harder. I told my kid that as a coach, I believed that you earn game-time in practice. If you are not doing it in practice, I don't know why the coach would expect you to do it in the field. The other issue has been four of our games have ended with us mercy ruling the other team with three games ending in the fifth, one game ending in the fourth and three of the four being at home. So we are not playing complete games to get players in the game. Maybe I am just sympathetic to a fellow coach. I just don't remember having coaches sacrifice games for to develop players or being asked to sacrifice games in lieu of player development as a coach.
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Broadly, I'd say the answer is situational, with a number of variables.
You noted the constraints of different sports, which is definitely a factor.
The training regimen for different sports is also a factor (someone else noted, some sports are really geared for external development)
I'd say the current varsity situation in a given sport also plays a role. Is the varsity young and needs fewer replacements next season? Are they senior laden and will need a lot of replacements next season? And that drills down by position/role as well. If the varsity is loaded at RB, maybe the top JV RB spends some time at WR midweek, in order to maximize his opportunity to contribute to the varsity in another fashion.
Load management restrictions are a factor, especially with any players who might be JV starters that also double are varsity reserves on the 3-deep roster. I know the rules vary by state but, in Georgia for example, HS football has a six quarters rule (i.e. you can play in six quarters combined between JV & Varsity in a given week). JV may wanna rest starters on Wed/Thurs if the varsity has a likely blowout on Friday. If varsity has a tough game ahead, might give JV starters more playing time midweek since they likely won't see mop up duty on Friday.
The rub with the question, perhaps, is that developing players & winning aren't mutually exclusive ... not in terms of the players who developing will be most useful to the varsity in the future anyway. What IS more separate is trying to equalize playing time for everyone & winning, happily I know of very few (if any) situations where that's ever been much of a question. You win by playing your best players, those are also the players who it's most important for the varsity to have developed further. Career JV backups are more likely to be career mop up players at the next level, regardless of whether they saw equal playing time. This ain't rec ball, you play to win both short term AND long term.
In the end, I don't think there's a one size fits all answer