Coaching cursing at players

SF, your son is not alone.  It certainly is not uncommon for kids this age to start running into this type of issue with sports and other aspects of life.  We don't know the level of passion your son has for the game, so maybe it isn't his sport or maybe it is.  The "bigger picture" point is that when he does find his passion, he is willing and prepared to push through the obstacles and stick with it.  I think that's why we tend to take the "learn to deal with it" approach for the most part with our advice.

 

Best wishes and, personally, I hope he does find that his passion is baseball 

We purposely selected a team with a "hard ass" coach for my kid, knowing full well as he gets older, he see more of it.  Up until then it was "good job little Johnny.  Go get your juice box."  He has learned to deal with the harshness of the comments and has become a better player.  Good luck. 

Another angle on the Love of the Game thought and if HS kids should "just suck it up"

 

My son had a curser for a coach and took his fair share.  He looked at me one day and asked, "What is wrong with him?  It is High School Baseball for Christ's sake.  It is not life and death and I am doing this instead of working for money for college and chasing girls.  Why the hell should I keep doing it if it isn't any fun?"

 

Given that some very high percentage of players in HS never play afterward...it was a heck of a question for a 15 year old Sophomore to ask.

 

My answer to him was "You will probably live another 70 - 80 years and find that many people have odd perspectives on the importance of things.  Consider this your first experience with a man that has a cockeyed perspective and has no filter.  I promise you he will not be the last you see.  With that said if you want to quit and start moving on with your life that's OK with me.  Just know you are not just hanging around the house doing nothing."

 

So change the question around.  Is it wise for coaches to alienate talent to satisfy whatever itch he has when players have so many other worthwhile options available? 

 

Since it was just July 4th isn't it extraordinarily and uniquely American not to put up with s@#t and move on to greener pastures if you can?  Why are we telling 17 and 18 year kids to do something unproductive and un-American if they have reasonable alternatives? 

 

luv baseball, nothing wrong with moving on.  If you want to continue to play baseball, this is some of what you are probably going to have to deal with.  If you don't want to continue, that is fine too.  I think most of us are assuming that the OP is looking for advice because his son is going to want to continue playing baseball.  But, if he doesn't and chooses to move on, worse things can happen in life.

A coach should never call out one of his players in front of the fans or opposing team. There is no excuse for it I don't care how many signs he has missed, bad base running mistakes, bad pitches swung at, errors, lack of hustle, etc. Its not a matter of a kid being able to handle it or not. Its not a matter of a kid being tough enough to shake it off. Its a matter of respecting your players and your team. You have a powerful tool as a coach. Its called the line up card. And another powerful tool. Its called the ability to remove a player from the game.

 

When a coach calls a player out in front of the fans and opposing team he hurts the team. He brings a negative vibe to the team. He has not addressed the problem he has simply embarrassed the player. He is trying to let everyone know that he didn't have anything to do with it and that he is upset with the player. The players team mates will not respect the coach more for this. No the complete opposite.

 

Pull the player to the side and say "We have talked about you missing signs and its hurting the team. I am pulling you for the rest of the game until we get this worked out." The team mates see the consequences. The player sees the consequences. They respect the way you handled it. The player respects the way you handled it. He is now focused on fixing it instead of the way you handled it.

 

Coaches who do this type of stuff are more concerned with the way they are looked at for having a player mess up than they are fixing the problem. If your going to preach team and were all in this together and we have to have each others back. Then you call out one of your boys like that in front of the fans and opposing team its not going to cut it. In fact its piss poor coaching. And it shows your a freaking clown. When you send that runner home and he gets hosed by 5 feet do you get called out by the players? If your going to call out your team why not?

 

A coach should have a bigger picture in mind. He should be more concerned with getting it fixed than acting like a child when things don't go the way planned. If a player cant get motivated by being benched to fix the issue there is no fixing it. If you think your fixing it by calling players out like this your clueless. Your creating more issues than missing signs.

 

How many times do you drop the F bomb on kids before it loses its shock value? If your players are missing signs there are two ways to look at it. One the player is not focused and needs to learn to get focused. Two you didn't properly coach him. Now you either fix it by dropping F bombs across the field or you sit him down and get him focused.

As far as how you deal with this OP. You tell your son to get it right. To know the signs and not use this as an excuse to have a bad attitude. You messed up so fix it. Don't give the coach a reason to call you out. If he plays the game he is going to have to deal with this type of stuff from some coaches. If he played for me he wouldn't play until I could trust he can handle the signs. I wont curse him out or call him out I would just sit him out until he got it right. Some kids would rather be cursed at. Good luck

Very true.  Alternative view is all I am looking to add since there is a predisposition on this site to worship the opportunity to play.  Perhaps a step back and a breath can be useful.  Or said a little differently - is it worth it?  Only the people involved or the player can truly answer that.

 

 

Glad you added this coach.  It would be nice to have a coach like you described in your 1st post, but that is unrealistic to think that every coach would be that way.

I agree that if u overuse F bomb it looses it's intent/shock value. If you're a coach who asks a lot "what the hell was that", or "what the hell you doing?" Then uses the f bomb for big problems you ll get a better response from players. 

Use it all the time they tune you out and you end up looking silly and as a person who cannot control their reactions. You can come across as mental IMO.

A further thought.  In life, as in baseball,  you will often run into small men (or women) with big problems.  Sometimes those small men with their big problems have power over you. Though some here may disagree, I think it's really important to recognize when you are faced with a small man with big problems of his own.  That's because it can be tempting to take a small man's dysfunctional ways of handling their big problems as some sort of reflection on you.  It isn't necessarily so.  Some times, though,  you can add fuel to the small man's fire.  A  player is absolutely accountable for knowing the signs. Any coach would be upset by that.  But exactly how  a coach handles a player who either misses or doesn't know a sign, is at least as much and probably more  a reflection on the coach than the player.  

 

Bottom line,  learn the signs, do your thing, play your heart out.  That won't necessarily take you out of the line of fire of the small man with his big problems.   But it should help you avoid adding fuel to his internally stoked fires.    Do the best you can to do the things that any coach -- good or bad -- would hold a player accountable for.  But  beyond that, try not read too much about yourself from the small man's handling of his own big problems -- even if he happens to be your coach.  If you do everything for which you can reasonably be held accountable and he still does his best to make  life absolutely unbearable for you, then you  may have a decision to make. 

Slugger - I agree wholeheartedly.  It usually does not take very long to figure where the hot buttons are if you spend enough time with any person as coaches and players do. 

 

So a player playing a passive/aggressive approach of - Geez I don't know why he's going off - when in fact he is pounding on some hot button for the coach for 2 hours in practice 3 or 4 times a week is being a jerk in his own right.

 

On the flip side if the player does do it right and is reaching the point the whole experience is ultimately so negative it becomes a hassle, burden etc. then that player does have a decision to make on the trade off of playing vs. plowing through the noise. 

Second best post in this topic (the first being the one you posted beforehand.)

 

A dad, of course not.  A Captain or any teammate, of course.  The best teams police themselves.  Leaders rise and control a large portion.  A coach can't handle every issue, every negative thing all season long, at some point the players will stop listening, they will get tired of 'hearing it.'  Having leaders that step up and police the team makes the coaches voice much more powerful.

 

The real issue that I have noticed is teenagers are getting older much quicker in the ways of the world than ever before but less and less know how to lead.  More ships sailing with less Captains than ever before at each of these tournaments that I scout or watch.

What I always find ironic is the mental midget coaches that need to curse every time they speak, are the first to demand respect from parents and players. They won't dare allow them to speak in the same manner back to them.

The real issue that I have noticed is teenagers are getting older much quicker in the ways of the world than ever before but less and less know how to lead.

 

Too many of today's cupcakes are growing up having the parents step in and solve all their problems. Leadership comes from a sense of mental toughness. Too many kids today are mentally weak.

 

I was incensed with something my son's high school coach did to him. My son told me, "Shut up and live with it. I am. It will go away by itself." It did. A lot of parents would have stepped into the situation.

As a player, suck it up and get the job done. A little cursing.Big deal.

sfG son is 15. Coach is +6, so this is a VERY young coach with few years on his resume. Could it also be possible with such a young coach, that he is recently just out of college ball (or never in it, or at the rec level again or ??  and why he's working?) And if so, a generalized dissatisfaction with his "game" has led to his doling out frustrations on those who wouldn't dare challenge authority. It is a given that the current generation is much more prone to sprinkle in profanity as a normal part of discourse. Frustrating for us boomers yes, as we tend to reserve the 7 words for supreme emphasis. FWIW, it appears to be a factor here. But I'm not a PyschD. If Augie Garrido throws out some bombs (that's a funny vid  http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BY0_jeOUB6Q) those Longhorn players listen...intently. Passionate players grind it out no matter how many numskulls, and there are always a few here and there, call the shots. It's part of making him a man, and at the end of the day, another hurdle to the next level.  

I can never be a great coach. I never learned how to head bob like a pidgeon in an umpires face. Without the head bob the in your face emphasis is lacking.

It's not necessarily a frustration issue. People in their early experiences in authority tend to be more rigid and less personable in their leadership styles than those who have more experience. I've seen this (and to a small extent, was an example) with many junior NCOs in the Army. Most of them outgrow it.