Changing a Losing Culture

I'm reviving this thread because I'm living it right now. It's been a very frustrating season. A team that should compete with the best in the conference, is on a 9-game losing streak and the final game of the season is Friday. So much of the attitude comes from the parents. You can see it in how the kids carry themselves and what they say. It perfectly parrots the same things I hear in the stands from the parents. According to the parents, the coaches can do nothing right, even though every game is riddled with both physical and mental errors. The players don't accurately convey information from practices and games, so the parents don't truly know what is being said or done, but act as if they have all the information. As a mom to a varsity player and the wife of an assistant coach, it is hard to hear and hold my tongue.

I honestly worry about the kids we are raising. You see so much discussion about how entitled kids are causing all sorts of issues in society, and while I do not disagree, I place the blame squarely at the feet of our generation. We are the ones raising these entitled kids. I see these parents coddling their children, complaining about everything and all the "unfair" treatment. One kid, a sophomore, earned a starting infield position. But, he is being DH'd for and the dad is livid, to the point the kid is probably quitting. Like that is going to teach the coaches a lesson! I'm just sitting here scratching my head. This season hasn't been the best for my kid either. He didn't live up to his own expectations and did not play the role he was anticipating. Our feedback to him was change the things you can change, always work on getting better, be respectful of the coaches, don't feed into the negativity and always embrace the role you have been given. It is about the team at this point.

MIDLO DAD - This is such great advice and exactly how we are trying to raise our son. He is a sophomore and I am hoping he will step up and be the leader this summer. We've talked at length about the type of leader the team needs. The kids in his grade and below look up to him. The upper classmen have too much of a chip on their shoulder to take leadership from a Sophomore. The HS summer team will be young, but that's who we have to start with if we are going to change the culture. He'll work with the kids and I'll try to work with the parents. There has to be a way to turn this around.

Funny.  I wrote this during basketball season watching our varsity team stink up the place.  They averaged like 30 points per game.  But that was coach's philosophy -- low scoring, defensive game.  Fast forward to Senior night -- last home game.  The seniors got a majority of the playing time and went out like they just didn't care what the coach thought anymore.  They didn't see a shot they didn't like and still played some solid defense.  They put up 60 points and won by 15.     

Football team still stinks, with many kids dropping out.  Luckily baseball was leading the conference, until a short loosing streak did them in.  Someone stole their bats.   

Golfman25 posted:

Funny.  I wrote this during basketball season watching our varsity team stink up the place.  They averaged like 30 points per game.  But that was coach's philosophy -- low scoring, defensive game.  Fast forward to Senior night -- last home game.  The seniors got a majority of the playing time and went out like they just didn't care what the coach thought anymore.  They didn't see a shot they didn't like and still played some solid defense.  They put up 60 points and won by 15.   

Football team still stinks, with many kids dropping out.  Luckily baseball was leading the conference, until a short loosing streak did them in.  Someone stole their bats. 

 

It is funny you say that.  The high school I went to has been open for about 20 years in that time we have only had 1 head coach who has compiled a record that includes 4 trips to the state semi-finals, 2 trips to the state championship and 1 state title, yet everyone pretty much hates the coach and thinks he is basically a failure.  The school was opened after the district closed two smaller rural schools, he was the head coach at one of the old schools prior to the opening of the new school.  At the old school he routinely had them ranked in the top 5 or so in the state at the end of the regular season yet never brought any hardware home.  The other school had one 3 or 4 straight state titles within a few years of the school closing, all of this is to say basketball talent (at least HS talent) is fairly prevalent in the area. 

The one state title that was won was during my junior year.  During my sophomore year in the quarter finals we managed to blow a 20 point lead in the 4th quarter because of the coaches run out the clock philosophy (he has also been known to pull players out of the game for dunking).  The players who were returning got together and formulated what they referred to (and still do) as the F*** _______  (blanks representing the coaches last name) rule.  They basically went out and ignored everything he said.  The result was a team that lost one game (to a school nearly twice our size) and steamrolled their way through the state championship game (it wasn't even close).  Every player on that team went to college on either a football or basketball scholarship.

Flash forward to this year and the team found itself back in the state championship game for the first time since they won it.  Facing a team with a guy who averaged 30+ PPG (and signed with Tulsa I believe) in the 3rd quarter the coach decides he is gonna try and play a half court game (which was directly opposite to what worked in the first half) and he has not gonna run the offense through the best player on the team who had been matching the guy from the other team shot for shot up until that point, in fact he barely touched the ball in the 3rd quarter.  This wonderful game plan of course resulted in a loss.

My son is in this situation now.   I see talent but I just don't see the school caring about baseball.  It's all about football.

My son is in football as a freshman because he was told he could play both sports, he's not a football player it's just something to do in the fall.   He wasn't told that during baseball season he wouldn't be transferred to baseball class.  So during baseball season he goes to football class to check in and listen to the football coach talk about the day, who's also the AD.   By the time he gets to baseball class he's missed stretching and sometimes warmup's.

Oh also 1 day a week he has to practice fball,  so as he's watching baseball class practice baseball during baseball season, he's on the fball field practicing off season football.  It's absolutely frustrating.  He wants to continue to play football for the weight program but i can see how frustrating it is to be baseball season and you are practicing football.

That's our school.  All of our "varsity" teams are at best JV level, with no seniors in baseball and softball having 7 freshman starters on varsity.  

We have one coach who is successful and that is the tennis coach.  He started the season with 3 players signed up and had a mandatory meeting with parents to explain his expectations of the season, players, and parents.  After other sports ended he got a total of 8 players.  Every practice was started in the classroom, going over the skills they're going to learn that day and why, with some Q&A.  This usually took 30 minutes, sometimes 15, sometimes an hour.  Practice was not only mandatory but Saturday practice was mandatory as well.  He expected a lot of dedication from his athletes and yes, they complained to their friends and teachers, but they were always there at practice every single day and they practiced like they just absolutely love the sport.  Some athletes who had heard about the way he coaches were initially put off about joining but halfway through the season they expressed regret over not joining the team before it was too late.  The students subconsciously need and love that kind of structure.  Obviously they're not getting it at home and I don't believe it takes a special coach to make kids feel accountable for their work habits.  He's a very easy going, pudgy guy, not some masculine, obvious "leader" with a death stare.

One key thing is because this was a new, last minute program, he basically scheduled all competitions.  While other sports were  forced to play league powerhouses (D7 teams with kids throwing 80-85 with their dads as head coaches), he did his homework to get competitive matches for his athletes.  Our athletes are well coached enough skill-wise for all teams to have winning records if we were playing JV.  And that's the thing, we only have 1 coach per sport and we are not true head coaches like the tennis coach.  We can teach all of the skills but we don't have that kind of command over our athletes.  We don't know how to deal with kids who slap their mothers in the front office, kids who say to their coach "If you don't find me socks today (he forgot them at home) you don't have a team (only 8 players) so you better go and find me some socks."  

Can that tennis coach build champions?  Probably not without doing even more work and making sure he's got a good feeder program.  We need 8th grade, freshman and JV tennis programs and that's just the minimum.  But try making that kind of effort or more on the equivalent of $7.15/hr.  We had one coach hold only 8 practices over 3 months because he wanted to make his promised $30/hr.  

The only silver lining this year was that even without pitching, whenever we faced teams who started their 2nd string pitcher, we lit them up for 4-7 runs.  After 2 innings the score would be 10-10 or 10-5 in our favor, but then they'd get scared and brought in their ace and we'd go hitless for the next 2-3 innings while they kept scoring on us until the mercy rule came into effect.  Never did any team pitch their 2nd/3rd string pitchers the entire game against us, even if it meant their ace possibly not being available for their next game against higher rated teams.  

According to the parents, the coaches can do nothing right, even though every game is riddled with both physical and mental errors.

It is the coaches fault the kid missed a sign or made a bonehead play or made an error or struck out looking with the bases loaded. Of course. Now if the coach benches the kid for poor play that will be the coaches fault.

Will posted:

According to the parents, the coaches can do nothing right, even though every game is riddled with both physical and mental errors.

It is the coaches fault the kid missed a sign or made a bonehead play or made an error or struck out looking with the bases loaded. Of course. Now if the coach benches the kid for poor play that will be the coaches fault.

That was basically our season in a nutshell. How do you win games when you routinely make 3-10 errors per game? Sometimes, we would have 3 errors in an inning. Our 2015 all-league SS had a really down year. Honestly, he probably had the worst fielding percentage in the conference for SS this year. I know he can play and play well. But, he makes a lot of silly mistakes. Yet, his dad will complain about every other kid on the field or the coach's pitch call or base running call, but never utters a word about his own kid. It's rather fascinating to listen to if you can stomach it.

And, don't the coaches dare remove a senior starter and make him earn his spot back. That means the coach hates the kid and has no faith in him at all.  He is ruining his self esteem. Even though the kid actually stepped up and did earn the spot back by making the requested changes. And, if the coaches don't say 'Good Job Johnny' after every routine play, then they must hate the player. They aren't giving any positive feedback so they must want them to fail. I could go on and on. I heard it all this year. But, none of the complaining was actually about how the boys played, unless it was a parent complaining about how another kid shouldn't be in the field over their own kid because they aren't as good.

There is soooo much more to having a CULTURE of winning than just the number of wins.  It is the attitude of players, adm., other coaches, parents, etc.  I seem to have made a career out of this so I can speak first hand.

I am currently trying to change the culture at my biggest challenge yet.  Three years ago a took over a rural, extremely poor school district baseball job.  The school did not have a baseball program for the last 12 years and the school had not played more than 2 consecutive seasons over the last 25 years.  The student population of about 130 is 95% economically disadvantaged and 70% minority.  It is just not the kind of place that plays baseball.  The first year we won 3 games and finished the season on a forfeit because we did not have 9 guys left on the team. This year we ended the season with a winning record and more players than we had uni's.  We had a larger student section at our game than the opponents had total fans.  We had people showing up cooking and tailgating before games.  It really was amazing to see the turn around this year, but...... the culture of winning is still not here completely. I have a feeling it will be a battle every year to keep what we have going. 

With that said, the 'culture' of winning is still elusive as a school.  We win A LOT in all sports,  but getting what I call a winning culture is hard.  I have worked with my players about being responsible, quality, young men.  That applies to their work ethic off and on the field.  It means taking care of class work on your own. Taking pride in what you are doing, being a man of your word, etc.  Parents struggled with the fact that I expected more out of their sons than most of them did.  Adm. and coaches struggles with the fact that now kids wanted to be a part of baseball more than some of the other sports and activities that had ruled in the past, and they struggled with sharing kids. The easiest part is changing the players attitudes.

Now to answer the OP..... What can the parents do?  Be supportive of what the coach is doing.  Not what you think he should be doing, what you would do, etc.  Always be positive about the program, and when you see that something needs to be done jump in and volunteer like run the PA or scoreboard or help with field maintenance.  It can be done, but it takes work and cooperation on everyone's part.

kandkfunk posted:

Will posted:

According to the parents, the coaches can do nothing right, even though every game is riddled with both physical and mental errors.

It is the coaches fault the kid missed a sign or made a bonehead play or made an error or struck out looking with the bases loaded. Of course. Now if the coach benches the kid for poor play that will be the coaches fault.

That was basically our season in a nutshell. How do you win games when you routinely make 3-10 errors per game? Sometimes, we would have 3 errors in an inning. Our 2015 all-league SS had a really down year. Honestly, he probably had the worst fielding percentage in the conference for SS this year. I know he can play and play well. But, he makes a lot of silly mistakes. Yet, his dad will complain about every other kid on the field or the coach's pitch call or base running call, but never utters a word about his own kid. It's rather fascinating to listen to if you can stomach it.

And, don't the coaches dare remove a senior starter and make him earn his spot back. That means the coach hates the kid and has no faith in him at all.  He is ruining his self esteem. Even though the kid actually stepped up and did earn the spot back by making the requested changes. And, if the coaches don't say 'Good Job Johnny' after every routine play, then they must hate the player. They aren't giving any positive feedback so they must want them to fail. I could go on and on. I heard it all this year. But, none of the complaining was actually about how the boys played, unless it was a parent complaining about how another kid shouldn't be in the field over their own kid because they aren't as good.

Why did you not step in and shut this guy down?  Defend your program and tell those guys to be supportive or leave?

d8 posted:

kandkfunk posted:

Will posted:

According to the parents, the coaches can do nothing right, even though every game is riddled with both physical and mental errors.

It is the coaches fault the kid missed a sign or made a bonehead play or made an error or struck out looking with the bases loaded. Of course. Now if the coach benches the kid for poor play that will be the coaches fault.

That was basically our season in a nutshell. How do you win games when you routinely make 3-10 errors per game? Sometimes, we would have 3 errors in an inning. Our 2015 all-league SS had a really down year. Honestly, he probably had the worst fielding percentage in the conference for SS this year. I know he can play and play well. But, he makes a lot of silly mistakes. Yet, his dad will complain about every other kid on the field or the coach's pitch call or base running call, but never utters a word about his own kid. It's rather fascinating to listen to if you can stomach it.

And, don't the coaches dare remove a senior starter and make him earn his spot back. That means the coach hates the kid and has no faith in him at all.  He is ruining his self esteem. Even though the kid actually stepped up and did earn the spot back by making the requested changes. And, if the coaches don't say 'Good Job Johnny' after every routine play, then they must hate the player. They aren't giving any positive feedback so they must want them to fail. I could go on and on. I heard it all this year. But, none of the complaining was actually about how the boys played, unless it was a parent complaining about how another kid shouldn't be in the field over their own kid because they aren't as good.

Why did you not step in and shut this guy down?  Defend your program and tell those guys to be supportive or leave?

You are absolutely right and I do try to speak up, but when your husband is also a coach, it puts you in a slight bind. I am not one to normally hold my tongue, but a little tact is required as I can sort of be seen as representing the program. Unfortunately, you don't always get taken seriously about sports when you're a woman. It's sort of like spitting into the wind. You get spit blown back in your face enough times and you just stop.

I totally believe that parental buy in and support is imperative. I try hard to do my part. You can see who the parents are that truly are invested, because they are the same parents that show up to do everything. Trying to get other parents to step up, buy-in and participate is part of the challenge. That is where I am going to focus my time from here on out.

And, don't the coaches dare remove a senior starter and make him earn his spot back.

Are there  unwritten rules that if a kid is a senior he makes the team or if he is a starter an underclassmen can not play ahead of him. Ok here is a novel idea. You play the best players. If you are losing you shake things up.  If a coach tries to please everybody he is in trouble. Seeing and reading what goes on today I could never coach today. I would say something to a kid that would offend him and his self esteem and he would tell his parents and I would be in somebody's office the next day. 

Don't use politics or anything else as an excuse to fail.  

The problem is that we live in a society that has made making excuse making an art form. And they use whatever excuse because people listen to them. It is much easier to use an excuse if people are stupid enough to listen. 

I'll tell you what I see.  The new PC teaching is infiltrating HS sports.  It seems some coaches are coaching scared - especially new ones at the younger levels.  When I was a kid, we used to get our arse kicked when we messed up.  Caught looking at strike 3, you're running stairs after the game.  Get blown out & embarrassed - God have mercy at tomorrows practice (if they even waited until tomorrow).  Make a mental mistake - you where a "crap head." 

Now, it's "get it next time little Johnny."  These are growing men, not chicken crap kids anymore.  They are driving, but can't step on second base to get the easy out.  But hey, everyone is happy -- even the opposing team is laughing .     

So fortunate that my 2019 is in a PROGRAM like Coach May described.