Unsafe and Toxic Culture-UH Softball

[erniekru]

They do, but there have been plenty of Duke commits who played for Lamar. And more than one was forced to leave a TB team to go to the LD at the "suggestion" of Young.

I don't have a problem with encouraging your commits to play for a certain organization. I think there's a symbiotic relationship (or could be) for college teams and their preferred club orgs. It makes sense to put your athletes in one spot and get the same exact coaching.. Could be a red flag, but seems like a good way to maximize output.

6 of the 11 OU players on the box score (excl pitchers) for Game 2 of the WCWS are Batbusters Stith. The pipeline to OU is pretty established. It would be silly for other colleges to not follow suit.

 

[LEsoftballdad]

I don't have a problem with encouraging your commits to play for a certain organization. I think there's a symbiotic relationship (or could be) for college teams and their preferred club orgs. It makes sense to put your athletes in one spot and get the same exact coaching.. Could be a red flag, but seems like a good way to maximize output.

6 of the 11 OU players on the box score (excl pitchers) for Game 2 of the WCWS are Batbusters Stith. The pipeline to OU is pretty established. It would be silly for other colleges to not follow suit.

I don't have that problem, either. Where I think it becomes a conflict for the university is when the coach recommends an organization which puts money in her pocket. But, it's been going on for a few years now, so I guess they're okay with it.

 

[Rolling Hard]

Do college coaches except players from some organizations as a favor where the player get little or no money and is basically a cheerleader for 4 years?
Asking for a friend.

 

[The Man In Blue]

Do college coaches except players from some organizations as a favor where the player get little or no money and is basically a cheerleader for 4 years?
Asking for a friend.

In travel ball, those players are called "subsidies."

 

[Westwind]

I have thought many times about writing a post about how poorly the two staffs of my two daughters college teams treated players. One is now retired. She was a NFCA hall of fame coach. Coached almost 40 years. She was also an unbelievably awful human being. It never showed in camps or our contacts with her. Her co-conspirator is now the head coach. Yeah, there are a huge number of head coaches who had relationships with assistants etc. This was the case with these two and they were a two headed monster most of the time. She is quite infamous for walking down the aisle of a bus flipping frozen Hot Pockets to players as nutrition after a loss she didn’t like. She would regularly keep players from having dinner with parents on the road. One ploy was “team meetings” designed to keep players away from parents.

The second group I thought would be a lot better. This is a well known softball program and the talking head tv announcers parrot every stupid thing the coach tells them. The annnouncers LOVE her. “Coach said this. Coach said that.” It’s all nonsense. It’s mostly not true. It ruined watching sports for me because now I truly believe nothing the announcers say is likely true. Again, this was a crew of coaches where the head dated the co-head coach once upon a time. Now the co-head coach dates the director of softball and the head was living with a former player. When the former player moved out, all the parents knew we were in for a hellish year. It’s a mess. It’s a problem. It causes crazy dynamics. Players are aware that the coaching staff sits around and runs down every player on the team.

The things some female former players will say to your daughter on campus will curl your hair. ”We are effing losing because you go to church so much. You are too nice.” How do you like that one? I could go on. When I say wildly inappropriate I mean the kind of swearing and harsh things that if it was video taped it would go viral in minutes. Stuff that they cant say to boot camp recruits any more. You wouldn’t believe it.

And the just bad coaching and poor handling of team dynamics. Player acts up in practice. According to personality tests, this player is described as “red/red”. Yes I don’t know what that means either but apparently it’s a license to act out and not be corrected. As soon as someone starts to tell the player to knock it off, the co-head coach scurries over and says “but she’s red/red”. Okay coach. Let her do whatever she wants. Oh yeah- and “we recruit players families”. Bull. That got progressively worse as the team recruited “highly ranked classes.”

Somebody mentioned coaches should have something nice to say to every player. Is it that hard to be a decent human being?

Absolutely. The problem is that many of these coaches don’t have any life outside of softball. They have NEVER HAD a life outside of softball. They have no responsibilities outside softball. They truly do not know how to act.

I was referring to the HC and AC sleeping with one another in a non-disclosed relationship.

Yeah. Happens everywhere all the time. How does that happen? Because there is no enforcement of personnel policy and procedures. Politics prevent it.

Do college coaches except players from some organizations as a favor where the player get little or no money and is basically a cheerleader for 4 years?
Asking for a friend.

Yes. I believe players are bundled up like a commodity and are sometimes part of a package deal. It sucks for unsuspecting players and parents. I believe tb org heads say things like “yeah, I can get you that player but you gotta take this one too”. The complete lack of impulse control college coaches have seems to prevent them from doing the right thing. They just want that player.

Related to that las line- be damn careful of a college team that takes a bunch from Team A this year, Team B the next year and then Team C the next. Even if there is nothing untoward happening, it’s weird. Are the college coaches too lazy to pick and choose players? And as a coach why would you want a group of players bringing some old team baggage with them?

Last thing that comes to mind- end of year meetings. One year this hc takes all of her rage out on a player and encourages them to transfer. The next year the coach will beg that same player to stay. Very healthy deal.

How this culture goes on and on…. Well it happens in high school and college because it isn’t football. AD’s care about football. And mens basketball. Firing coaches is easy, finding someone better is harder.

I’m glad it’s over. We got two bad draws. That plus what I have heard from other parents causes me to believe this is common. Good luck parents of incoming freshmen. You won’t know about this stuff for awhile. Neither of my kids told me at first. Both lived through it and both graduated from the schools they first enrolled in. I am very proud of both for their resilience. Again, good luck. It isn’t what you think it will be.

 

[clarity]

I have thought many times about writing a post about how poorly the two staffs of my two daughters college teams treated players.

Do you have any wisdom, with the benefit of hindsight, as to how you might have avoided these types of coaches/cultures?

 

[The Man In Blue]

Absolutely. The problem is that many of these coaches don’t have any life outside of softball. They have NEVER HAD a life outside of softball. They have no responsibilities outside softball. They truly do not know how to act.

There is never just ONE cause to problems, but I would say THAT is one of the biggest contributors to the problem. Just as a coach who cannot last more than a season or two somewhere is a red flag, a career coach who has never gone anywhere else is a red flag. Yes, success may earn you that privilege and when you are on top you stay there . . . but living in an isolation chamber is not healthy.

 

[Westwind]

Do you have any wisdom, with the benefit of hindsight, as to how you might have avoided these types of coaches/cultures?

I don’t. Established coaches, long term staffs, and I didn’t see it coming.

I pride myself on spotting problem people. I didn’t have an inkling.

Here is the thing- and I don’t want this to be misconstrued but I think the problem with both staffs is softball seemed to be the only thing they had. No families, parents, they just had recruiting all summer, fall ball, winter practice, spring, repeat. I think that’s the warning sign. Maybe.

Another thing- I think it is kind of wide spread. It’s probably not 100% avoidable. And kids are resilient. They have their team mates. I think it will help a player to know ahead of time that it will be tough but she will be OK. I think it helps to know that it will never be ideal but it will be OK. Coaches will say things that cannot be condoned. It will be ok. I think that if parents know how hard college athletics can be- well maybe they will be more available. Pay more attention. Be prepared to try to say the right thing.

Looking in from the outside, Gasso seems like part of her deal is personal connection to players. There have to be challenges unique to playing at Oklahoma. I only know one kid that played there. Yet I have never heard that she doesn’t treat players fairly.

 

[Westwind]

There is never just ONE cause to problems, but I would say THAT is one of the biggest contributors to the problem. Just as a coach who cannot last more than a season or two somewhere is a red flag, a career coach who has never gone anywhere else is a red flag. Yes, success may earn you that privilege and when you are on top you stay there . . . but living in an isolation chamber is not healthy.

I was typing at the same time. Your point about a coach that never goes anywhere else is really interesting and I had not thought about that!

Both staffs we saw up close fit that bill. I would say also that they seemed to have a weird co-dependence vibe going on.

 

[Westwind]

I don’t care where you go or who you play for. If you play four years of college softball you will not be a sissy in life, lol. You will be able to keep a schedule. You will get up for work and show up on time. You will be able to deal with less than perfect situations. Hopefully you will also be able to identify the suckiness and find something that is better- Not just grass is greener on the other side but truly better.

But as parents, we gotta be there for them while it’s going on. Don’t trust these people to watch out for your kid. In my experience that ain’t gonna happen.