When They Play
A coach may call on one or more junior varsity players during a varsity game, especially when a varsity player is injured, is not performing well, or (because of a violation) is disqualified from further competition. If a junior varsity player does well, they will see more playing time in the future or may even get moved up to the varsity level.
A team will have many talented players, but the coach is unable to come up with a rotation that allows everyone to play. The decision of when to play junior varsity players in a one-sided game is often at the coach's discretion. This depends on the coach's strategy, the time remaining in the game, the point margin, and the game situation. The coach of a losing team—especially if the players are not very good or they are inexperienced players—sometimes may continue to play the main players against the winning team's junior varsity players to give the team experience.
When the winning team is ahead by a substantial margin late in the game, the coaches of both the winning and losing teams may "empty their benches". In other words, they remove the varsity players and play the junior varsity players for the remainder of the game. The junior varsity players can impress coaches during this "garbage time" in hopes of gaining more playing time in subsequent games, while at the same time reducing the risk of serious injury by varsity players by resting them in a game whose outcome has been effectively decided.
Read more about this topic: Junior Varsity Team
Famous quotes containing the words when they and/or play:
“Most writers steal a good thing when they can,
And when ‘tis safely got ‘tis worth the winning.
The worst of ‘t is we now and then detect ‘em,
Before they ever dream that we suspect ‘em.”
—Bryan Waller Proctor (1787–1874)
“When I play with my cat, who knows whether she isn’t amusing herself with me more than I with her.”
—Michel de Montaigne (1533–1592)