Gave up.. done.

Oh man, I can't wait to see the responses to this one.

from that response I am guessing I am the crazy one..lol

Everybody's perspective & experience is different.  When I coached travel ball, I thought most travel parents were crazy and unrealistic about their son's skill level.  As a parent, I sympathize if you are having a bad hs experience but I think it is more the exception than the rule.  I have 3 boys and I've seen a tremendous range of high school baseball coaching from excellent to self-serving.   When you see excellence in high school baseball you know it, and when you see bad high school coaches you know it too.

 

There are a lot of high school coaches who dedicate a lot of their time, so kids can play ball.  My middle son has had 3 high school coaches in 5 years (8th graders are allowed to play JV).  Thankfully, someone who doesn't even live in our district offered to fill the open hc vacancy this year at his school when nobody wanted the job.  I don't agree with everything he has done managing the game, but that is not important.  His heart is in the right place, and he has those kids practicing every day.   They like to play for him.  Your son seems to be able to look past it, you should too.  You are doing the right thing by saying nothing.  It is your son's gig.

To put it one way - he's way out in left field on the "summer" ball coach comments.  From what I read on HSBBWEB, summer ball is the way to get recruited or be seen by college coaches.  My son was fortunate to have a HS coach who was very instrumental in getting him looked at by a DII JUCO coach - that's where he is at now and doing great (starter and batting over .300).

 

Most HS pitchers (at least around here) are usually one of the best athletes on the team and usually have a good bat as well as a good velocity, etc.   Last year's ace on our varsity threw 93-94 and was always in the line up to hit - had the 2nd best batting average on the team and hit 7 HR's (most on the team).  If he wasn't pitching he was DH or outfield.  So based on what I've seen, that is not typical of HS coaches.

 

Why a coach would take a good batter out of the lineup, I'll never understand.  HS is not college or MLB where you have 35 on the roster.  On my son's JUCO team, pitchers only pitch - they do not bat.  I understand it at that level.

 

Glad to see the son has the right attitude.  Keep plugging along. 

Short answer; YES!

 

We must be crazy for doing something we love for so little, if any, compensation. Dealing with parents and all their rants. Dealing with "fixing" what some little league coach couldn't when he allowed bad habits to form with the kids. Dealing with administration. Dealing with booster parents and kids grades and teaching duties. 

 

High school coaches HAVE to be a bit crazy.

 

Now, as far as your son's coach, he's not crazy, he simply sounds stupid. Why would ANYONE bash summer coaches and programs? Why would ANYONE keep one of their best hitters out of the lineup because they pitch? It's called courtesy runners if the pitcher gets on base. I feel in HS, your pitcher tends to be one of your better all around baseball players. Utilize him to the fullest, and reap the benefits!

Can we just start a whiny *ss people forum?

Can we just start a whiny *ss people forum?

 

I don't believe I was whinnying .. I was asking a question and mainly the fact of "WHO" I should put my most faith in.. Summer coaches or high school coaches... Seems you read into things....

Are all lawyers good? Are all doctors good?  Are all carpenters good? Are all taxi drivers good?  What you're going to see is that people on here are going to take exception to the word "ALL" in your post.  There are very poor high school coaches but there are very good high school coaches with the vast majority falling in the middle.  Same with summer ball coaches - some are good, some are poor and most are in the middle.  This is how any vocation is.  Plus there is perspective to be considered.  I'm sure there are some parents who had their kid play for this guy who say he did a good job.  For each coach the parents will break down into three groups - those who like him, those who don't like him and those who just don't really care.  Now those numbers won't always be the same becasue based on what you said about this guy I'm willing to be there is a larger number of those who won't like him.  Overall it doesn't mean a coach is bad just because people don't like him.

 

James is right in that the responses could get interesting.  As you can see some of us will take exception to your post.  I think d8 is justified in taking offense to your post and my first inclination was to respond similar to him but I read the post then had to teach a class.  Now I've decided to take a more level headed approach.  Last week a similar thread was started and I asked the question I'm going to ask of you now - has anyone ever got on a message board and criticized how you do your job?  That's what coaches face every year and sometimes on a daily basis.  It gets frustrating when we have to deal with idiot parents but we also know not all of them are idiots.  We love the group who supports us and appreciates the group who doesn't care which leaves us alone.  But the group who opposes us are the ones we have to deal with all the time and it gets old.  Coaches know others go through this so we are quick to defend one another because in most of our experiences it's a parent who is an idiot and running off at the mouth.  Sadly there are parents out there who have the clout to get a coach fired.  We get tired of defending ourselves to these idiots and sympathize with those who have to go through it but we realize that there are some bad coaches out there.

 

In your case all we have is your side of the story and I agree that he is wrong in the bashing of summer coaches.  Not sure why he would want to take one of his best bats out of the lineup to be pitcher only but there is a chance your son may not be as good as you think he is.  Coaches everywhere have dealt with the rose colored glasses parent who thinks their kid is DI when he is barely HS varsity level.  We don't know how good your son is and I doubt that we ever will know.  Getting on here and rattling off his stats like a resume won't convince anybody here (who has a clue) that your son is that good.  We don't know the level of competition your son faced to put up those stats to know if they are legit or not.  There could be a player who is hitting .400 but in the games he faced good pitching he's hitless and has that inflated average against weak pitching.

 

My point is that when you use the word "ALL" then you are making a mistake in putting all of us in a corner that won't hold us all.  I know there are parents who think I do a great job and I know there are parents who think I'm the dumbest thing in the world - which one is right?

 

I understand you're frustrated but please DO NOT let that attitude infect your son.  Let him make the decision if the coach is any good or not.  It's amazing what these kids can figure out when the adults stay out of the picture.

No kidding!  Whats this?...about the 10th thread begun like this in the past couple of months?

 

Ok, to answer your question...I have 2 sons who did or do play D1 college ball in the Pac12.  I have a 3rd who played into HS, but stopped there.

 

Two different HS coaches...one was decent/pretty good, the other was simply the best coach (for his level) I've ever seen...in any sport.

 

Now...having said that, there are certainly bad HS coaches out there.  No way to have a group of human beings and not have some bad apples.  But there are some BAD travel/summer ones too.  Like the guys locally who run an 'academy,' charge an arm and a leg to get your son seen...and never get any notable results.  They sign their teams up for tournaments and don't always show up, scream and yell at the kids ("F-bombs" and all)...and then raise their prices again.

 

Or the guy who operated another group a few years ago...similar to above...did get some kids to college...but in the process threatened fist fights with opposing coaches.  Great guy - huh?

 

And then in the past month...the local longtime "summer elite travel ball coach" with kids flocking to his program...arrested on child molestation charges after running from police for a week or so.

 

Get the picture?  Bad people everywhere.  I'm pretty tired of folks coming on here taking shots at HS coaches exclusively...it demeans a profession that I believe is run (by and large) by good people doing good work.  Their job is NOT to showcase your son...their job is to coach the local HS TEAM.

 

The best ones...are getting run out of it by parents who think they can control everything.  Its us...who are ruining it.

Justbaseball nailed it.

 

I grew up in Texas in the early 80's, played football and baseball in HS and college. In college my roommate didn't play one week, he had transferred from Texas Tech and was pretty good, the next week, on Monday he was in our defensive meeting game planning with the 1's. I asked him WTF are you doing here, he said, his parents had called the coach that recruited him (not the head coach). I was blown away, I thought to myself...and it worked!

 

My point is, coaches are human, they aren't empowered to draw a hard line, if they do - they get run off. If you cut a kid today, you have to fill out a form detailing why you cut him. All as a measure of fending of litigation (yes, parents will sue. Legalzoom.com has empowered a whole generation of arm chair litigators). Sure there's the 3-5% of the roster that are cloaked in exceptional talent, but the rest have to get in there, compete and fight for innings. In tandem the majority of parents are calling, emailing, cajoling and threatening coaches. If you don't you run the risk of getting out maneuvered. That's the paradox. 

 

And I'll let you in on a little secret. Moms are the absolute worst. They're all control freaks and when they can't control the coach, they make life miserable on the Dad and he makes the call if they don't do it themselves. 

All high school coaches (well any coach for that matter) are crazy in someone's opinion. I've heard of coaches being second guessed on play calls, who got playing time, and where he put kids on teams that won the state championship. And some of this second guessing and whining was AFTER he had won the state. He was still being called on the floor for decisions made in games he won. Stuff like "We'd have won 42-0 instead of 20-17 if only he'd......"

 

Somebody, somewhere still thinks Lombardi was a terrible coach.

Somebody, somewhere still thinks Lombardi was a terrible coach.

Good observation...and probably true too.

Amen.

I think quite a few things were taken out of text.

 

First : I agree I should not have used "all" because it has got some pants all worked up I can see. Bad form on my part.

 

Second : As I stated before, the main question was "WHO" to believe, summer or school coach.

 

Third : I never "asked anyone to showcase my son". I also said I understood what the coach was doing so never "bashed" the coach, just said "I didn't like it".

 

I have figured this was one of the worse places to ask this question because many friends of mine that have sons in high school ball (ok 4) all have the high school coaches saying summer ball is a joke. My son is a Junior and wanted to know if it was worth the 2500 this summer or not. My fault for asking and looking for help here. Will just stick to reading others post... thanks and Admin just delete the post. No need to hear another high school coach ring me up.

I don't think the mom who owns this famously valuable website and board has ever demonstrated herself as being either of those things. Then again . . . perhaps I'm just trying to freakishly control the tone of this strain.

 

I don't know about moms being the worst.  In my area, most problems start with us dads.  My wife and 'mamma' to our boys...is simply the best. 

Through many years of experience, I have found moms and dads are equal when it comes causing or not causing problems.

First - For what it's worth, the overwhelming majority of HS coaches I know, follow, hear about or read about are quite appreciative of quality summer programs that help advance the skills and provide additional playing opportunities for their players. They'd be crazy  not to. 

 

Second - You stated... "the high school coach preaches/instructs terrible game play and skills. He tells the kids (mine one of them) that they can't handle high school ball and unskilled to handle it (yet they are on varsity)....  Plus lectures the kids and parents on how "Summer ball coaches" are jokes and have no skill at all. He goes on to explain how its all about the money and empty promises... I have to ask is he on something or Crazy...???"

 

So, how exactly is this not bashing the coach or is somehow taken out of context? 

Your correct on the word "terrible" should have stated that the comment "terrible" was by the summer coach when seeing what the high school coach was doing. I should have stated that and could be easily taken as me bashing.

 

yet same old saying.. The one question that was on mind.. Who to believe.. summer or school.....??

 

Summer coach says high school coach 'crazy" and has "terrible instruction".

High school coach says summer coach's are just a "money hog sales man" and doesn't know how to coach baseball...

 

thats the 2500.00 question.

 

When you look at pedigrees, summer coach wins hands down. But a good pedigree doesn't make a good show dog... I know that's true and something you can't go by face down.

 

yet same old saying.. The one question that was on mind.. Who to believe.. summer or school.....??

Unless someone here knows both of them, how can any of us tell?  It depends more on the individual people and who they are and what they're teaching (or not) than anything else.   You're in the best position as a former college player and father to make that assessment.

Summer coach says high school coach 'crazy" and has "terrible instruction".

High school coach says summer coach's are just a "money hog sales man" and doesn't know how to coach baseball..

Not uncommon.  Summer coach wants $$...sometimes that causes them to bash HS coaches.  HS coach wants your son's attention on his team right now.  Different agendas.  I always liked the private instructors and summer coaches who didn't go there with bashing the HS coach.  They found a way to complement them rather than creating adversarial relationships.

Ditto!

If all you are looking for is the answer to that question, I guess justbaseball answered as well as it could be.  But why do you even need to ask that question?  Apparently they don't care for each other.  OK, fine.  All your son needs to know is if he is putting his best effort and attitude forward for both.  All you need to know is if the summer team is the best option to give your son the best exposure and high level playing opportunity outside of the HS season. 

$2500 is a lot to spend, but if you have it and you do the research and this program delivers on what it promises, perhaps it is worth it.  Talk to others who have been involved in that program.  Ask others in your area about other options and determine best fit for your son.  Then, you need to make sure that, if son isn't getting adequate instruction from either, you find a good resource for that as well.

You certainly don't want to burn bridges in the small community that is the baseball recruiting scene.  If either the HS or summer coach can help with a given school, that is what you want.  One may be more connected with the school that you end up targeting regardless of credentials.

You may want to try an inquiry in the Texas forum about which travel teams have the best reputation, go to the best tourneys, etc.

What is Dallas Shock, by the way?  Sort of sounds like a travel team name.

Who to believe - summer or HS coach?  I say keep the vast majority of control in your hands.  If you leave the possiblity of playing at the next level in other people's hands don't be surprised if you're let down.  HS coaches probably don't have the connections nor is it that time of year for great exposure.  Summer coaches might be blowing smoke so they can pad their pockets.  So keep the control in your hands.

 

Target several schools your son is interested in academically and athletically.  Start going to their camps and asking them what showcases / summer events they are going to attend and do everything in your power to be at them.  Have your son (not you) start making contact through email with the coach.  There's nothing wrong with your son asking them what he needs to do or how to perform in order to get their interest.  When your son goes to an event those coaches are at have him walk up and introduce himself.  Keep it short and sweet and remind the coach who he is and tell him again he's interested in his school.  Then the most important thing - go out and perform.  Show the things they are interested in seeing.  If you do those things the chances of creating interest go up and nobody is responsible but your son and you with your guidance.

 

The one thing to remember is to keep your target school realistic.  Don't shoot for South Carolina if you're a DII level player.  It won't end the way you want it to.  Try to find someone who's impartial that will give an honest assessment of your son's abilities.

 

Hope this helps.

Believe both to an extent. I see them as possibly both right and both wrong...

dallas

 

 this 4 years will go by much faster than you realize. enjoy these years,they may be the last baseball games you'll get to see your son play.or maybe not. but if you spend time fretting about things you can't/shouldn't control you'll never remember them.

 

life's to short,enjoy these times with your son. believe me in 5 or 6 years you'll look back and laugh at these things. 

 

A big +1!  The high school years will fly by.  They did for me.  Son played 2 years of JV (8th and freshman) and 3 years varsity (sophomore, junior and senior) and each season seem to pass by faster as the years went on.

 

Control what you (or rather your son) can control and enjoy it while it lasts.  You really never know when the last game will come.

That's great advice from a wise man. Be careful. You will wake up one day and realize you just watched four years pass by and instead of sitting back and enjoying it you missed it. Why worry about things you have no control over? Just play the game. Just enjoy watching them play the game. If your son loves the game. If he works hard and has the ability. He will be fine.

You know most of this stuff stems from people wanting to control things they can't. It's not a bad thing for players to be put in situations where they are facing adversity. In fact if handled properly it can be what ultimately allows then to win.

I have never understood why people thought complaining about a coach was a strategy that could help their cause. That somehow it would fix things. If everyone could get for their kids what they wanted for their kids who would sit? Let the players figure it out. That's how they grow.

I have never said a word to my son about his coaches. He has never once complained to me about his coaches. He understands its his job to make the coach like him. And it's his job to simply shut up and play. And my job to simply show up and support the team or stay home.

Be Leary of people who had mouth others. Coaches who tell you other coaches are jokes. People with character say nice things or nothing at all. Many times people who are insecure with themselves feel the need to put others down. My advice would be to tell your son to focus on helping his team win and simply play the game. And leave that other stuff to other people. And my advice to you would be sit back and enjoy watching your son play. And forget about that other stuff. It's not going to matter.

I thought I was a good coach until I sat with parents and found out all coaches are stupid. I spent much of high school ball standing down the foul line.

Looking back, almost all of what annoyed me about my son's high school coaches he just let roll off his back and stayed focused. Let kids deal with stuff. They're big boys. They're not far from being adults and having to stick up for themselves.

Haaaa! That will teach you (DallasShock) to post a thread on this site ..... be careful what you ask for ... ;-)

 

A lot of great responses (Coach2709, JustBaseball, CoachMay, etc) to this thread with some great insights and feedback.  I would love to send this thread to all the parents on my own son's Varsity team, but I would be afraid that quite of few parents would not "hear the message" and/or "not get it" ... the point is HS Coaches are crazy!!

 

They would have to be to endure this truly thankless, no-win situation.  If you get it right and the team and players are successful it's because of the skill and talent of the player(s) .... if you get it wrong it's because you (the coach) screwed it up and/or screwed the kid and his chances. You can't possibly please everyone - players and parents.  Like Stafford said "Somebody, somewhere still thinks Lombardi was a terrible coach."

 

I don't doubt there are marginal and even bad HS coaches out there ... but you know what, HS baseball is not the end-all, be-all .... with perseverance, hardwork, determination and a little help and positive guidance from you, hopefully your son will continue on to play baseball at the next level.

 

..... Change what you can, and accept what you can't.

 

I have made baseball my passion, my hobby, and/or my career for the last 40 years, and you are correct that baseball is not the be all/end all.  I found a quote that makes sense to me....... The two greatest days in your life are the day you are born and the day you figure out why.

To all of you guys coaching, God bless and keep making a difference in some young man's life.