Here is my 2 cents:
This is a reflection of one of the many things that has gone wrong in our country. Our youth can no longer be told what to do, when to do it, and that they are wrong. We actually expect coaches to more of a psychologist than a coach. We, as coaches, have to pay special attention to our kid's fragile psychological makeup, and to top that off, we have to be sure that "certian" players play. This provides a false sense of reality for the real world.
My son, a junior, recently left for another school because of this type of stuff. Several of the kids who play at his prvious school also play for a travel team I coach. At a recent game, as I was calling the pitches for my pitcher, the father of our catcher started telling his son not to call curves and changeups if I called them. He was yelling it loud so everyone could hear him - including our other players. Thankfully, his son did not listen to him. Afterward, we had a parent meeting to address this kind of stuff (we are having another one tomorrow night)and many of the parents indicated that because they pay for their son to play on this team they have a right to be involved with the decisions on the team.
As soon as I read this article I emailed it my son's current HS coach to encourage him to never give in to this kind of stuff. I may be in the minority, but I really don't care if the coach is wrong from time to time and acts like it is my son's fault. I want my son to learn to be tuff, and how deal with adversity. Heck, I am wrong from time to time, and don't want my parenting privledges to be stripped. Most coaches I know really do care about their kids. They are not perfect, and they will make mistakes. However, we have an epidemic on our hands with kids not being able to handle authority. Talk to just about any public school teacher about the authority they've been stripped of in the classroom. Most of it, sad to say, is due to "well meaning parents." If your kid cannot handle someone criticizing them, yelling at them, or telling them when they are wrong, then they are in for a rude awakening in the real world. We simply must teach our kids that they cannot run to mommy and daddy everytime for help. Of course, I would not want my kid to have to endure constant critique, but I doubt this is what this coach was doing.