9 times out of 10 I will come down on the side of the coach. I know how parents can be both from a peer angle and from a coach angle. Its a big problem.
But the problem I have with this article is I suspect it doesn't tell us everything we should know. Maybe it does, but I've read plenty of newspaper articles about things I know a lot about and very often they aren't totally accurate.
Currenty at our local HS, there is a coach who is probably going to be fired later this year (not baseball and in no way related to any of my children). This coach did some things she shouldn't have done. No, not abuse. But things I would call somewhat unethical. Why is she going to be fired? Because the parents rose up and called her on it. They called her on what she did all the way to the school board (sound familiar?). She has punched back a little by characterizing the parents as a bunch of jerks.
If this coach ends up going to the newspaper, I pretty much know how it will come out. "I got fired because some angry parents didn't like me because I didn't play or in some cases cut their daughters." And if the author of the newspaper article is sympathetic and doesn't find a parent who will tell all (possibly likely since the issue is ethics)...I think we get something like this article.
No, I'm not saying this author blew the story...he generally writes good stories. But we just don't know...and so when we ALWAYS blame the parents, do we damage the parents who have a good point when they need to get something like this done? Do we handicap them?
Food for thought.