Do not like the coach

Interesting post.
Alot of missing information. Such as why doesn't he like the coach?
Does he like his teammates?
Does he like the university in general?
If he couldn't play ball would he still enjoy being there?
Are there underlying causes for his dislike. Such as sour grapes?
My advice to my son would depend on a lot of those questions and then some more.
However he would be in the 18 -19 year old range and would have to resolve a lot on his own. Of course we'd be there emotionally for the young man.
However my first reaction is for him to change emotionally himself. Find qualities he likes about the coach and work with that. If it was a sour grapes issue..(”Johnny got the spot I wanted”) I would advise strongly on working harder.
After all how many people really love their boss and every coworker. Sometimes we have to reach deep inside and make situations work better.
My son is a senior in High school so I don’t know that situation yet.
All my advice is speculation. However one thing I have learned from the thousands of post son this board is pick the school for the school and baseball second.
I know that that is the hardest thing to do but it is the correct thing.
I don’t know how it will play out for my son but I would use any of the advice here if it were us.
Believe me when I pay that 30 – 40 k for junior to be in a school then in the school is where he’ll be and the heck with anything else.

P.s

Would you identify the reasons and the school?

Sirguy makes some very valid points. Many kids get what I call "itchy" feet when they see they may not be starting but instead will sitting on the bench. They seem to find a myriad of reasons why it isnt working and none of them are the real reason. Not many frosh get to start and have to earn their spurs over a period of time. How long or short the time period will be is usually reltaed to how much talent and how hard the player works-

Many still think they are the stud on the HS team. FOLKS EVERY KID ON THE ROSTER WAS A STUD ON HIS HS TEAM !!!

Transfering out in the middle of the year, if that is what he plans to do, is not the best thing to do either because he will in all probability not find what he wants at this time of the year.

I don't particularly care which school it is in this case but I would would be interested in hearing the reasons, the real reasons.

TRhit

TRhit is right!
A player is not suppose to like or not the coach, the same way he doesn't have to like his teacher. You do your job well and you will be OK. The coach is the coach and he has to likes you, and the coach likes you because if not you were not part of the team.
Coaches, girls, friends, are similar, the first impresion may be wrong and later will be an underful relation. Do your work, fill your roll with entusiasm and I am sure everythingh will be different very soom.
If you transfer in the middle of the season you are going to wastle a whole season, and any where you going they are going to call that coach to know what realy happens.

"Peace is, the respect for the other people's rights".
Benito Juarez

Will...I have a different take than most of the websters that have posted.

College should be fun. A recruited athlete should enjoy his experience.

Doesn't matter what the reason.

Help him get out of the situation that he doesn't enjoy, whether because he doesn't play as much as he believes he should or for some other reason.

As much as it is so hard for so many parents to believe, there are "plenty" of poor coaches at the major college level as there are in high school.

First hand experience at that from my older sons recruiting days and now with this one.

There are plenty of poor coaches every where. There are also plenty of poor teachers, spouses, co-workers, bosses etc. I guess if you can make a move you gotta do what you can. But, sometime you've also gotta deal with.

Heck I can't stand the guy I work for. ooops, I'm self-employed.

I don't think I have enough information to make a decision on which way he should go...

Stay? Or Transfer?

Speaking from a personal situation...(although it was this fall in high school)...it did become a situation that unfortunately my son dealt with...

Now keep in mind he did not play football in a town that lives for Friday nights. I do too...on a different level.

So school starts. Son is in off season. A particular coach who is very unhappy at son's stance and decision attends off season workouts assisting the "actual off season" coach with their workouts.

Now if I told you the extent of the sprints, push ups, bleachers and the distance running program that was put into place...well, you probably wouldn't believe me...

Anyway, keep in mind that school starts in August here...and temp. is over 100...

Son had blisters and burns on his palms from their doing the push ups on hot asphalt...

I don't think my son "cared for this coach" but still, son was to simply say "yes sir and no sir" and to work hard.

Football players rec'd an 100 on report card.
Son rec'd a 90...go figure...there's more to this story..

But even when hubby and I thought of intervening (this is supposed to be high school)...son said let him handle it...

And he did...worked hard..it got cooler ...his blisters healed...but what lesson are we teaching our boys with such...?

(Now, he's in basketball...loves this particular coach..who by the way is so disclipined and works ALL players hard and expects them to give 100%...but he's fair)

I'm with the others. I need more info. Could be the coach is a jerk or not. If he was recruited, was it by the head coach and if so, what changed from then to now?

That said, if he is a freshman, I know of quite a few coaches who are harder on them to see just how committed they are. This is the next level and it is going to be much harder than HS (at least in our neck of the woods). A promising freshman here locally already quit because he had to get up at 6:30 for conditioning and weight training.

Like Beenthere says, it is supposed to be fun, but winning is fun and the coaches need to know who is willing to put in the time to do so.

I could be totally off base, but this could be one senario. Hard to tell without more facts.

Frank

PASSION - "There are many things in life that will catch your eye, but only a few will catch your heart...pursue those."

You do not have to like a coach, but you need to respect him and the program in order to make things work. Unfortunatly, because the recruiting process is much like any other marketing plan, it can be full of fiction. and falsehoods.

This web site often mentions the word "fit" as far as a college selection. I think sometimes people get wrapped up in the "offer" portion and overlook the some of the moral, educational. and personal issues involved when making a very difficult decision. Beentheres point about having fun and enjoying the experience needs to be factored in, and the rest will fall in place.

"Winning is fun."

It's off season, which sometimes is not fun for players, coaches, GF's, moms, etc. Life gets better when the season starts...soon.

Geaux Cajuns!!

I'm with Beenthere. College is supposed to be fun, to a extent,but baseball at that level is a business too.At the same time ,it would be a waste of time to transfer now. At the end of the year the recruit will have honored his comittment(year to year scholarship)and he can start shopping.There are coaches everywhere who are labeled as great coaches, mainly because their team has won, chances are they just had good players.I would stay the year , make sure grades are in check and then if unhappy, transfer.
My kid has transfers on his team from LSU,Texas and so on, so they may have been unhappy where ever they were before.It happens.

This past summer my son attended a camp of a well known, well regarded and very successful D-1 program. The camp is referred to often on this site. the first night a coach from the school gave a talk on what was expected of the players and what they could expect as college players.

He told them that at his school, you/they were there to win. His job depended on winning. He had mouths to feed and that depended on winning. He went on to lecture the kids on other issues and at one point chewed out a kid for having his hat on backwards. During the course of this rather lengthy talk the term or concept of fun was never even alluded to.

Of the many schools my son has been fortunate to have contact with, one coach used the word fun in speaking to him.

I've had chances to speak to coaches, current and former college players and professional players and parents of these players. Getting to the college level and beyond is not much about fun anymore. It's about performing and winning. It's not about having a "fun time".

One coach said to me that college players are really professional athletes that just happen to be playing for a school. Two different schools have specifically told my son that there are certain majors he cannot take as an athlete. I personally think the concept of student-athlete is a farce. You are an athlete first and had best perform or it's see you later.

Back to this camp I referred to, my son got hurt there and was just told to tough it out. Virtually nothing was done to help him. No one cared about him having fun. This was serious business. I know another kid who did his college team's laundry for most of the season because he missed a sign in a game. Others who have run laps around the school for hours for other "transgrssions".

Rather than ramble on, IMO sports (baseball or whatever) are no longer about fun in the cavalier sense once you get to this level and beyond. It is serious business, not to be taken lightly.

As to this topic, if the worst thing going is you don't particularly like the coach, I think you're ahead of the game, 'cause most that I've met don't strike me as caring whether you like them or not once the "honeymoon" of recruiting is over and you are at the school. They are there to win, not make buddies.

There is one coach of a D-1 school who I think breaks this mold. I find him to be very much a player's coach. What has he gotten for it. Fired, following years of ridicule for not winning the CWS, not winning enough and despite having a squeaky clean program, with many guys graduating and/or moving on to professional baseball. but he's too nice a guy and didn't win enough.

College sports is a business and like any business, fun is not a big priority.

Well put by Heybatter. I have a hard time imagining Pat McMahon interviewing for the head job at U. of FLorida 2 years ago proclaiming how much fun the kids would have, ...and still getting the job.

If fun is a priority then perhaps Greek Rush and flag football is the way to go.

I may be naive---but i would say if your goal is to have fun at college, perhaps you should be in the stands. Weather we like it or not, that coach is correct---he gets paid to win and will demand that of his players.

Thanks, lcl...A guiding light from Cali.

Gees...I'm happy I'm not going to college to play baseball in 2004. I'd have no fun when I got there. No fun...maybe that is why kids quit the game and let people from other countries take over our national pastime?

Looked at the records of teams on the RPI list. According to what you guys are saying, with the won/lost thing, they should fire MORE THAN HALF of the D1 coaches.

Beenthere- You are absolutely right. Most kids quit the game when it no longer is fun. As you climb the ladder the game becomes less and less about fun and more and more about performance and winning.

Kids from other countries to which you allude and those from our own urban squalor, etc. are not looking at it as fun. They are immersed in abject poverty and baseball or other sports is an avenue for escape and survival. Over fifty years ago Joe Dimaggio made the comment that no rich kids play in the major leagues because they don't have the "hunger" to get there.

Fun is a relative term in any event. If the fun is the satisfaction of achieving a spot on a college baseball team, of having the opportunity to play baseball at that level, of getting to continue to play a game you love, of being able to represent a college and receive that recognition, of winning, of the relationships you build with your teammates, then you're having a form of fun IMO.

But, if it's a matter of approach, environment, level of pressure, the demands upon you and the expectations, and the fashion in which you must perform, then IMO college sports is not much about fun.

In light of the above, which I've been thinking about for a while now, here's a question for you: What if your son is a bright kid - able to qualify for a good college based on academic performance. You've checked out the financial part, and it's doable - either you've got the money or the academic assistance is OK. You son loves to play baseball, and may have the stuff to play D1 ball - but realistically, he's gonna be a doctor or a business exec, not a MLB player.
What do you do? Should you be diligently following the HSBBW timeline to get him exposure? Do you really want him to be noticed for college, where the sport he loves will likely become basically a job he does to put himself through school? Would he be better off playing through high school and then hanging them up? Or looking for a school with a club team, instead of NCAA? Sure he loves baseball now, but will he love the college experience?
Questions you ask yourself during those long commutes.....

D'oh!

Pdog- excellent points- going through that right now.

My son has good grades, SAT etc. Went to a camp this summer at a D-1 school with a good deal of interest from both sides. My son wanted to attend their Architecture school. We met with the Architecture Dept. they told him in no uncertain terms, no way no how. Same exact experience at another D-1 school.

Spoke to a gentleman I know whose son plays at a prominent D-1 school, a school that was my son's dream school when this journey all started. Was told by this man that his son has changed majors twice to less and less demanding majors in an effort to keep up with baseball.

Would my son like to progress to MLB, of course, does he have a chance

He has narrowed his focus to several D-111 schools that have good baseball programs and have assured him he will be able to really be a student also. We're in the process of doing our homework to see if that's reality. Can it be reality at any college level, is it just a matter from school to school? Don't know and the search goes on.

P-Dog

Some players will sacrifice a lot to be able to play baseball. Mine is one that will have to be dragged off the field.... Some players may not feel as passionate about the game and then some decisions will have to be made.

123kmom- I think you left out one important factor though that may not be present with everyone in facing decisions.... I've seen your son pitch. He has absolutely amazing talent, so that can change the whole decision making process and where your priorites must be set.

by the way, best of luck to him this season. Tell him to go easy on my Trojans

Hey

Why thank you very much! We're hoping for opportunities

I have come to feel the same way that Hey Batter feels about this subject. I am wondering what the parents of college players on this board think: are your kids having fun playing college baseball? I have read time and time again that there is just no comparison between high school baseball and college baseball: but I would guess that many high school players don't believe this until they get there.

I am sure the very top elite players know it already, because they have worked that hard to get where they are (in addition of course to having top talent) But maybe for the majority of kids, college ball is a rude awakening? I'd love to hear from experienced players/parents.

Yes college is a rude awakening. Especially if you are away. If the student is used to mom and dad running interference for them then it is really tough. As far as baseball is concerned it is completely different than high school. You may come to the school with a reputation(deserved or not) but after the first day of practice you are just one of many.Got to win a spot. rosters fluctuate from year to year beause of many variables. Somebody might be recruited and the fact of the matter may be you are riding the pine after playing the year before. You are the starting whatever and a kid transfers in and all of a sudden he has what was your job. Now add to that maintaining grades and trying to fit in and it can be tough.