How to tell a high school coach that she can't overuse my pitcher

[The Man In Blue]

I don’t think there’s any way around it - she needs to pitch perfect games. lol

And the offense better put up 15 runs in two-to-three innings so you can run-rule and get the heck out of there.

 

[The Man In Blue]

Good post!
Pardon off topic a little but perhaps still relevant.
It occurs to me that while it makes sense to not overuse pitchers. I do wonder if these restrictions are implemented so that the teams that have Ace pitchers cannot overwhelm the rest of the league??
(That may be the underlying reason to implement pitch restrictions??)

Back when I ran the local rec league, that was precisely why we implemented a pitch limit (two innings per game). A coach couldn't bring in a ringer AND it forced them to give others an opportunity / develop pitchers.

Like I said though, rec. No real worry of overuse on a player. We were just trying to balance the playing field and create opportunity. I can't see a competitive organization (even a scholastic one) being concerned with parity.

 

[CoachJD]

I am also not interested in my DD throwing BP for the team on a daily basis, if it works with her established volume, great. If not, sorry.

I have never had pitchers throw BP to the team and it remains wild to me that coaches actually do this.

An intrasquad scrimmage or something, sure, but BP? That's what coaches are for.

 

[The Man In Blue]

I have never had pitchers throw BP to the team and it remains wild to me that coaches actually do this.

An intrasquad scrimmage or something, sure, but BP? That's what coaches are for.

WRONG! Coaches are there to keep the buckets from floating away and to call out the projected Daily Pick 3 winning lottery numbers. Oh, and to supervise the umpires.

 

[pdqkevin]

So DD's high school team has a new coach. The program has only two pitchers, and coach is planning to use DD as the sole varsity pitcher and the other girl as the sole JV pitcher. She's also planning a schedule where they'd play 3-4 games per week for the season, including tournaments where she'd play more than one game per day.

Coach has told DD that she needs to be prepared to pitch 100% of the team's innings this spring. DD has told Coach she's not comfortable with that load, and Coach says she needs to get comfortable with it. This week she told Coach that her shoulder was unusually sore (after throwing 100-150 pitches M-F in practice, and then pitching in games both days this weekend with her travel team), and Coach not only refused to give her a day off but told her that she wants her to throw an additional 100 pitches per day so she can learn to work through the pain.

So now it's time for me and my husband to speak up, but what do we say? I don't want to make it seem like DD is a diva but I'm also not willing to let DD suffer an injury because Coach won't listen to her. DD is also scared to refuse to do what Coach tells her because softball is a PE class and DD doesn't want Coach to fail her, which would require her to take another semester of PE later on.

We have a meeting next week. DD's PC says we need to be prepared to pull her from the team, though that's a little complicated because DD is also signed up for the class so she might be stuck for the semester. (Also DD is friends with her softball teammates and doesn't want to let them down.)

So how is the best way to communicate to Coach that we are not going to let her wreck DD's summer by driving her to injury in the spring? Do we need to involve the AD, or only talk to him if the conversation with Coach goes badly?

As a coach with a school PE class as part of the practice time I can say every single kid who ever participated received an A including pitchers who missed time due to injury even imagined injuries. That is part of the deal where the kids devote so much more time to the program they can at least rest assured the grade will be an A.

 

[Cannonball]

Here is how I believe a pitcher should throw BP. They do their work in the bullpen. They have a limited number of hitters to throw to in BP. For example, they face 3 or 4 hitters and are done. During this time, I would have pitchers focus on key pitches or pitches that they were working on. If a team has 3 or 4 pitchers in a program, varsity starters should have a chance at an at-bat against live pitching while all of these pitchers throw to hitters to finish their work.

 

[Lightning]

A small update: my husband and I talked to Coach, and Coach assured us that she would never use DD for every single inning of every game, that she was working on getting another pitcher, and basically telling us what she knew we wanted to hear.

Since then, she's just been showing herself as a manipulator - when one of the team captains brought up her concerns that too many girls still don't understand how to play (they don't understand cutoffs, or dropped third strikes, or force plays, or even that you can't overrun second base), Coach tearfully addressed the team about how it's been brought to her attention that she's not doing her job and failing them, and then canceled practice for the rest of the week.

She's also been particularly snappish to DD (including telling her to shut up when DD answered a question the coach asked) so when DD asked what was wrong, Coach told her that she had no problem with her, that she was just imagining things. The next day Coach complained to the team captain that DD is not showing enough dedication to softball because she doesn't stay late after practice to do extra work. The captain reminded Coach that DD has softball-related lessons or training or both almost every day but Coach said that's not enough because DD is putting in the work with others but not her, and she told the captain that if she was going to lead the team she needed to talk DD into staying after practice.

I'm starting to believe this lady is ill-suited to work with children, or people in general, and I miss the old coach (who was fired for cause, but at least seemed mentally stable).

 

[Rolling Hard]

A small update: my husband and I talked to Coach, and Coach assured us that she would never use DD for every single inning of every game, that she was working on getting another pitcher, and basically telling us what she knew we wanted to hear.

Since then, she's just been showing herself as a manipulator - when one of the team captains brought up her concerns that too many girls still don't understand how to play (they don't understand cutoffs, or dropped third strikes, or force plays, or even that you can't overrun second base), Coach tearfully addressed the team about how it's been brought to her attention that she's not doing her job and failing them, and then canceled practice for the rest of the week.

She's also been particularly snappish to DD (including telling her to shut up when DD answered a question the coach asked) so when DD asked what was wrong, Coach told her that she had no problem with her, that she was just imagining things. The next day Coach complained to the team captain that DD is not showing enough dedication to softball because she doesn't stay late after practice to do extra work. The captain reminded Coach that DD has softball-related lessons or training or both almost every day but Coach said that's not enough because DD is putting in the work with others but not her, and she told the captain that if she was going to lead the team she needed to talk DD into staying after practice.

I'm starting to believe this lady is ill-suited to work with children, or people in general, and I miss the old coach (who was fired for cause, but at least seemed mentally stable).

What a piece of work. This type of person most likely will not change her tune even if the AD had a talk with her. Manipulator is a nice way to say it. I would use your leverage as the only real pitcher on the team and request a meeting with the AD today.

 

[Cannonball]

A small update: my husband and I talked to Coach, and Coach assured us that she would never use DD for every single inning of every game, that she was working on getting another pitcher, and basically telling us what she knew we wanted to hear.

Since then, she's just been showing herself as a manipulator - when one of the team captains brought up her concerns that too many girls still don't understand how to play (they don't understand cutoffs, or dropped third strikes, or force plays, or even that you can't overrun second base), Coach tearfully addressed the team about how it's been brought to her attention that she's not doing her job and failing them, and then canceled practice for the rest of the week.

She's also been particularly snappish to DD (including telling her to shut up when DD answered a question the coach asked) so when DD asked what was wrong, Coach told her that she had no problem with her, that she was just imagining things. The next day Coach complained to the team captain that DD is not showing enough dedication to softball because she doesn't stay late after practice to do extra work. The captain reminded Coach that DD has softball-related lessons or training or both almost every day but Coach said that's not enough because DD is putting in the work with others but not her, and she told the captain that if she was going to lead the team she needed to talk DD into staying after practice.

I'm starting to believe this lady is ill-suited to work with children, or people in general, and I miss the old coach (who was fired for cause, but at least seemed mentally stable).

First, this HC does not appear to be ready/mature enough to be a HC. Not everyone can just become a HC. I noticed that your DD is not "giving enough time to the team" and yet, the HC canceled practice for a week because she was upset. That said, I also would like to know how you know the conversation that the HC had with the team, "Captain." Second-hand and third-hand accounts of conversations are often not reliable. IMO, it does not look good for this team captain to go running to you and your dd with conversations she had with the HC if that is what is happening. The "drama" will tear this team apart.

To stay consistent with what I post every time a parent has a problem with a HS HC, if you don't like what is going on, you are the parent. Take your dd off of the team.

 

[Dabears17]

I was looking at different California CIF Sections websites to see when practices could start for softball. San Diego Section is Feb 11th and Central Coast Section is usually the last Monday in January. I couldn’t find a start date for practices for the Southern or Northern Sections.

As I said In an earlier post on this thread, Southern Section seems to allow teams to practice more than other sections, but I am surprised to hear there is an expectation for players to stay after practice for extra work for October practices when first contents aren’t to mid-February.