So I receive all sorts of mail from other sports and I love reading articles about coaching and specifically, youth coaching. There was an article about how to approach your child’s coach about more playing time for your son or daughter. It seemed to be a reasonable article to me. I did think that teaching people how to be polite when calling a coach, or telling them not to call the coach out in front of others was appropriate on one hand but depressing on another. Depressing because these are common sense courtesies that one should know.
Anyway the article did not catch my eye as much as the flood of parent responses. Basically the parents believe that 95% of coaches do not know what they are doing. The comments went on to explain why their respective teams were not winning.
The responses were way off base. This article was about youth sports, and specifically kids ages 8-15. A good coach knows winning in youth sports is not the main goal and learning the process is. A parent talked about a kid who struck out 7 of 11 times and started over another kids who pinch hit and was 1 for 2. There is an old saying in sports coaching-a good athlete has to prove they cannot play and a not so gifted athlete has to prove they can. Maybe the coach is sticking with the strikeout king for a reason? Great hitters strike out often!
Parents can be unreasonable. My son played football for guys that really did not know too much about skills. However, he had fun and I coached him up on steps and technique. He was often benched and I probably would have benched him too, but he also got into many games and was respectable. Point is, you learn not so much from winning, but learning how to compete. Putting a kid into the starting lineup because a parents wants them there is teaching a bad lesson to a child. Kids, parents–suck it up!
Think your coach is bad? Try working for a few bosses I have had! Might as well learn the lessons of life earlier rather than later!