If there’s one thing that I can’t stand in professional sports, particularly in football, is free agency and the constant moving around of players. It just seems a player like Patriots quarterback Tom Brady is the exception and not the rule.  Most players just don’t stay with the same team for their whole career.

Now I know that youth football is not the same as the NFL. If a child continues on past youth football, he’ll play in middle school, maybe even high school and potentially, in college. The astronomical odds of a young man making it to the NFL is a story for another blog. 

But when it comes to youth football, a child generally plays for a program in town and doesn’t wear another jersey until middle school.

However, there are exceptions to that rule.

A parent may want to switch programs if their child is not getting enough playing time or perhaps they are moving to another town and want their child to play close to home. 

There also could be situations where a parent is not comfortable with the way their child is being taught and coached, possibly a situation where the coaches are not USA Football Heads Up Football certified and there’s another program in the area with coaches who are.

You might also have a situation where the child wants to switch teams because a friend is on that other club or perhaps the child is just not comfortable on the team he’s on.

It’s not a good idea to keep moving around from team to team every time there’s a problem because that kind of thing gets around, maybe even to the middle school coach.

But what if a switch is necessary because of politics?

I wrote here last month that kids should be shielded from that type of thing as much as possible.

However, sometimes a coach or a parent may have to step in and decide what’s best for a child. 

My son Bradley has been with the same program for seven years and only has one season of youth football left before joining the middle school team. The last thing he wants to do is leave. In a perfect world, where he plays should be his decision.

Though nothing is definite yet, we’re going through a situation with our current program where the coaches are suggesting to the parents that we switch, as a team, to another program because of some lingering issues. 

When the subject was brought up recently, the parents seemed to be split over what to do and the kids weren’t thrilled with the thought of putting on another jersey. 

Bradley would prefer to stay but understands what the issues are. I think most of his teammates would agree. But my wife and I felt obligated to give Bradley three scenarios and ask him what he wanted to do:

• Go with his coaches and his whole team to another program
• Stay with his current program and run the possibility of having a new coach and lots of new teammates
• Take a year off of tackle football, play flag football, and return to tackle in middle school

 

Without any hesitation, Bradley said he would play tackle football wherever his coach and team decided to play. He doesn’t want to wear another jersey, but he understands the circumstance and wants to stay with his team. 

In this situation, we were all in agreement on how to handle this and we are just waiting to see what happens.

We’re either going to stay with the current program if the issues can be resolved or we’re going to move with wherever Bradley’s coaches wind up going along.

As I’ve stated before, it’s not good to expose a child to politics in youth football, but when it comes to switching programs, you might not have a choice. In fact, a child’s opinion counts as well.

Peter Schwartz is an anchor and reporter for the CBS Sports Radio Network. He also writes a CBS New York sports blog at http://newyork.cbslocal.com/tag/peter-schwartz/. You can follow him on Twitter @pschwartzcbsfan. Peter’s son Bradley plays for the Levittown Red Devils of the Nassau Suffolk Football League on Long Island in New York. His son Jared cheers on Bradley and then Bradley returns the favor when Jared is playing soccer.