Coaches and Players

Imagine you are watching your favorite sporting event as the game begins and the players take the field. Each team makes a few mistakes and each team makes a few good plays and eventually one team takes the lead. No matter what happens, though, coaches can’t leave the sidelines and begin playing. Only the players take the field and the coaches must stay on the sidelines.

A Scout Troop is much like an athletic team. We have players, (the scouts); coaches, (the adult leaders); we wear uniforms, we learn skills and rules, (the Scout Oath and Law, campcraft, etc.); and meet challenges, (a troop meeting, a campout, etc.).

Like coaches of an athletic team the Leaders in a Scout Troop can’t leave the sidelines and interfere with the game. A Scout Leader’s job is to teach, coordinate and advise. The coach prepares a team by teaching skills, running practices and seeing that each player gets his fair share of time on the field. Once the competition begins the players finish the game, win loose or draw. (Any good coach knows that a team generally learns more from honest mistakes than they learn from winning.)

If a coach were allowed in the game a real player would be sidelined, if players leave the game for no good reason the whole team suffers. It takes courage, wisdom and experience to recognize the sidelines in Scouting and to keep from crossing them. At one point the Scouts must take the lead and do their best while Leaders encourage and advise from a respectable distance. A good Scout Troop will have no players on the sidelines and no coaches on the field.