My son is not that great at baseball. He plays to play with his friends from school and the neighborhood. His first coach 3 years ago was amazing, the best we could hope for in his first year playing non tball and non coach pitch. The last two years the coaches have absolutely sucked and didn’t even seem like they enjoyed it. Im not criticizing them from the standpoint that they volunteered and I didn’t, but my son doesn’t even want to play anymore because of how bad the experiences were. So yeah, good coaches are amazing.
Dude, I hear you. I coach hockey, and I always have some girls on the team. By the age of 16 they are at a physical disadvantage because of their size and upper body strength. It's just plain true, sorry to all the bleeding hearts. However, it's not really a highly competitive league. I play the girls on a regular line. I spend time with all of the players who struggle with the physical part of the game. There's one girl, she's about 5'1" and about 100 pounds with her equipment on. She was scared to death of skating to the puck if there was a scrum, but she tried. And she was coachable. I don't care if you're the best player in the world, if you're coachable, I want you on my team. This girl got lit up so many times, I saw her fully leave the ice on multiple occasions as she got hit. But she kept doing it. Now she has the nickname "mosquito" because if you have the puck, she's annoying as hell. She skates into your space, gets in front of you regardless of the fact that the other players are 10" taller and 80 pounds heavier. She took private lessons on skating, so she's a very solid skater now. She listened to what I was saying to her 5 years ago, and so did her parents. Now she's playing high school hockey and is playing regular shifts as a forward. She's the most defensive forward they have, which puts her on special teams.
Now, is that all because I'm an awesome coach? No. It's because she was ready to hear that she wasn't good, and here's what she needed to do to be good. It also meant conversations with her parents were productive. "What can we do to help her get better and enjoy this more?" was the question, not "why the hell aren't you playing my daughter?" The girl's attitude and the parents' attitude made the whole situation better. You can be the best coach in the world, but if the parents have blown smoke up their kids ass by telling them how amazing they are, true or not, the kid will be uncoachable. It will be misery for everyone.
Parents need to lighten the fuck up while their children play games.
Sorry for the wall of text. This is something about which I am very passionate. I'm doing coach training locally, I hope it's making a difference. I also address the entire parent population of the kids playing in our league a couple times a year, and that's where I'm really, really, really hoping it's making a difference. If the parents come to the practices and games with the attitude that it needs to be fun, the kids have to like being there, and they are going to be proud of whatever effort their kid makes, life would be so much better for everyone. Don't get me wrong - there are certainly times where I'll tell one of the players I'm coaching they had a crap game. But say it in the correct way. Laugh about mistakes, and let them learn from it by seeing what they did that could be improved. And if one more parent tells me girls have no place in high school hockey, I might break my own rules and throw fists. Anyone who has seen my tiny daughter play hockey would eat their words.
