The East Meadow Rams were all smiles this past Sunday after a 19-7 victory, their first win of the season after two losses. That was until one of the coaches said something that my son, Bradley, can’t get out of his mind.

“You shouldn’t be proud of yourselves because you beat a garbage team,” said one of the coaches.

Ouch! This was after a win!

Talk about a buzzkill. That’s not exactly what twenty-something 11- and 12-year-olds want to hear after they played their hearts out from start to finish. I have to say that over eight years of playing youth football, my wife, Sheryl, and I have been proud of Bradley each and every time he steps on the field, and we also feel the same way about most of Bradley’s teammates over the years.

To be fair, the head coach congratulated the team on a job well done. They certainly made some mistakes, as you would expect from 11- and 12-year-olds, but the kids played hard and earned a big win. 

It should be noted in this league, when a team goes up by 18 points, the other team gets to pick four players from the opposing club to come out of the game until the lead gets under 18 again.

When the Rams built a 19-0 lead, Bradley was one of the four players the other team’s coach chose to remove from the game, and that’s when the other team finally scored a touchdown. So for this coach to say what he did was extremely inappropriate.

These kids need a pat on the back most of the time, win or lose, because they should be commended for practicing all week and stepping onto the field for the games.

If this coach said something to the effect of, “Hey, we’re playing a better team than this next week, so we have to clean a few things up and get ready,” then OK, I’ll buy that. But there’s no reason to nitpick.

In fact, this coach makes the kids do postgame pushups for each point they give up. They should have bypassed that this week, because the opponents scored the points without some key players on the field.

Bradley has been the starting center on his team for the last five years, and we always talk about the good and bad from each game. The first thing I always say to him after the final whistle is something like, “great game” or “good effort,” because generally that’s what I feel. We’ll talk about mistakes in the game, but there’s no reason to harp on the negative because it can be fixed.

I honestly thought this past Sunday might have been one of the two or three best games that Bradley has played. He snapped the ball perfectly, even when he had to long snap for a punt, and he blocked extremely well. He did get called for a penalty when he moved the ball before snapping it. I wasn’t going to bring it up, but he came over to me right after it happened and said, “yeah, I shook the ball.” 

I was proud he admitted it and that he had a great game, which makes me shake my head even more about what that coach said, and I’m sure other parents that heard it felt the same way.

The kids do have to clean some things up, like the number of penalties, hitting the holes right, and finishing off tackles, but there was no reason to make that a big deal after a win.

I would probably say there’s no reason to beat them over the head about it after a loss. That’s what practice is for - to fix what went wrong and for a coach to pump up his players and teach them the right fundamentals.

Everyone can use on a pat on the back once in a while. Even youth football players.

Peter Schwartz is a sports anchor for the CBS Sports Radio Network and WCBS 880 Radio in New York. His older son, Bradley, plays youth football on Long Island while his younger son, Jared, plays flag football. Peter, his wife Sheryl and the boys are busy cheering on the New York Jets when they’re not at a youth football field.