@ Joey... You're right, I definitely mismanaged the game other wise every last kid would have had their mandatory playing time earlier in a more competitive setting and we would have won the game. No argument there. I got 35 kids on my team so I'm glad it happened in the 1st game for me to learn from. In the end I could have taken the win by simply leaving in my best players, but every kid on the team deserved to play and that was the choice I made and we lost behind it. It was still a bitch move no matter how you look at it. That coach sure wasn't complaining when he was purposely playing his best players both ways (which is against the rules) and he felt he had the edge. He had his best men on the field and I had mine out there, and we was stuffin them, and once he realized he was about to lose he became a saint who wanted to call the game fairly? Please!!! I'll take a loss like that anyday and my gameday management will be better the next time we meet. My boys sure didn't feel like losers, especially after grabbing the lead after being down 25-7. I did them a disservice, and that won't happen again. You live and you learn.
As for your tough practices, I don't know you or care to compare who's practices are tougher. In the end certain kids aren't gonna be up to par no matter how hard your practices are. That's life, every kid won't be a stud. We don't let any kid off the hook, but in the end they will respond or they won't.
As for me, playing time is earned, and for the players that underperform for whatever reason, they will get the mandatory allowed. It's idiotic to believe all kids deserve the same amount of playing time. As much as you want kids to have fun, you also want to breed fair competition, especially in a league that values the wins and losses and has a playoff system. We don't stack our teams like other clubs do, they signed up every kid that wanted to play no matter how big or small, and we will coach them up, and the real players will begin to separate themselves from the pack in time. That's how it's been and will remain.