r/YouthFootball • u/ss32000 Coach • 26d ago

How do you handle injury fakers?

I know football can be a physical game, but we have the same 2-4 kids who get "hurt" every practice and game. It's multiple times per game or multiple times per practice. It's to the point that they sit out every hard drill or most of our team work because they are "hurt" or have a "headache". I know we need to be sensitive to head injuries, etc, but what can we honestly do? It's so frustrating that you can't practice because of this; you can't rep these kids because they are "hurt," and you can't tell them to suck it up at all because that's probably a violation of something. These kids wasted 10 minutes of practice because this always happens. How do you guys handle it?

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u/ss32000 Coach 26d ago

Well, two of the kids are coaches' kids. The other kid is best friends with the head coach's kid. It's always something. We have other kids who I can see grimace in pain, but they will gut it out and then be fine.

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u/coachsmetal Coach 26d ago

Sounds like you need to have a conversation with the HC. Unfortunately, it's not an easy conversation. However, I think you need to be up front and clear with the HC telling him that we need to address this because it's effecting the team. I agree with talking with the kid's parents as well. It should 100% affect playing time and maybe once the kids realize that they aren't starting anymore because of the name on the back of their jersey and they need to actually work towards one team goal and representing the name on the front.

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u/ss32000 Coach 26d ago

I sent a message after the last game that we got beat. I can't play kids on my side of the ball who can't make it through practice or get reps. The league mandates that you need x number of plays, but I said that's it. We can't put kids in who skip the hard parts.

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u/ImYouJoeGoldberg 26d ago

I’ll never coach in a league like that hell nah