The Playing Time Debate: What Parents, Coaches, and Athletes Need to Understand About Earning Opportunities

Dr. Marlo Richardson

Sometimes the Hardest Truth Is the One Our Athlete Needs to Hear

I have personally lived this situation as a parent.

My daughter has found herself in scenarios where she wasn’t getting the amount of playing time she wanted. Like many athletes, she came home frustrated. She had questions. She had opinions. She had explanations for why things weren’t going her way.

As parents, our natural instinct is often to defend our children.

But instead of immediately questioning the coach, I asked a different set of questions.

How do you perform in practice?

What is your energy like?

What is your attitude like?

How do you respond when coaching is difficult?

How do you act when things don’t go your way?

At first, those weren’t necessarily the questions she wanted to answer. But they were the questions that mattered.

I explained something that many young athletes and many parents don’t fully understand.

Coaches are evaluating much more than game performance.

They are evaluating readiness.

They are evaluating consistency.

They are evaluating effort.

They are evaluating leadership.

They are evaluating body language.

They are evaluating how an athlete responds to adversity.

They are evaluating whether an athlete can be trusted in critical moments.

Once she began understanding how coaches actually evaluate players, her mindset changed.

Her attitude changed.

Her approach to practice changed.

Today, she starts and rarely leaves the court.

I’m happy.

More importantly, she’s happy.

But the breakthrough didn’t happen because a coach suddenly changed their opinion.

The breakthrough happened because she became open to understanding what the coach was looking for.

Parents Don’t Always Get the Full Story

One of the biggest mistakes parents make is assuming they are getting a complete picture from their athlete.

The reality is that children don’t always tell the whole story.

Sometimes they don’t intentionally leave things out.

Sometimes they simply don’t see the entire picture.

Parents see their child at home.

Coaches see their child in a competitive environment.

Those can be two very different versions of the same athlete.

An athlete who is respectful at home may become frustrated during competition.

An athlete who is confident at home may struggle with accountability in practice.

An athlete who believes they are working hard may not realize teammates are consistently outworking them.

That doesn’t make the athlete a bad person.

It simply means there may be information parents don’t have.

That’s why it is so important to gather information before drawing conclusions.

Coaches Aren’t Always Right and Players Aren’t Always Wrong

This is where the conversation becomes important.

Coaches are human.

Parents are human.

Athletes are human.

Coaches make mistakes.

Players sometimes get overlooked.

Parents sometimes have legitimate concerns.

Not every coaching decision is perfect.

At the same time, not every athlete’s version of events is completely accurate.

The truth often exists somewhere in the middle.

The healthiest athletic environments are built when everyone is willing to listen, communicate, and seek understanding rather than immediately assigning blame.

Trust Matters

Ultimately, every family has to decide whether they trust the leadership of a program.

Because if you genuinely believe a coach cannot make decisions that are in the best interest of your child or the team, then that may not be the right environment for your athlete.

That doesn’t mean every decision will be one you agree with.

It means you trust the process even when the outcome isn’t what you hoped for.

The strongest parent-coach relationships are built on trust, communication, and a shared commitment to helping athletes grow.

When that foundation exists, athletes develop.

When it doesn’t, conflict usually follows.

The goal isn’t to find a coach who guarantees playing time.

The goal is to find a coach who develops players, teaches accountability, and helps young athletes become better versions of themselves both on and off the court.

Because in the long run, those lessons will matter far more than any single season.