playing time

you seem to miss the point here...our league is run by the recreation dept., not by the school...they pay $60.00 to sign up...that guarantees they'll play, period...they get no t-shirts, no nothing....uniforms are provided by the high school, basically......the whole purpose of our league is to teach them the game, period...how to put on hip pads, how get in a stance, how to block, tackle, etc...its a developmental league...we spend most of our time on just that....they tried various ways of getting all the kids as much playing time as possible...all caused trouble...so the decided to just dedicate a whole quarter to playing the kids that dont start...starters are determined the old fasioned way, by the coaches, on merit....the top 12 play the first quarter...then they sit, and the rest play in the 2nd...the 3d you go back to your starters, but can substitute freely at will, which we do, to give the starters a blow, or to use different players at different positions....our job is to stress fundementals, give the kids as much exposure to football, and all that goes with it as we can, and try and keep it as simple as possible, and as fun as possible....which is fine...we re not a "farm" team for the nfl, or anything.....and, trust me when i say ,,the player, the coaches, and the parents ALL want to win...belive me!!!! we try to teach them the RIGHT way to play, if they do that, they will be successful...we want them to learn the game, and put them in situations that they will be successful..we give them as much reinforcement as possible, or yelled at when necessary, same as every other coach...we stress teamwork, and sportsmanship, and hard work in practice...our first speech is "if you want to be the best, you have to work the hardest"....but, its not a win at all cost, im only playing my best players the whole game, no matter what, kind of league...what can i say?...but, now, to answer the question you asked me...we, up to this year, were a 6th/7th grade league...and we usually had between 20-25 kids....this year they added 5th graders, and we had 33 kids (and only 2 coaches)...next year theyre gonna add 2 more teams, to try to keep the squads down to about 22 or so....again, we all want to win, but we all want the kids to play...thats most important