Coaches,
I enjoy the free exchange of ideas in this forum. I would like to share with everyone something that seems common sense, but appears to be lost on some coaches. I'm going to address the screamers out there. Why do you scream? What is the point? What does it accomplish?
Let me back up. I was at a high school game here in MD the other day. I saw a coach crucify a varsity player, in public, for throwing the ball to the wrong base. Team was up 4-1 in the 5th, runner on 2B, single to CF. The CF threw the ball home, whoafully late, allowing the hitter to advance to 2B. After the inning, only 1 run scored, the coach spent the better part of 2 minutes screaming in the kids face outside the dugout. I don't know the coach and don't know the player. I was embarrassed for the school and the baseball program that the coach was representing. I can't imagine this was a common thing for the coach to do, but nonetheless, why did he do it?
Competitive fire, important game, repeat offender in CF...to me it doesn't matter. Sure coaches have a right to correct players for bone-head mistakes, but screaming seems not only out of line, but probably not a very effective teaching technique.
Does anyone feel like screaming is the only way to get the point across sometimes?
I guess I'm kind of sensitive because of something a kid who was playing for me in the summer about 11 years ago said after practice one night. He told me that his life sucked, and that the 3-4 hours per night he got to play baseball was the high spot of his day. I just wonder how bad his days would have been if I had chosen to scream at him when he made mistakes, rather than talk to him to try and get him to not repeat those same mistakes.
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