@RJM posted:Let’s have some peace. Stop threatening people’s lives with McDonald’s food. Can’t we all just get along! 😁
Yeah, I agree. You really can’t compare a situation in the rural south to what goes on in San Diego. Personally I don’t begrudge any coach/instructor for charging a fair fee. The more important issue to me is whether or not I was getting my money’s worth. My sons hitting coach is the AA hitting instructor for the Cubs. He was a college All-American, won an Olympic medal, and played 5 years in the big leagues. He isn’t cheap but he fantastic and is worth every penny. I never tried to teach my son to hit as my expertise is pitching. I think hardly anyone can be an expert at both. It’s one or the other. Once a kid is past 12 years old I would run away from any instructor that is trying to pass himself off as a hitting AND pitching coach. But I’m in a big metro area and there are a lot of options here. Only a few of them are really good options and it’s taken a lot of years to get to those. I work with a partner and instruct local HS & college pitchers. In normal times we usually have a group of 12 to 15 from half a dozen various schools. We decided years ago not to charge $ for our instruction. We view it as our form of community service. We both pitched in college and neither of us ever got good pitching instruction. We are self taught. So we do for others what wasn’t done for us. Having no fee involved gives us the freedom to be completely honest with players and parents and it eliminates any hint of conflict of interest. But this is our passion not our vocation - and that matters a lot. Almost all HS baseball coaches are underpaid. If they want/need to supplement their income by giving lessons I’m fine with that -as long as they are giving good instruction.