final hothead post

They blame you and team and then decide to send him to a problem school? Kinda funny.

Its actually - IMO - very very sad.

I once new a kid that had a real temper.
He would throw his glove at the catcher, umpire or just over the backstop.
He would sometimes rip his jersey off and throw it on to the ground and walk off the field.
He was being raised by a single mother and she worked odd hours so the boys was left to himself a lot as a teen. They lived in a poor neighborhood and he found his share of trouble.
He got the chance to play with one of the better summer teams in the Dallas area, his temper was still a problem, but one of his teammates parents decided to help.
They found and payed for a private school for him to attend and help him with his temper.
He continued to play baseball and he still had a bit of a temper, but his Coach was a no nonsense kind of guy and he never let the boy quit and he never quit on the boy.
MLB noticed the boy and the Mariners took a chance on the boy by picking him in the 5th rd.
Signed for around mid 6 figures and is progressing well.

Maybe the "talented hothead" will have the same luck with his new school.

04Dad,

I think the key is that you stick with the young man - and try to help him as much as you can or are allowed to - but you also make him understand that there is a price for unacceptable behavior that you must pay.

I think that it realistically represents what the young man will face as he grows into adulthood and is a good life lesson IMO.

I've followed this thread form the beginning and have wanted to reply many times but have not found the words to describe my thoughts.

At times I agreed that the kid crossed the line and had to be run for the sake of consistant team discipline. At other times I felt that running him was just an excuse to git rid of a problem who might require a little more effort to teach then the other boys.

I feel that the outbursts were really cries for help from a kid who expects to be thrown out for the behaviour but will use it to justify his anger by blaming the coach for not caring about what happens to him. This way, it is a self fullfilling prophesy if he is rejected. The kid really needs and wants help and for whatever reason had chosen the coach as the teacher to go to. I feel bad that the coach failed to recognize this and instead chose to not only reject the kid's plea for help but, to reject the kid himself.

The parents blamed you and the team. Big Surprise!!!!!

I hope this won't be your final post, coach.
Please keep us posted on your team

I have a very talented "problem child" on my team that nobody else wanted to deal with. He has the best stuff of any pitcher in the area by far but had so much **** flying around in his head that he couldn't throw strikes. He was alot like Nuke Laloosh! He was very disruptive at first until we benched him a while. We also got to know him really well. We figured out what some of his issues where and talked about it in front of him and the team. This seemed to cut out a lot of the tension. It took him a couple years, but he is now very composed on the mound and looks to be on his way to a good college program.