I coached for a good period of my life when I left college. I was in the developmental side of a small “academy” program that fed travel teams in the southeast. My age groups were 8-11 and it depended on the season and progress of which age I was with.

My personal experience is that color wasn’t a contributing factor in putting teams together at the first and second stages of DL. I had white and black kids who were fast and they each were shuffled around to find their positions where they seemed to be able to use their gifts to their advantage. Some fast kids were better at outside spaces and others were more quick than fast and eventually drifted inside. Fast and forward thinking is also taken into account and both black and white were equal there but a standout thinker is usually going to be placed in the spine to help the others use their gifts. It didn’t matter the color. A fast player who could also see the game evolving in front of them and direct the game with their skills are the gems.

Fast or slow, they all received the same training and the same attention. But to say that athleticism (being fast, for example) didn’t put you in spots to excel would be lying. A relative slower kid wanting to remain relevant is going to need to hone something else to stay on the team whereas a fast kid (generally speaking) relies on being able to win that race. The kid that gets beaten in a foot race is going to have to beat the fast kid at something else to stay in the game. And the fast kid is going to need to develop the vision if he wants to be that next level player. But “being fast” is so valuable in all of sports that if you are the fastest one, that’s going to be the first thing that is listed on your recruitment page. If you’re picking teams, and all the players are creative and well trained, speed is the deciding factor. Most of the time.