shared playing time

Is there some generally accepted approach for larger teams to get the most out of the strong players while still getting playing time for the weaker players?

Answer: I agree with your comments completely. Separating the team into three different skill levels is not good for the morale of the players nor does it help create a positive concept of team unity nor reinforce the concept of teamwork. It certainly is demoralizing to all the players, skilled or otherwise. I also don't agree that one group should play half of the game while the other two groups only play one quarter. I assume the coach is doing this because the league has some form of minimum play time rule.I favor equal participation by all players. Unfortunately, this position is not favored by most coaches today because of the "must win"  mentality that exists in youth sports. I am also disturbed by the number of players on your son's team. I think that having 15 players on a youth basketball team is absolutely absurd. Youth sports should be about playing and if there are 15 players on a team that fields five at one time there are going to be too many kids sitting on the bench for too long. Teams sizes should be limited to 8 or 10 players per team. I realize this is beyond your control this season but you should campaign for smaller team rosters in the future. Let me get back to equal playing time. Your coach's "balancing act" is to play the weaker players for just a quarter of the game and the better players for half of the game. The obvious reason for this is because he wants to win the game. Putting it another way, the coach is letting his desire to win deprive many of the children on the team their right to equal participation. I believe that is wrong. So many of the problems that exist in children's sports today can be traced to an "intense-must-win mentality" on the part of the adults that supervise and attend the sports. Unfortunately, youth sports have been poisoned by adult's intense desire to win. These days it is more important to win the game than to have all the kids play, enjoy and learn. You must remember, that the only reason the better kids play more than the less skilled today is that someone, usually an adult coach/parent involved wants to win. Coaches obviously don't want to substitute weaker players for fear of losing. Coaches typically want all the best players on their team and they want to keep them on the court for as long as possible. It's really as simple as that and as long as that mentality prevails, less skilled players will suffer and playing time will remain a concern and a problem for many parents and players, regardless of the "balancing act" substitution strategy employed. Minimum playing rules help somewhat but are not a silver bullet solution to the problem. It is not difficult to implement an equal participation strategy. Let me suggest one. Youth basketball games are typically 40 minutes long (four ten-minute quarters) and there are 5 positions on the court. That translates to 5 times 40 or 200 minutes of playing opportunities that will be divided between 8 players, assuming 8 kids on a team. That means that each player should play 25 minutes of every game (a little more than one half the game). If there are 10 players on the team, each player will play 20 minutes or 1/2 of each game. On your son's team with 15 players, each player would play only 13.3 minutes of each game. (I will explain how to  specifically implement my equal participation strategy in a minute.) Because there are 15 players on the team, playing time is too limited, even with equal participation. That is why team size should be limited to 8 or 10 players. As you suggest your coach should arrange his line up to include both skilled and less skilled in different mixes but the key is that everyone should play an equal amount. Given the situation of your son's team I think the coach should take his better players and spread them across four units trying to create four essentially balanced groups, one for each quarter of the game. In the example below, I have assigned ratings to the 15 players - A1 thru A5 being the better players, B1 thru B5 the second group, and C1 thru C5 being the less skilled. (By the way, I would not share these ratings with the players.)Because there are 15 players and 20 slots, TEAM 4 is short two players as indicated by the ** and TEAMs 1, 2 and 3 are one player short as indicated by the *. Each week different players will be assigned to complete each of the teams. TEAM1 TEAM2 TEAM3 TEAM4 A1 A2 A3 A4 B3 B2 B1 A5 B4 B5 C1 C2 C3 C4 C5 ** * * * ** To complete each of the teams, the coach selects one boy from each team (and a second player from one of the teams) to play an extra quarter on team 1-4. These should be different players each week so that over the course of the season each player has an opportunity to play the extra quarter. Week one might look like this: TEAM1 TEAM2 TEAM3 TEAM4 A1 A2 A3 A4 B3 B2 B1 A5 B4 B5 C1 C2 C3 C4 C5 B3 B2 B1 A5 B4 The following week, the teams might look like this: TEAM1 TEAM2 TEAM3 TEAM4 A1 A2 A3 A4 B3 B2 B1 A5 B4 B5 C1 C2 C3 C4 C5 C1 C2 C3 C4 C5 The third week they might look like this: TEAM1 TEAM2 TEAM3 TEAM4 A1 A2 A3 A4 B3 B2 B1 A5 B4 B5 C1 C2 C3 C4 C5 A1 A5 A3 A4 A2 ...and so on. This requires a little thought and preparation but in my opinion it is well worth it. All kids play approximately an equal amount of time, albeit over the course of the season, not in a single game. Since all players are going to play approximately an equal amount, the coach should be motivated to help make all of his players improve and play better and that certainly would be a good thing. I believe a coach's biggest commitment to winning should be to work with each of his or her players to help them learn and improve. The coach should spend quality practice time with all his players. All too often, though, coaches spend most of their time working with the skilled players and just ignore the rest. On game day, they substitute the weaker players minimally if required. When you think about it, if competing teams were competitively balanced (and most leagues try to achieve balance) and if all competing teams used the equal participation rule, the successful coach would likely be the one who got the best production from his weaker players. Wouldn't that be a great thing? Philosophically speaking, other than to win, is there any reason why the better player should receive more playing time than a weaker player? Isn't the less skilled player entitled to a fair share of the fun of playing. Doesn't he or she pay the same registration fee? We are not talking about big time revenue sports here. These are little kids playing for fun and to learn. I don't believe there is a valid reason that good players should receive more playing time than the less skilled. On the contrary, some experts make a case that the less skilled players should receive more playing time so that they might improve.John, I understand that you may not favor my suggestion since your son is one of the better players and his playing time, which is currently half the game, would be reduced some what. But in the best interest of all the kids and the team, I think it is the right thing to do. It is what I would do if I were your son's coach. I would love to hear back from you that you offered my suggestion to your coach and he said "What a great idea!!" and implemented it for the next game. I would love to hear that, but, in all honesty, I won't be too surprised if that doesn't happen. There are just too many coaches who want to win too badly and want to keep their best players on the floor for as long as possible.

* Coach kostas eventually heard back from John, who said, "Thanks for your great response - I'll give it a shot."You're welcome kostas!