SOOOOO frustrated...coach projecting?

Okay, talked to my husband. Game plan is just for hubby to stand on the sidelines at the next game (hubby can't make many games due to work), and be seen, maybe that will put a little pressure on. But NOT to talk to the coach. Don't want to be one of THOSE parents.

You will read this over and over on here. Parents, stay out of it until the son has done his part. Have him address the coach one on one in a professional manner and ask the coach what he needs to do to get better(which means more playing time). I would not address the coach until my son had addressed the coach.
It will teach him a lot of life lessons and go a long way with the coach.
Don't bring the brother into it. He is going to tell you what he knows you want to hear and he will see things a coach won't see.

Welcome, Highwinds.

I was writing something a lot longer, but then I saw Jeff Connell's response. Right on the money. Tell hubby to sit back and enjoy the game. Tell your son to talk to the coach, work hard, and learn as much as he can. He is only beginning to pay his dues, and may have to do so for several more years before he has his chance. For you, my advice is to try to relax. Have fun. The sooner you can do that, the sooner the "nightmare" will end.

Keep working hard. the growth spurt will happen and whn it does if hes that good he will by pass a lot of the bigger players who dont work hard.

I would follow the advice above, stay out of it.

BTW, you managed to give great details about your son, leaving out one important thing, how old is he?

14.

He is not even a freshmen yet. I read a lot of posts where kids are playing JV ball in 7th and 8th grade. I dont understand. You arent even in HS yet. are these small private schools?
also your son is not even a freshmen yet and only 14, he is going to change a lot in the next two years. Dont stress.Most boys dont play JV until there 15-16 years old.

No, that's not true at all, at least not where I live. There are modified JV teams for 7th and 8th graders (and any 9th graders who want to stay back). BUT, most of the 7th graders from last year went on to JV this year. That's why the coach is grooming the current 7th graders for JV for next year...

I think he's just looking at size, and not talent, at all.

Highwinds,
First I forgot to welcome you to the HSBBW.

Please beleive that this post is in no way to put your player down, or your post, but there are a lot of things you posted that I don't understand.

First is about paying ones dues. In the game of baseball, you never get paid back what's owed to you (or you think what's owed to you) in playing time. Especially at 14.

We all see our players as being very good ones and we want the best for them. As a parent (and player) you have to be patient, no matter what age your player is, you will learn that as you move forward it really doesn't matter what a former MLB player told you or your brother. That does not mean more playing time. I've never heard of anyone turning away $$ if the player was very good, usually they want to work with him to get better, even if he is better than others, if that makes sense.

Maybe you made a mistake in suggesting that he stay there this year, maybe the coach is working on developing the other players? Winning or losing at this point doesn't mean much, it's about development. And there is always two sides seen by different people (coach vs. parent, player).

Size doesn't matter in "pre" JV, or even later if he has the ability and talent as he matures. If your player thinks it does, then he needs to work harder to get better and prove to those they are wrong. Don't use size as an excuse and don't ever mention that to your son.

Relax and find a good summer team for your son to play on so that he can improve.

He's 14.

TPM,

No offense, but you're way off the mark. Talent being equal, there's no reason 7th graders should be starting infield.

BTW, my son hit a double last night...only player other player to do better was a huge 9th grader. I guess his position at this point is batter.

The reason the MLB training center told us to stop coming was because they are VERY busy and the only center in this area. They don't need our money. You have to reserve there at least 6 months ahead of time to get a slot. We had him there for two 6-week sessions back to back.

"Winning or losing at this point doesn't mean much, it's about development." That was the whole point about my post. The coach is developing the larger 7th graders to the detriment of the really talented players. "Size doesn't matter in "pre" JV, or even later if he has the ability and talent as he matures." Oh really? How can you expect a kid to hang in there? I understood last year, and so did he, that as a 7th grader, you sit the bench. That's how it is. Only the best of the best 7th graders started (I think there were 3). Those 7th graders then went on to JV this year. SOOOO...you expect that as an 8th grader, you will get to play. Especially if you're good. I guess it's more important if you're over 5'6" and weigh at least 140 lbs. I thought this was baseball, not football...

I don't think my son has a whole lot to improve on right now. Anytime a coach has tried to change up his batting or pitching (and he perfected his technique at the MLB center, by the way), they made it worse, not better. He just needs to grow and gain weight to improve his speed. Once the growth spurt hits, he probably will need to refine his techniques. He could also improve his focus and keep his head in the game, which of course, is tough when you're doing nothing but sitting or standing in one place, especially for a kid who needs to stay active and engaged to stay interested.

I'm not saying the coaching is bad...after all, this guy's been coaching for 50 years or something (he's in his 70s). I just think he's misdirected. If he wants these kids to continue playing, he needs to keep them interested. That's not going to happen if they're sitting the bench for no reason. A kid can't help getting discouraged when they know they're better than the 7th graders on the field, but smaller. It happened to my husband. He quit all sports after 9th grade. Then he hit his growth spurt the summer before 11th and came back to school 5"10" and benching 350. By then, he had lost a lot of time and had a job, so he never went back to sports. I don't want that to happen to my son.

quote:

I don't think my son has a whole lot to improve on right now. Anytime a coach has tried to change up his batting or pitching (and he perfected his technique at the MLB center, by the way), they made it worse, not better.

Don't take this the wrong way, but this comment and choice of words may just reveal the problem here.

EVERY 7th grader has a lot to improve on. NOBODY perfects hitting technique, not ever. If your son's coaches are tinkering with his hitting mechanics, and you and he have this attitude, I'll bet the coaches are seeing a kid who is not very coachable.

Nothing will get his rear on the pine quicker than that.

I am with Rob--for you as a parent to say that "I don't think my son has a whole lot to improve on now" is totally delusional---players in the majors need to keep improving things in their game---the good players never stop trying to improve.

Don't let anyone fool you. Size does matter in football and baseball and basketball.
Coaches want the kids who can hit the long ball. The smaller kids have a disadvantage no matter what everyone wants to say.
My older son has more talent than my middle but he is 17 years old 5'9 3/4" and my middle is 6'2" freshman. The younger can hit the home run and the older gets the base hits. Guess who everyone talks about.
Size matters. But you can make up for it with hustle and heart.
I will agree with above. When you have nothing to get better at, you might as well quit.

quote:

Originally posted by Jeff Connell:
Don't let anyone fool you. Size does matter in football and baseball and basketball.
Coaches want the kids who can hit the long ball. The smaller kids have a disadvantage no matter what everyone wants to say.
My older son has more talent than my middle but he is 17 years old 5'9 3/4" and my middle is 6'2" freshman. The younger can hit the home run and the older gets the base hits. Guess who everyone talks about.
Size matters. But you can make up for it with hustle and heart.
I will agree with above. When you have nothing to get better at, you might as well quit.

I agree with your statement that hustle and heart can make up for size. Our starting varsity 2nd basemen is 5ft nothing and 80lbs soaking wet. Biggest heart on the team.

I don't think I have ever heard anyone say their kid doesn't need to improve. I think that may be the revealing the problem. Sounds like you are already the parent you don't want to become.

quote:

I don't think my son has a whole lot to improve on right now. Anytime a coach has tried to change up his batting or pitching (and he perfected his technique at the MLB center, by the way), they made it worse, not better.

Wow! Never heard that from a parent of a 14 year old, 18 year old, 20 year old, 24 year old, etc. Not sure if you are serious or trying to pull a fast one letting us beleive this is for real. I had that feeling from the beginning.

Nothing to work on? Does he have high school bat speed and throwing velocity? Is this another thirteen year old with perfect fundamentals? I can't wait until all these kids with perfect fundamentals get to MLB. They will never slump.

We play on a USSSA team in the Houston area. My son is the smallest 9 year old in the entire city. The kids here are huge. My son weighs 56lbs dripping wet. He plays ball against kids that (on average) outweigh him by 15 lbs. And these kids aren't chunky or overweight. One kid that we play against weighs in at 135, so I understand your question.

His size was an issue on a team we played on 2 years ago and my boy didn't see much playing time at some of the positions he was well suited for and he routinely batted 8 or 9 in the order.

We kept with it because he was learning and improving. We ultimtely left that team because of all the stigma over his size even though the entire team was moved up from AA to AAA by USSSA after the 7U season.

We found some teams that liked his effort, enthusiasm and his mental understanding of the game and in just 2 short years he has learned to play every infield posiiton (except Catcher) and he will start tournaments in those positions and will do his share of work in the outfield as well.

The key for my undersized son was findng an atmosphere that promoted the utility player mindset. That mindset will allow the player to learn so much more about the game and will improve his baseball instincts and that will help him later on (me thinks).

The thing that my boy is most proud of is that he was basically written off by his 7u coach as undersized (and therefore not worth the time or the effort) to now leading his most recent team in batting average, runs scored, highest on base percenage. I wouldn't say he is our most dominant bat by any means, but he now bats first in the line up because he always finds a way to get on base. I just noticed we played an 8 game world series and he had zero strike outs for the tournament.

I guess what I am trying to say is don't let size be the measuring stick for baseball, especially at a young age. Our endocrinologist gave us the technical jargon and then laid it out in simple language.....He is a late bloomer and will probably continue to grow up to age 19. All of the men on my wifes side of the family are very tall, most over six foot. So I won't worry about size right now.

I see lots of coaches just wanting to spend time on the big kids because all they want is trophies on their mantle. Many select teams are run as "for profit" businesses. If you have an undersized kid, don't go to any of those for profit type of places.

If your kid plays all out ball all the time then size doesn't matter. Most good coaches know effort knows no score.

My boy has a lot of work to do and last night we had a chance to discuss the areas that need work on for next season. I let him guide the discussion so the suggestions would be his own. He said he wanted to work on hard hit ground balls to his left and right (judging the depth and angle), and work on getting his pitching arm back a bit further. He also wants to continue to work on his bat and work on hitting to the opposite field as he does have trouble with the outside pitch.

Wow! Travel at 7U! Writing off players in 7U! I guess this is what you get if you take ball so serious at 7U you place your son on a travel team. At age seven both my kids were on 7/8 rec teams that batted everyone and rotated players around the field.

Our version of travel ball is traveling across town. Little League in our area is not what I was expecting so we went select ball. I am from New Orleans and over there Little League was great (as a child and pre hurricane Katrina). Over here in the North Houston area it is sort of back-woods and dominated by folks that have good intentions, but not much to offer in the way of coaching. I understand travel ball out in California, Nevada, Florida, Georgia, and other states is much more intense. You can play A, AA, AAA, or majors and pick your intensity level at any age group.

How can you be undersized at 7 ??? They are all small!!!

At 9 mine was playing rec ball and I admit he was a bit tall for that age but certainly not the best player. He didn't care and we didn't care. 9 is about having fun, learning the basics. Discussion to follow games was about where to go for hamburgers or wings and ice cream after the game.

I realize that things have changed but sitting down and discussing what work needs to be done next year (at 10), makes me realize that there are too many parents trying to raise ball players, not children.

quote:

Originally posted by TPM:
At 9 mine was playing rec ball and I admit he was a bit tall for that age but certainly not the best player. He didn't care and we didn't care. 9 is about having fun, learning the basics. Discussion to follow games was about where to go for hamburgers or wings and ice cream after the game.

I realize that things have changed but sitting down and discussing what work needs to be done next year (at 10), makes me realize that there are too many parents trying to raise ball players, not children.

Somewhere along the line youth sports was hijacked and became about development rather than fun with friends.

I learned everything I needed to know about intensity in preteen sports when my son was ten. When the game is over the kids move on. My son is intense on the field. But when it's over, it's over.

The following was after winning a travel (community based travel) s****r championship at age ten. My son's team upset the undefeated team in the championship. While walking to the car:

ME: What did the coach say?

SON: He said congratulations. What's for lunch?

ME: He must have said more than that!

SON: He did. He said we played well. May I have a PlayStation for Christmas?

quote:

Originally posted by Rajun Cajun:

My boy has a lot of work to do and last night we had a chance to discuss the areas that need work on for next season. I let him guide the discussion so the suggestions would be his own. He said he wanted to work on hard hit ground balls to his left and right (judging the depth and angle), and work on getting his pitching arm back a bit further. He also wants to continue to work on his bat and work on hitting to the opposite field as he does have trouble with the outside pitch.

My son is just entering his freshman year in college to play ball. I can hardly remember his coming to me over the years to suggest he work on these things, let alone at 9! Rajun, I know your intentions are good but really, you need to ease off your son just a hair and let him be a boy. I've seen a TON of kids over the years who got burned out by over-zealous Dad's who pressed their son's to perfection on the field. Two of my best friends played college ball and stayed on their boys just like this. Guess what? They both quit at age 15.

Not trying to judge here but give I hope some friendly advise that may help in the long run.

quote:

Originally posted by Rajun Cajun:
I understand travel ball out in California, Nevada, Florida, Georgia, and other states is much more intense. You can play A, AA, AAA, or majors and pick your intensity level at any age group.

In Northern California, the youngest age group offered at tournaments is 9. There are only open class tournaments, and darn few of those. There just aren't enough teams at that age to have sub-classifications. Kids here play only rec ball until they are at least 10, and they continue in rec ball, together with travel, through their 12U season. Anyone playing travel ball at 13U likely does not play rec ball anymore.

Participation increases in travel ball for older age groups, and you can "pick your intensity level" at age 12 and up.

We never had 9-10 all stars for my kids. It was established later. No travel teams accept what you would consider local travel - but Cali is a big place and we consider it local to the North and then to the South.

We still had strong legion ball in our area, so we just did kind of a feeder team to the Legion Ball.
Travel was considered a 80 mile roundtrip two times during the season of 50 games.

They played a good strong season, but didn't travel very far. Oh, I forgot we did go each summer to Reno for 4 day tournament (driveable). Never flew anywhere. Seemed like we got real good competition based on where most of the guys ended up for college.

quote:

Originally posted by highwinds:


Okay, so my son is small for his age...he's 5'2", about 95 lbs. BUT...so was my husband at his age. My husband is now 6'1/2". An endocrinologist estimated that my son will be 5'10". My husband didn't grow until he was 16. I'm so afraid this coach is grooming the bigger kids for JV (which he also coaches), and totally ignoring talent. My son will probably be awesome in JV and Varsity, provided he doesn't get frustrated and quit, which is what happened to my husband.

How can we stop this nightmare?

I was thinking of having my husband talk to the coach. He can be very persuasive. Bad idea? Any advice?

A coach can only play the kids based on their current size, not by some prediction. I often question for those who are so hung up on size and come up with these predictions. I know a dad who swore up and down his kid was gonna grow to 6'8". He grew to about 6'. Good player though. You can't get hung up how big they will be.

To play varsity, which I assume is your goal, he must get bigger and stronger. Even with the skills, size, speed and strength or a combination of some of these is a must to play at the next level.

You can't control how big he grows so forget about predictions. He probsably will need to work on strength and conditioning and put on some weight. However as a freshman, there's time for growth.

As for how you can stop the nightmare? You don't. It's up to the player to deal with the hand dealt to him. It's his experience, not the parents. It'll either work out or it don't. It's not the end of the world if if don't.

Were do you find coaches like these??? Just kidding, my son is was 6'tall at 13 years old and there definitely wasn't any projection going on at his school.
he has had the same baseball coach for years and he is fair, kept incredible books and played kids according to batting average, errors, and such. but my son has been screwed in the 'school sports' (basketball) because of 'daddy ball'. he is in hs now so, things are based on ability so it is a lot of pressure of the parents. fair...talent is talent. so far anyway.

To the original Poster....

He's an 8th grader? Most JV programs rarely pick up one or two 8th graders at most and those are GOOD players. And 9/10 the SIT...the BENCH. Of course these kids are also PLAYING on other teams. School ball comes FIRST, practice and games, but they get their own reps and work in away from the school field.

Maybe some of you are blessed with great JV and HS coaches...I'll be happy if the JV coach can throw BP 60ft.

I remember some parents getting all excited about JV ball last year. They asked me what the kids should be doing to get there etc...I asked them to go check out a few JV games, THEN get back to me.

They did. They didn't realize that the level of competition was where it was. It seemed to take the pressure off, and most of 'em did make the JV Teams.

But as several posters told ya already...you stating your kid basically can't get any better....well that's ****. Pure and simple.

Is he playing any other baseball beside JV? If not, get him in a Summer ball league or on a travel team after school ball is over.

And LET HIM PLAY. It's not your baseball it's HIS. And if you think he doesn't feed off your attitude that he should be playing every inning, you're wrong. He does. And this might be effecting his attitude around the coach and team when he's not playing.

Don't call Dad to stand there and look mean. Let your 14 year old son initiate the talks with the Coach on his OWN. SUPPORT him as a parent....that means listen to him gripe and tell him if he wants more playing time make sure he's always hustling, always in the game, always rooting his team on and have him ASK the Coach how he can get better for the team.

I played ball for a long while. When I was 13-16 there were SEVERAL kids that I knew would go far. They were GREAT ball players. I watched all but one fall by the wayside. Why?

Mainly because their parents had decided to make it THEIR baseball instead of the kid's and either the kid got an attitude with the coach or the kid got DISCOURAGED from hearing his parents be DISCOURAGED all the time. Either way...same ending..they gave up.

I played with a guy who ended up playing 4 years of D1 ball. He sat the bench his 8th/9th grade years on Varsity. Played SOME as a 10th grader on JV and very LITTLE on Varsity. Sat the bench pretty much all year as a Junior on the Varsity. His Senior year he was good enough to get college attention. He STUCK IT OUT for his TEAM and kept working hard so when he did get his shot, he used it wisely.