Bad advice

Fungo - Good topic. It will be interesting to read the responses.

As I look back I can think of many, MANY examples of GREAT advice. Some from members of this message board. Most of the good stuff we were lucky enough to have followed...but not all. Some of that GREAT advice came from all of the types of people you listed above.

We also, obviously, got some not-so-great (ok, "bad") advice. Some of it had to do with which summer team to play for...but a lot of not-so-great advice on some of the colleges that recruited our son. As one example, quite a few people told us that the school our son ultimately attended overused pitchers (mostly related to John Hudgins' marathon performance through the CWS). Much of that advice came from competing schools. It has been quite interesting to me over the first 2 years to see those same schools who asserted the oversuse themselves "overuse" their own pitchers...i.e. bring their Friday starter back for a Sunday closer role after a 100+ pitch appearance on a Friday. That to me is FAR worse than starting on 3-4 days rest in the CWS. At the same time we have found that his school protects their pitchers FAR MORE that he was protected in HS or summer ball. So I'd put this in the category of "bad" advice that was given to us. It has worked out the opposite of how we were told.

Its important for all of us to realize that the source of the advice has an agenda. Heck, when I speak I have an agenda, you have an agenda, everyone has an agenda. We ALL have an agenda. We just need to understand that "advice-giver's" agenda and then pick out the parts that are wise and useful and discard the parts that are in his/her best interests if thats all they are.

Hard to do this? Yes, sometimes. But a little thought, research and contemplation is worth a lot more than an emotional quick decision. Thats my "advice."

One nice thing about living in the tundra is that there are very few self proclaimed experts giving advise. We were very fortunate that we we able to pave our own trail and when we had issues we were able to approach all those involved for their opinions. No one EVER said "you can't do this" "do this".

All the college coaches that were involved basically the same cookie cutter approach. They all hoped that you were draft ready in 3 years because that meant they probably had 3 good years with the player. The advise that was given for the most part was self serving and that was very obvious.

As far as advisors, we fell into a situation where the advisor is on the same wave length as we are and we could not have found a better situation. The advisor situation out of HS however was a meat market and probably the main reason he committed publicly that school was the way he was going to go. They were vultures that preyed on 17 year old kids and ignorant parents who did not know better.

I am in the middle of recruitment and will have a lot to say on this subject in 2007. I believe there are a lot of people out there giving bad advice with no agenda; just mistaken thinking that what worked for their son will work for everyone's son I am probably guilty of this myself. That is why i don't post much on these issues of late. But I will, soon.

TW344

At age 7: Keep your elbow up.

At age 12: You won't learn anymore playing travel ball than you will staying at our league park. (Turned out to be absolutely not true.)

At age 14: You don't need catching instruction. You learn by playing. (Hmmm... You can learn bad habits and bad technique, too. So why not play AND get instruction?)

That's it so far. I'm sure we'll get more bad advice as we go forward through High School!

In our area we had an asst.coach tell player to play on specific showcase team as it was closely affiliated with college player would attend.This "coach" who recruited this kid and steered him to showcase team is no longer coach at this school.He is now employed by showcase team / academy. Kinda smells hinky to me!By the way player will play American Legion ball this summer and cannot wait.

I can honestly say we have never gotten bad advice. Oh yeah, I forgot, guidance counselor told son he didn't have to take an AP class!

There was some advice that we thought given was not appropriate for sons situation, but I wouldn't consider it bad in general.

I guess we have been really lucky.

Who determines what is bad advice and what is good advice?

Believe it or not... My agenda is to try hard to always give good advice. That does not mean that all the advice I give ends up being good. My goal is to never give bad advice, even if it means giving none in certain cases. There are things (advice) that could turn out to be either bad or good.

There is a lot of bad advice out there that is based on an agenda. If I find time, maybe I'll give lots of examples.

quote:

Originally posted by PGStaff:
Believe it or not... My agenda is to try hard to always give good advice...

I believe that...and I thank you for the great advice you gave to us 2 1/2 years ago.

quote:

Who determines what is bad advice and what is good advice?

honest hindsight is the ultimate umpire

Fungo,

As always, an interesting topic.

I would have to say that the vast majority of advice we received - AND took seriously - over the years was pretty good.

I think the trick is to make sure you are listening to people who actually are qualified to give advice. It isnt that hard to do IMO. Just takes a little time.

You need to check the source out real good. If you do that - you will probably be satisfied with most of it IMO.

Son received really good advice (invaluable) from PG and a couple others. Also received bad advice a few times...usually from individuals who were clueless -