Parents

[CoachKevin]

I'm pretty lucky. Had 1 bad parent thus far. The core of the team has been together now for 5 years. The first 2-3 years I always had a set of player rules and a set of parent rules that they had to sign. Most of what I have seen is trying to coach from the stands... of course since we've been together so long now, I just tell the parents to SHHHHH, zip it.... but that doesn't even happen very often anymore.

 

[SoCalDad]

Hey how did you make out on the sale of that team? Can't find the follow up anywhere.

I decided to only lease the team at this time as play has improved. DD has temporarily left the travel team for one final time to play on her rec league all star program. To fill the pitching gap the team added a first year 14U #3 pitcher who will switch to the 14U first year travel squad as the #1 pitcher when DD returns. After getting pounded by a series of Gold teams the 14U coaches agreed to focus on A level friendlies and tournaments. Since then the overall play has improved. Honestly, we were playing teams beyond on our skill level.

 

[mad hornet]

I decided to only lease the team at this time as play has improved. DD has temporarily left the travel team for one final time to play on her rec league all star program. To fill the pitching gap the team added a first year 14U #3 pitcher who will switch to the 14U first year travel squad as the #1 pitcher when DD returns. After getting pounded by a series of Gold teams the 14U coaches agreed to focus on A level friendlies and tournaments. Since then the overall play has improved. Honestly, we were playing teams beyond on our skill level.

When I read that I dragged my wife to the computer and she cracked up! Good luck!

 

[bringtheheatmom]

Thank you!! Thanks to everyone who responded. How much your comments made me feel better.

I can't tell you all the stress, and how much this has consumed us.

This happened end of last year and there isnt a day that goes by that I let it go over and over in my head. I still cannot understand what happened?? I wanted to give up this team because my daughter was asked to move up on the 14's(she is a guest player for them at times) They really wanted her but we left the decision up to her. She wanted to stay with the girls that she has been playing with(with her mom and dad coaching). I wanted to be done coaching due to what these people have put us through. Like everyone stated it is time to move on and let someone else coach her, but our season is now in full bloom and there is no turning back. I gotta hope we have better parents this year!!

I totally agree with the mistakes we made that sluggers mentioned. But we are not perfect, We started this team so that our daughter could get better at a sport she enjoyed playing... We asked the parents to come to us with any complaints or questions. I just wish people would realize the time and money that coaches put into a team to make everyone happy.

Yes both Lefty and my DD play on the same school team and the father(the mannipulator is what I like to call him) goes around talking to every parent he can too still bad mouth us. He's good... he makes everyone feel sorry for him and his daughter so they side with him. I am a big believer in "Against criticism a man can neither protest nor defend himself; he must act in spite of it, and then it will gradually yield to him."by Johann Wolfgang von Goethe, but it is still a struggle everyday.

I try to be coridal with the mother to make things more comfortable for the girls...but I cannot even look at the father, knowing he knew his daughter was one of the kids acting up. We also are friendly as much as possible with the lefty, because I feel you cannot blame a child. The parent should have taught her better.







We will most likely face them in a few tournaments to come, I wish there was a way to avoid them, but there isnt.

In a way, I feel for you. But, you made a bunch of fundamental mistakes. You were asking for trouble.

Mistake #1

You treated the parents like intelligent, rational beings. Treat them like out-patients from a mental institution--it is infinitely more fun.

Mistake #2

You allowed a clique to form.

Mistake #3

You should have carried more players. If you carry more players, then you can sit the ones that are acting out.

Mistake #4

You coached your own DD.

Also, while I'm sure your H was trying to project "intensity" with the profanity and kicking the bucket, he ended up simply looking foolish. Girls don't react well to verbal abuse and random acts of violence.

 

[coach D'E]

Reading bringtheheatmom’s thread brought back some memories. It was like déjà-vu all over again. Parents got to love them. We had a player with the worst work ethic you would ever see, whose parents thought she was the next Finch. If it was not for Mountain Dew, I do not think that see could function. Another “favorite” was a certifiable bi-polar, drunken Mother who wore ill-advised, ill fitting, low rider jeans to tournament games. Her derrière usually resembled the Liberty Bell. Her daughter quit after our youngest player told her to pull her pants up. The father of the Lefthanded pitcher reminds me of a cowardly father who we had a while back. He did not work and sat at his computer all day exchanging e-mails with other parents. He did not know that these parents would copy and send the coaches his emails that bemoaned the team members (11 year olds) and the coaching staff. He had his daughter quit the team without explanation. She joined a team that was near by. His problem arose when he started telling the new teams parents about our team. What he did not know was that 1 parent was the father of my son’s college roommate and another parent was like a cousin to me. Needless to say it’s a small world out there in Fastpitch land. Just go and try to have fun and teach the girls not only about softball, but life lessons. Remember, you will never please everyone and there a always kooky, backstabbing, psychopathic, cowardly, intellectually challenged, overly protective parents who will make your life horrible. It just goes with coaching. Just be happy that you are positivly influencing young people.

 

[andyh64000]

I think we all have to take the good with the bad.

I coached a 9/10 all-star team last year where I tried to make things as fair as possible. I spent hours working on the lineup and playing time strategies to try to have the girls play in the field and bat as much as possible considering the bat 9 and sub-in/out rules with 13 players. I thought I got it as right as possible with pretty balanced field innings and at bats with my daughter actually toward the lower end even though she was hitting really well (she was only 9 so I thought that was "fair"). Other teams we played did the 1 inning 1 at bat thing with their subs. I even rotated some of the players who got a full game (only the 2 girls who were obviously better than everyone else played every inning). So after pouring everything into this team for a month (daily practices, bbqs, etc.) right after the game in which we were eliminated when I am gathering the girls to thank them a parent comes up to me and yells at me for what he thought was the most blatant example of favoritism he has ever seen...and his daughter actually had the 3rd or 4th most playing time. I was absolutely stunned. I almost swore off coaching forever at that point (in fact I think I did but am somehow still coaching). Eventually I just chalked it up to a learning experience. This year if I coach All-Stars again I will still try to balance things but will make it very clear to the parents that I am the coach and I alone get to decide playing time and if they don't like it then let me know now so I can remove their daughter from the roster and add one of the girls who didn't make the team.

 

[Jojo]

I was pretty lucky with parents when I was coaching rec leagues, I had some complaints, but I remember this one season I was coaching a fall rec team.

For rec teams, I played everyone in every game. If a player didn't start a game, they started the next game. Then there was that ONE game........
We were in a tournament and our game was running late, we even had a rep come over to our game and tell me if I didn't get my team to my next game I would have to forfeit. I couldn't believe it, it wasn't our fault our game went late.
So quickly we all grab our equipment and hustle to the next field, I hurriedly scratch out the line-up and hand it to the umpire.

1/2 way through the game I call time to put the 3 girls in that hadn't started. The umpire explains I cannot do this because they are not on the roster. I look at the roster and sure enough in my haste, I just wrote down the 9 starters.
I immediately apologized to those girls and their parents. Told them they would play the entire next game.

The parents were waiting for me with arms crossed after the game and said they "Had to have a word with me" They continued to accuse me of purposely leaving their kids off the roster. I told them "Why would I do that, then call time to put them in?" Then PLAY them in the whole next game?

It really made me angry they felt I would do that, after I was so fair the whole season.

 

[jinjet95]

Sluggers.

I don't disagree that it's better to put in one on one time with your DD than it is to coach her, but if parents don't coach, where do the coaches come from? In the Midwest, we do have a few teams that are not coached by parents, but they are few and far between. Where do you find the non-parent coaches? By the way, I don't coach, but my daughter does play on a team with a parent coach. We've never had any issues - I'm just wondering.

 

[mudbug]

Oh boy, the only thing missing from this soap opera is that the coaches arent getting in fist-fights too because someone talked to someone elses player and they think they are trying to steal them.

Most coaches start out as parent-coaches. If they really like it, they keep doing it after DD moves on. After a decade or two, they get fairly good at it.

 

[fastpitch5]

unfortunately, this is a common problem. been there, done that. i would like to see you hang in there and continue to provide good direction and be a positive role model to the kids (and parents) that want your input.