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- Dec 13, 2019
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Do Players Accept Criticism?
- Thread starter CoachDanBlewett
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Mom is 5'0 but dad was 6' something. She could have eventually grew into that bat, but it would have been another 4 years. I think she peaked out at 5'5". Considering the tallest and biggest girl on the team was swinging a 32". Most other girls on that team were using 31" bats and they were bigger and stronger that this particular player. What she DID have that they other players did not have was SPEED! One of the fastest kids I ever coached.How tall was the parent
This has to be so difficult for the parents.
Over the past year, I have started pushing my better players (all ages) toward travel teams. It's incredibly difficult to explain to them why their travel coach is actually really wrong about something without also undermining the coach/making the players wonder why I wanted them to try out for that particular team if the coach doesn't know what he's doing (they DO know what they're doing, somewhat, and the experience playing against other good teams will still benefit them even if I have to stop them from doing wrist flicks during their throwing warm up).
Camra guy asked DD to look different in her batting stance, apparently she Did not look like a softball player.
- Jun 1, 2015
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Absolutely - my apologies for not responding sooner. I did a thorough cleaning of my computer a while back and just haven't logged into the site for a while.
In one game, I had a girl catch for me who had only fooled around with catching during practice because my main 2 catchers were absent. She did a decent job (6th grader going into 7th next year) - not lighting the world on fire, but could stop most pitches if she had to. Dad took it upon himself (this was an away game) to stand right to her side behind the fence and berate her every single pitch for something wrong, even if she did everything right. I could see through the mask it was bothering her to the point she was nearly in tears. I don't think, in her case, she was intentionally doing something wrong to spite her dad. We just hadn't had enough time to work together to fix the small errors she was making, and dad was acting like she should be a D1 catcher at 12 years old. Dad also had it out for me because I have 15 girls on my team and she was one of the 3-4 who usually split time between starting and sitting (and coming off the bench), so he was POd about her playing time (even though the girl wasn't at all - she knew her role and was happy with it). That was the first instance I had to talk to a girl and calmly remind her, "Hey, I know he's trying to help, but we both know it's not. Just try to block him out and if you need to do something differently, I'LL help you with that. He's not coaching you, I am." I'm protective over my program but not a dictator - I accept any and all criticism but I'm not going to have a know-nothing parent on my sidelines trying to undo what work I have done with an athlete.
In another example, a girl on my team had one of the weaker bats all season (and her playing time varied because of it). Just not a lot of effort put into things and mom was the definition of the negative-cheerleader mom (she'd talk trash about all the other girls on the team, in front of their parents who she may/may not have known they were the parents of, etc.) So we had one game where we were down considerably and I talked to her before her at-bat (she walked in her first AB). I asked her, "You know you've got a decent swing and you can make contact if you time things just a little better. What seems to be getting to you?" She (who barely said 10 words all season to me because she's just shy in general) said, "My mom. I hate her yelling from the side and I hate her trying to fix every little thing. You're the coach, not her, but she don't care." So I basically repeated the same conversation as above with her - it also didn't help her mom was bribing her (like $5/single, $10/double, etc, so the added pressure didn't help.) Unfortunately, I don't believe she will be back with me next year.
I haven't seen any direct remarks where a player has refused to do something I've coached her on because she acknowledges what a parent says/does - in some cases, I can see it in their body language/behavior during a game/practice. If they are more standoffish toward me (who is trying to help) and more clingy to a parent (who may have some negative opinion of me but not know a drop about coaching). I won't, nor would I try to, break a parent/child bond. However, if that parent was interested in enough in investing their alleged knowledge in softball, they would've asked to be an assistant. And I run my program entirely by myself.
- Jun 1, 2015
- 501
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Clarifying what I wrote above: It's not so much the players aren't doing something because the parents said not to listen to me. It's more the parents are being so belligerent toward the kids that the kids are choosing to ignore the parents and do the opposite of what the parents say. Which, in turn, riles up the parents, who usually get mad I'm not punishing the kids for ignoring THEM, etc. I'm no perfect coach by any stretch (this team went 0-13 this season), and I'm learning right along with them - however, I'm also not going to teach my girls to do something incorrectly after doing research on things to ensure they do it right. If the parents are yelling at their kids/my athletes to do something wrong, I would tell them bluntly they are being told incorrect, WHY it's incorrect, and why what we are doing (coach/player teaching) IS correct. I've never DIRECTLY (as I said before) heard a parent say to an athlete, "Coach told you to do X. He doesn't know what he's talking about. I'm saying to do Y", and then saw the player do Y. If that happened, it would be a direct conversation with the parent about it.
I have a player/parent code of conduct all players/parents sign at the start of a season which openly says parents are welcome to practices/games but are encouraged to be FANS on the sidelines and not coaches, and that IF they would like to help coach at a practice, to feel free to contact me and I would discuss it.
I have a player/parent code of conduct all players/parents sign at the start of a season which openly says parents are welcome to practices/games but are encouraged to be FANS on the sidelines and not coaches, and that IF they would like to help coach at a practice, to feel free to contact me and I would discuss it.
0-13. That will cause the parents to feel they need to help the coach. LOL. I don't know if this is a school team or travel ball team but no team should be 0-13. And also any team with 15 players should have at least 1 or 2 ACs. I mean there has to be a couple of parents out of the 15 kids that can hit GBs or throw front toss. Cant imagine running a effective practice with 1 coach.
If I have more than 7 or 8 players I feel like I can't run an effective practice by myself unless it's a team of older/more experienced girls who can break off into stations on their own. I can't even imagine doing it with 15.
- Jul 14, 2018
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DD just started her first year of 16U and I’m amazed that there are still parents chirping at their kids at this age. Simply put, a 15-year-old who has been playing and practicing year-round since they were eight has exponentially more experience than most any parent.
I know lots of dads who played varsity baseball, and even a few who played in college. But there’s no way they played 85+ games annually and trained 12 months a year (in one sport) back in 1992. I didn’t know a single kid growing up who got on a plane to find better competition.
Too many parents have trouble accepting that their kids are already more advanced than they ever were.
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