Coaching a Travel team and we have a Kid who's pretty talented, certainly capable of playing at this level.
Over the last year however his body language and his desire to even be there seem to have taken a massive hit.
He's not a bad performer by any means, his teammates generally like him, he doesn't have a bad attitude. He's definitely on the side of "I'm just here to play Baseball with my friends" rather than "I'm here to compete" if that makes sense.
Which is fine to a degree. Obviously we want all the Boys to have fun, be friends, & enjoy each others company. But we also want them to understand when it's time to focus, compete, and play Baseball. While other players seem to have no problem recalibrating into that mode, this one basically completely shuts down when we lay that down.
I've tried to tinker with a number of things to reignite this Kid's "spark" that made him want to play here in the first place. I've straight up told him "Tell me what position you want to play and I'll put you there right now" and he'll just say "I'm good."
Honestly at a loss. I don't really consider cutting kids, unless it's a massive behavorial issue.
Anybody have similar experiences with kids like this?