Liz Monahan

Pembroke Hill Girls Varsity Basketball Coach

[MSHSAA @MSHSAAOrg]

Watch: Pembroke Hill celebrates after winning its first-ever Class 1 Championship!

📺: https://t.co/9WedlSso3a

[Stella Shumate @stellashu17]

Highlights from Dallas! We went 3-0 as a team and now it’s onto school ball for the month of June! @MissouriPhenom @PreachaZo @GRoth03_ @CoachLizMon

[William Payne @TweetsbyCoachP]

One of the reasons youth sports has become so complicated is because everyone involved is often chasing a different definition of success.

One parent wants college recruiting to be the primary focus. Another wants their child to enjoy the experience and make friends. Another wants championships. Another wants equal playing time. Another believes development matters more than wins. Another believes if you’re paying thousands of dollars, your child should be on the field or court.

None of those perspectives are necessarily or inherently wrong. They’re just different.

The challenge is that one coach, one team, and one season cannot satisfy all of them at the same time.

Parents are also navigating an increasingly confusing landscape. Travel teams, private trainers, recruiting services, showcases, camps, social media influencers, former players, college coaches, and other parents all offer advice. Often that advice directly contradicts itself.

One person says play multiple sports. Another says specialize early.

One person says development matters most. Another says exposure matters most.

One person says find the best coach. Another says find the team that will give your child the most playing time.

One person says your child needs more reps. Another says your child needs more rest.

One person says the child should attend prom and not miss life events. Another says team commitments should come before all else.

For families investing significant amounts of time and money, it can become incredibly difficult to know who to trust.

The coaching side is just as complicated.

Most coaches are not showing up every day trying to hold players back, target families, or play favorites. Most genuinely care about their athletes and want them to succeed. But coaches are often forced to make decisions where there are no perfect answers.

Should they prioritize winning or development?

Should they play the senior who has earned it or the younger player with a higher ceiling?

Should they focus on the best interests of one athlete or the best interests of the team?

Should they reward effort, production, leadership, potential, experience, or loyalty?

Every decision creates a winner and a loser in someone’s eyes.

A coach sees the entire roster. A parent sees their child.

Neither perspective is inherently wrong, but they naturally create conflict.

The reality is that parents often judge a season through the lens of their child’s experience, while coaches are forced to evaluate it through the lens of the entire team. Those viewpoints frequently collide.

Add in the emotional investment, financial commitment, social media comparisons, recruiting pressure, and the fact that every child develops at a different pace, and it becomes easy to see why frustration exists.

Youth sports isn’t difficult because people don’t care.

It’s difficult because everyone cares deeply.

Parents care about their children.

Coaches care about their teams.

Athletes care about their opportunities.

And when passionate people are pursuing different goals, disagreements are inevitable.

The best environments aren’t the ones where everyone always agrees. They’re the ones where expectations are clear, communication is honest, trust is built over time, and everyone remembers that there are many different paths to success in sports and in life.

[JUCO World Series⚾️ @JUCOWorldSeries]

@BlinnBaseball @JCCCBaseball 🏆🏆 THE CROWN BELONGS TO @JCCCBaseball 🏆🏆 Final score: 8-5

For the first time in Program History, and capping off their historic season. It’s the Cavs world, and we’re just livin in it. 🤌

[Jeff Passan @JeffPassan]

They have more home runs than any team in college history. They won 41 straight games. They have 20+ D1 players. They had a pitcher shove a catcher on the mound.

The wild story of JCCC and how juco bandits are changing the frontier of college baseball: https://t.co/prrVcfmBxP

[Matt Foster @MattFosterTV]

You can never count out @JCCCBaseball

Despite trailing 9-3 in the 8th, the Cavs rally & walk it off on this 3-run HR to advance to the @JUCOWorldSeries Finals.

The dream season continues for JoCo ⚾️

[Stella Shumate @stellashu17]

After an amazing visit with @4cicci4 and @j_still20 , I am so excited and blessed to announce I have received an offer from @roos_hoops !! Thank you so much to Coach Hunt and Coach Jon for believing in me! @MissouriPhenom

[Stella Shumate @stellashu17]

Here are some highlights from a great @RochesterWBB camp day! Now time for this weekend in Texas!

[Indiana Fever @IndianaFever]

FROM. THE. LOGO.

Caitlin Clark for three from waaaaaaaaay out.

[Steve Magness @stevemagness]

If you want to "raise a D1 athlete" here's what works:

1. Stop trying to raise a D1 athlete

Support your kid. Let them play whatever they want to play. Drive them to practice

But it's got to come from them. They've got to want it. You can't force it.

2. Have great genetics

[Coach L. Jackson @CoachLJac]

When do players rest?

We’ve normalized the grind so much that “off days” feel like weakness. Teaching the kids to constantly keep going without rest…this is why they’re burned out, injured, and mentally checked out.

Recovery isn’t optional. It’s part of development.

Smart players train hard.
Elite players recover right.

#MindsetMatters

[Matt Moody @matmoody]

I wasn't planning on saying anything publicly about last night's game. But when a parent from Concordia walks up after the forfeit and calls one of my 16-year-old players "cheap," I feel the need to respond.

First, to that parent: if you had a problem with the outcome, you should have been brave enough to bring it up with me instead of a teenager.

Now, let me paint the picture for why I brought up the situation during the game, because I'm particularly sensitive to this topic.

When I was 17, I pitched in every game of the 1999 5A KS State Tournament. The only reason I came out of the championship game was that I ran out of innings. That was the only rule back then. Throughout my high school career I regularly pitched twice in the same doubleheader and always at least twice a week. I don't put any blame on anybody. I wanted to do it. We just didn't understand back then, what happens to a young arm when velocity starts climbing into the upper 80s and 90s.

When I was 19 years old, as a freshman, in my very first college appearance at Fort Hays State, on my 16th pitch, my elbow dislocated, tearing both my Ulnar Collateral Ligament and Radial Collateral Ligament. Tommy John Surgery followed. I pitched three more years at Fort Hays, but I never threw as hard again, and never without constant, sometimes agonizing, pain. To this day, when I throw batting practice my hand swells and goes numb the rest of the night. I drive home from practice and can't use my right arm to steer. I sleep with my arm elevated or my hand swells up like a ballon by morning.

That is what these rules are trying to prevent.
Last night's game ended because Concordia used a pitcher who had thrown 78 pitches on Friday. Under KSHSAA rules, that requires four days of rest. Yesterday was three. It is not a gray area. It is not a judgment call. The rule exists, we are all forced to follow the same limits, it was violated, and the penalty is a forfeit. (And in my opinion, pitching a very talented pitcher like that after just 50 pitches on 3 days rest is irresponsible).

No, we did not want to win that way. We were winning at the time and we were going to win anyway. We had our two best arms left and they were out of arms. That's how this works at the 4A level. You run out of experienced arms and the flood gates open.

Which brings me to something I find genuinely troubling in my first year as a head coach, after two years as Wamego's pitching coach: the clear majority of programs push pitch counts to their absolute limit. Pull a guy at 75 pitches, bring him back on the minimum rest to throw 105 more. Repeat. At velocities that are sky-rocketing. We have 16-year-olds throwing 90 mph, and the current pitch count limits are not even close to restrictive enough. We are trading young athletes' futures for wins. It's being done openly and very proudly.

I'm sure my opinions will be laughed at or disagreed with by most, but I could not care less.

When you have to go to inexperienced pitchers, walks stack up, scoreboards get ugly. The team loses confidence and things spiral. It's a gut punch that feels like it's never going to stop... and when you look at the board there's still just one out.

But that's what we signed up for. To coach young kids. To develop players. To give young kids opportunities. Build depth the right way. Not to exploit the talent that showed up. It's not always pretty but it's better than winning at the cost of kid's futures.

And yes, there's an ABSOLUTE systemic cost too. Last year we had two pitchers who deserved All-State consideration, but because we don't run them on short rest, their accumulated stats don't compete (IP and Ks). The sport media doesn't pay attention because there are jaw-dropping, accumulated stats all over the place that make for better headlines. When all-league and all-state accolades are built on accumulation, programs who are cautious about arms get penalized. That system needs to change (but it won't). There's a lot of nuance, but if a pitcher throws more than 50 pitches they should get at least 5 days off and coaches should be allowed to work with pitchers in the offseason so that there are more developed arms ready for the season. There are all kinds of flaws in this system.

We will keep doing this the right way. It costs us wins and it's not fun sometimes, but I have a permanent reminder of what happens when you don't.

[MLB @MLB]

Every infielder touched the ball 😅

This is the first 5-6-4-3 double play since 1995!

(h/t @EliasSports, @SlangsOnSports)

[KSHSAA @KSHSAA]

2026 Boys Coach of the Year:

Adam Olerich, Olathe North

Fun fact: North alum led Eagles to first state championship in program history, avenging regular-season losses in state semifinals and championship game.

[Rockhurst HS Athletics @GoHawklets]

DISTRICT COACH OF THE YEAR 🏀

Coach Billy Thomas is District Coach of the Year for the 3rd straight season! He led @HawkletHoops to the best start in program history (21-0), 2nd most wins ever (28), & first State trophy since 2013. Record of 72-15 over last 3 years. Rock State!

[NJCAA Basketball @NJCAABasketball]

🔥 SWIC's strong second half gives them a four-point win over Grayson and will advance in the 2026 @MyCreditUnion1 #NJCAABasketball DI Women's championship, presented by @Zurich.

https://t.co/LyNyUsJcfx

[NJCAA Basketball @NJCAABasketball]

The @jerseymikes Sub Above Player of the Game is Holly Woods of @SWICWBB.

Woods scored 28 points on seven three pointers for the Blue Storm in the first round of the 2026 @MyCreditUnion1 #NJCAABasketball DI Women's Championship, presented by @Zurich.

[Liz Monahan @CoachLizMon]

@CoachAllen1965 @BishopMiegeHS You are definitely leaving a legacy within this basketball community. Thank you for all the conversations and advice over the years. Now go enjoy the grandkids!!!

[William Payne @TweetsbyCoachP]

Seeing all the Ben McCollum posts makes me smile! However, those of us in the small college world have been telling you all for years he’s one of the best coaches in the entire sport.

[Chris Hassel @Hassel_Chris]

I really didn’t think it was possible to love this genius any more than I already do but damn it I’m over the moon now