Who'd want to coach HS baseball?

I cant imagine why anyone would....it certainly isnt for the money......with the exception for the love of the game and the players maybe.....but even that isnt enough these days..

 

I've seen long term highly successful coaches call it quits in the last few years for the grief received from meddlesome parents and school boards....

 

 

This is so over the top, almost like a SNL skit, but it's not…here's one of my favorite lines from the story, from a dad of one of the players:

 

"These kids were afraid to fail. They were afraid to drop a fly ball because their butt would be on the bench".

 

And the problem is???  Sad that it's come to this.

 

Look I get the poor coach feelings from current and former coaches On this sight think every parent is an idiot and every coach a superstar, however this guy was 15-11 at a program with lots of talent and he thinks he did a good job.  In the business world you produce equal to what the situation calls for or you are fired.  In the MLB it's that way, in college, so why not HS?  Many coaches just want to show up, have a little fun with baseball and go home.  Give me the guy that wants to win more than he wants to breath any day.  I find this is really missing in more and more coaches these days.

No problem - get off you butt (to the dad) and get to work.  It is an opportunity to spend time with your kid - which gets less and less as they grow up. 

I just was on the NJ Forum we have reading all the posts...Paramus is a big town that typically does will in LL, it's also an affluent town where the residents probably think that life was made for them (and them alone). There's a whole lot of comments that came out of the meeting that I won't rehash - but suffice to say, most of the players and parents seemed to back Coach, though a couple of outgoing seniors and their parents did not. 

 

I always like comments about playing time in HS baseball. If you are a senior and your not getting on the field, there is a reson for it. And it is rarely "the coach doesn't like me". But that's a tough one to swallow for some. 

Originally Posted by Smitty28:…And the problem is???  Sad that it's come to this.

 

From that article its impossible to tell whether or not there is a problem. Would you want your son on a team where virtually every time he made a mistake of any kind he was benched? I think not. The reason is, players don’t get better by being perfect! They only get better from making mistakes and learning how to either not make them or how to deal with them better.

 

Its unfortunate, but part of life that LL players will make more mistakes than HS players and HS players will make more mistakes than ML players, but players at all levels will make mistakes. Now I don’t know if that coach would sit a player if for instance he dropped one fly ball or struck out once, but I doubt it. I also doubt he’d allow one player to make say 5 fielding errors before some kind of punishment, but another player only had to make one before feeling the wrath.

 

I say I doubt those things were happening, but that doesn’t mean they haven’t happened, and if they did there might be a reasonable explanation.

 

 

 

I don't know what you are referring to.  He came in second in the league and last year won state sectional and league titles.  Why should he get fired for that?  And there was no reference whatsoever to him being a bad coach.  The only complaints were over playing time and not being recognized at senior night.  That's whining, plain and simple.

At the heart of the matter were allegations of favoritism, resulting in reduced playing time for some team members, as well as charges of negative treatment toward players.

BOOM!  There it is. 

 

Sounds like it's just a few parents/players that want to run the coach out.  Two players have come out against the coach while the majority speaking at the public forum backed the coach.

 

Is there something in the water?   Seems to be quite a few threads as of late on this sort of topic.

It's somewhat exhausting to constantly hear complaints about playing time. Unless the coach is seriously mentally deficient he is playing his best 9. His job depends on winning. Whatever happened to teaching your player to be that good that the coach can't NOT put you in?  

 

Seniors afraid of dropping fly balls? Players getting feelings hurt? These are kids who will be going to college in a few short months. If they don't make Dean's list, will the dads talk to the newspaper to complain? 

 

 

My thoughts exactly.

for what it's worth, my sons have played for coaches that do not play the best 9 and even will tell you that... He plays seniors unless there is no sr. at that position. 

 

"These kids were afraid to fail. They were afraid to drop a fly ball because their butt would be on the bench," Hallihan said.

 

Getting benched for not getting the job done. What a bizarre concept for high school baseball. <---- sarcasm   The kid of that father is in for a rude awakening when he hits the real world. Hey kid, in the real world when you don't produce you get fired, not benched.

It might be unusual but it depends on what the coaches agenda is.  If he is looking for bigger fish to fry like landing a teaching job at a private school with a 15 year run as coach and eventually AD then you can find yourself being pushed to the side for the principal's son. 

To give the devil his due, he told me before the season he was going to do it and that he knew that I was a better player.  I was a Sr. and he was a Jr. so he was a two year starter and I started working 6 months before I would have otherwise. 

 

Coach got his job so I don't think he ever worried about it or gave a damn I spent a decade working at something knowing that Sr. season was all there was for me. 

 

The sport was basketball and I had a reasonable chance to be 2nd team all league and was probably the 3rd best player on the team.  I was not so good that he had to have me but it probably cost him 2 or 3 close games that season and instead of 16-4 he was 13-7.  Too bad for me that sonny played my position and I was chum.

 

A valuable life lesson was learned:  Who you know does matter.  Never have forgotten that lesson.

...And now here are some scenes from the upcoming episode of Jersey-Shore...

My bet is thats a coach who has thrown in the towel on all of this stuff by taking the judgement aspect out of it.

Actually, this coach just left our school for another job at a private school and we are now going back to the coach we had two years ago.

Our high school had a baseball coach who believed varsity was only for juniors and seniors and seniors had priority for starting. After seventeen losing seasons in twenty years the new AD fired him. Thankfully it was before my son arrived.

Not sure, but I sometimes get the feeling that  there's a pretty narrow vision of what HS sports in general are for  on this board.  Haven't been around enough to have a firm view.  And I may be misreading some folks, I readily admit.   If I am wrong, I am willing to be corrected.    

 

But in thinking about these things  I start with the hypothesis that HS teams are justified only to the extent that they make a positive  contribute to the overall moral, physical, and psychological,  development of the players -- not just some of the players, or the best players, but all of the players.  They are not primarily about gratifying coach's egos, not primarily about winning championships, not primarily about even fostering school spirit.   The test for that hypothesis is that if they fostered school spirit or produced championships, or gratified the coach's ego,  but didn't contribute to the moral, physical, and psychological development of the players,  they would not be serving their main purpose.  Indeed, they would probably be doing more harm than good.

 

Nor are HS teams primarily about preparing kids to go on and play at "the next level"  -- unless you mean by the next level life beyond high school.  Most players in most programs  will have played their last game, once they graduate.  Sure there are exceptions to this rule.  A private catholic baseball powerhouse in my area regularly  sends tons of its baseball players (and other athletes as well) onto D1 schools.  They even have a regular stable of draft picks.  Many teams around here could easily stock their varsity rosters with guys who failed to make it at that school.  They are amazing (except they choke more than you would expect during sectional playoffs given their depth of talent and truly great coaches).   But they are the exception rather than the rule.  I read somewhere that in all 9 counties of the Bay Area -- an area that includes  many, many hundreds, if not thousands of baseball players graduating every year from a true baseball hot bed -- probably no more than 100 kids go onto play D1 baseball.     

 

 

Why do I mention this?   Well, I sometimes get the feeing that since most of the  people on this board have sons who went on to much greater things in baseball beyond high school, folks here tend to look at HS school sports with a somewhat skewed perspective  -- in particular skewed a bit toward what it can do for the elite players, the future college players and potential draft picks.   It sometimes seems -- and I stress seems, cause I don't claim to be able to read anybody's mind or see into anybody's heart on this board ---  as if folks think that HS teams exist primarily to get those elite  kids as much playing time as possible.  It's as if  the kids who have less of a future in the game, exist to push those players in practice, and maybe to cheer them on as they bring home the accolades to themselves, their coaches, and their schools.   I gather that's how it is in professional baseball -- there are the prospects and then there are the organizational guys who are there primarily to give the prospects guys to play against, be pushed by etc.  There is a good reason this is so in professional sports.  Those are businesses,  whose main aim is fo produce wins, enrich their owners (and hopefully their players).  They are not educational institutions.

 

 Many here seem to have that same mentality with respect to high school sports.  That's sort of  understandable.  And  It makes a kind of sense of many things people say here.   It certainly explains why, when that bothersome parent or that non-starting player complains the parent or player is pretty roundly criticized here. People seem to think that these people need to realize that  the kid -- who, let's stipulate,  can't field or hit or run quite as well as the kid ahead of him --  isn't "entitled"  to the same degree of time or attention or reps from the coach.    The coach is there to win, and not to coddle lesser players, or listen to their complaining parents.

 

And it is often added that parents  and their lesser kids need to realize that there  are valuable life lessons to be learned from riding the bench about the importance of busting your butt to get off the bench.    So, see, even if the kid is sitting,  getting fewer reps in practice,  getting less feedback from the coach, the   coach is, after all,  tending to their psychological, moral, and physical development by giving them lessons in the school of hard knocks.  So what's the problem?  

 

I wouldn't say that this point of view is entirely unjustified.  As somebody says, losing is not a pretty thing and making a habit of it,  instills really bad habits in people.  So winning, or at least trying to win, is important.     But I guess I tend to think that it's  only one value among others.  And I'm not entirely convinced that it should be the overriding value in a high school program.  What are some other values that matter?   Making all players feel a genuine part of a team,  valuing the contributions they have to make, rewarding their hard work with starts or at least with innings -- even if that means sitting a superior player for a game or two or three or even four  or maybe just some innings in some games.  Being willing to show trust in players who have busted their buns practice but hasn't gotten much PT to show for it, even if they are not superior to the starters.  

 

These seem like good things, even if they don't produce the maximum number of wins. I doubt that would produce the maximum number of losses either.  It seems to me a plausible trade-off though,  to stand and fight with your whole group of players, rather than just the core, even if it means you win a fewer games than you might otherwise.  Of course, it has to be a balancing act.  But isn't that what coaches are paid to do?  Balance all these competing goods in an expert way? 

 

Also,   I think that even the stronger players can be taught life lessons by learning to trust and rely on their "lesser" teammates -- namely that a team really is about one for all and all for one -- the lesser for the stronger but also the stronger for the lesser. 

 

Bottom line, being maximally charitable to parents for a second,  I think that complaints about "playing time"  are often not so much complaints about playing time per se,  it's about a failure on the part of some coaches to feel much responsibility toward seeing to the development of the lesser players.   I think a really good high school coach would never lose sight of the fact that the whole team is his team, that they all deserve something from him, that it's not just about "hard knocks"  for his lesser players.  

 

Maybe that kind of coach is rare.  I don't know, I haven't taken a survey.   I do have a sense that not all that many guys around here are really up to the task.   There is lots of coaching turnover.   And from what I know about particular cases,  a good number of them really did deserve the boot.

 

At the same time,  I wouldn't want to hold parents blameless either.   Many parents do overestimate the talents and dedication of their kids.   (But many parents also see up close how hard their son or daughter works, only to get almost nothing back from some coaches.) Neither is a good situations.

 

In general,  I'm not willing to cast blanket condemnation or blanket approval on parents who complain about coaches nor on coaches who complain about parent.

 

One needs  to take it case by case, and know the details of the situation.   Some coaches really don't belong coaching.  Some parents need to back off.    My general approach to things human is that humans are a mess, capable of really amazingly good things and amazingly awful things.   So judge them one by one, case by case -- always. 

 

I do think coaching is a really hard job.  It's not just about knowing x's and o's.  It's about knowing people, getting the best out of each one,  helping to motivate them, helping them to see what it will take to get better, etc.  I'm pretty sure simply being a great player and knowing the game well does not prepare you for that part of coaching. The best bosses I have had are people who can tell you things you don't want to hear, but still keep you enlisted.  That's a rare gift.  A good coach needs that gift. 

 

These guys should definitely be paid more. It is not, in my opinion, a small or insignificant job.  Coaches can have a HUGE impact -- for good or ill -- on players.  And I think a higher caliber of teacher/leader/motivator would be attracted to these jobs if they were paid more.  

 

 

 

"Bottom line, being maximally charitable to parents for a second,  I think that complaint's about "playing time"  are often not so much complaints about playing time per se,  it's about a failure on the part of some coaches to feel much responsibility toward seeing to the development of the lesser players.   I think a really good high school coach would never lose sight of the fact that the whole team is his team, that they all deserve something from him, that it's not just about "hard knocks"  for his lesser players.  

 

Maybe that kind of coach is rare.  I don't know, I haven't taken a survey.   I do have a sense that not all that many guys around here are really up to the task.   There is lots of coaching turnover.   And I from what I know a good number of them really did deserve the boot."

 

 

I can positively confirm your thesis to be incorrect, from our son's experience.

To illustrate: for our son's senior year, the field was one big construction site of mud. It rained at some record levels and a field drainage system which was supposed to be redone and installed by December was still being done 1/2 through the HS season.  Practices were being held on the track for infield and however they could arrange it for other activities.

The "team" was 13 players at the start.  Two seniors decided to be cute and head out for a drink before practice until they got discovered. Each received a last chance. One failed and the team was down to 12. The one who succeeded ended up having a season which clearly showed he could play at the next level, except Dad would have nothing of his attending a smaller school for sports, so he went to a major university and never played, a fact he readily now admits he regrets. Why do I mention him? Well, the coach got together with the seniors for the last chance and it was intense. One senior got it and literally turned himself into a leader on the field and everyplace else with that team. Each senior was given a chance to make a choice by his coach and the peers. One made a great choice, one never played again.

But that coach and team did not end there for developing the lesser talent or talent with a challenge,  in the face of parental challenges. One of the 12 on that team had a heart attack at age 3. He was left with a residual impairment in an arm and leg of a very severe nature.

One issue that coach and team encountered was a parent who bitterly objected to her son being treated the "same" as everyone else and who was getting what every baseball player gets: being made humble by baseball and your teammates just like every teammate.

The player absolutely thrived with the interplay and the fact no one let him do anything with any less intensity or expectation than the very best player.  Finally, at a function at a travel tournament, the mother blistered a group of us about how she viewed the treatment of her son by people he "considered his teammates." "How could they do this to him?" Don't they realize he "can't do what they can?"  It took a very long conversation before she finally grudgingly appreciated and acknowledged that his team and his teammates were treating him as an equal and his drive and effort inspired each teammate to work harder to keep up with him just as their unwillingness to "accept" her son as anything less than a baseball player was inspiring him in ways he had never before experienced.

Well, this all came to a pivotal moment about 3/4's of the way through the season when the field of mud finally had some grass.  Playing a top WCAL team, you know who came up to pinch hit in the bottom of the 6th.  He was something like 0-6 or so before but never stopped cheering and driving his team.

Well, the story is he dumped one into short right field, sprinted his hard 90, which was about 9 seconds with his disability, and barely beat the throw to 1B from the right fielder. Single.  His teammates erupted...as did the coaches and the game stopped while they almost dog piled around 1B.  After they undid that, with tears being wiped away, the opposing coach came to 1B and shook the now "runners" hand and then the pitcher came across and did the same. The smile from 1B radiated brighter than the sun. Of course after the game, every teammate could only talk about he made it such a bang bang play at 1B, or the hard 90 taking 9 seconds..most anything but the hit.

After that game, the mother and father shook the hand of every player and each coach for creating an experience they never realized could be available to their son.

He came back for his senior year and was voted the captain. During that time, he and I worked together a bit and pretty soon he developed an impression he wanted to play a sport in college, just like our son.

The Summer after his senior year, my wife, myself, and that young man trained for and ran the San Diego marathon. In the fall he walked on to try and make the Santa Clara U cross country team.

To this day, that young man will confirm that one season was one of the great experiences of his life and changed his life in terms of how he viewed what he was capable of doing with his impairment but, more importantly,  what he was capable of doing as a person.

What I have been saying is we are losing the coaches who let that team "create" that unforgettable season. The more people won't stand up for coaches, or, for instance,  blame "fired coaches" for their son's failures, the more we will continue to lose the great coaches of the type Michael Lewis wrote:

 

http://www.nytimes.com/2004/03...agazine/28COACH.html

 

"The past was no longer on speaking terms with the present."  It cannot be said better.

 

 

This past high school season was my first year coaching high school baseball. Yesterday I received my first pay check... $100 for camp which was forced on me by the head coach. I wanted him to use it to get more baseballs. I do it for the love of the game, my alma mater,  and to pass on what knowledge of the game I have to others.

Infeilddad:

 

That's a truly inspiring story.  Not sure what point of mine it directly refutes.  I would never claim that there are NO HS coaches who get it.  My claim was that there aren't enough of them who do.  I'm not even willing to hazard a guess about how many do and don't. 

 

I guess your point is that parents need to realize that their complaining about this that and the other thing is making it much harder to find coaches who get it.   Could be some truth in that.    But maybe it's also helping to drive away coaches who don't.

 

As to the women in your story, would say that that long conversation that some folks had with her that helped her come to see more in her son than she had previously seen is itself an important conversation to have and not to try to shut down prematurely.   Sometimes it takes hard work to get people all on the same page, to get them to see beyond their first instincts.  If you aren't willing to do the hard work --as a coach, as a teacher, as a leader -- well,  I doubt you will be effective.  People don't just snap to and do the right thing on command.   Sometimes that have to be brought kicking and screaming.  That takes patience and wisdom.  

Let me turn it around on you a  bit.

You have made a number of posts on this site about coaches who get fired, including the coach of your son's team this year. You went so far as to blame that coach for your son's slump.  Now you include a  post with this comment:

"There is lots of coaching turnover.   And I from what I know a good number of them really did deserve the boot."

For me, it is fascinating you seem to be surrounded by HS coaches who, in your view, deserve to be fired.  I wonder why that is?

Perhaps it is repeated turnover proves the point that no coach can meet the quality level if it gets measured so subjectively by so many different perspectives.

Perhaps it proves the point that repeated turnover just continues to dilute the quality of coaching to the lowest common denominator.

Perhaps it proves the point that good coaches are not recognized and are being booted because there is so much disagreement on quality, with much of it being playing time related, or, in your case, the coach causing pressure which caused the slump.

If you have so many coaches which you support being fired, isn't that a parental and community responsibility to find out if perhaps it isn't the coaches, it is those making the turmoil leading to the  judgments leading to firing?

One thing where we might agree, and I hesitantly suggest "might" is that great or very good HS coaches "coach" every member of the team they select.  I read a post on another board where the coach of justbaseball's son noted he carries 22 and everyone knows he coaches every one, even though 9/10 play.

I think it is far easier to coach the top talent than the range of talent which might be on a HS team. If your criticism is only the top level talent is being coached, or the coach created too much "stress" or whatever "others" complained of to get that coach fired, don't you have a responsibility to be part of the solution?

I think the Michael Lewis reference rings true: "The past is no longer on  speaking terms with the present."

Your claim is there are not enough "of them who do...get it."  But, in all your posting, you are yet to define what "it" is. If you cannot define "it," how could any coach get "it" in ways to succeed. If all your peers cannot define "it" then no coach can succeed because they are 40-60 different views of "it."  Even the "present is not on speaking terms with the present" is the way I would summarize your posts, to be candid.

I guess your point is that parents need to realize that their complaining about this that and the other thing is making it much harder to find coaches who get it.   Could be some truth in that.    But maybe it's also helping to drive away coaches who don't.

Its probably doing both.  But I can tell you without a shadow of a doubt, parents are driving excellent coaches out of the business.

 

I gather from your posts SluggerDad that you live close to me.  Two very good ones exited this year (on their own) and there is more to come…sadly.

Sluggerdad,

I suggest you search Coach May and start reading his posts.  Leave yourself a big chunk of time.  IMO, he represents the gold standard for what a coach should be.  He always preaches about doing the right thing, positive morals, teaching the game properly and teaching about life beyond the lines.  That said, he doesn't lose sight of the fact that he is doing so while in the confines of team sport, namely baseball.  By definition, there is a primary objective to team sports (yes, win the game).  You will also notice that Coach May has always been widely complimented here by the majority of HSBBW members.  Therefore, I believe this balanced perspective is much more the prevailing point of view here as to what HS baseball and a HS baseball coach should be. 

 

Are we all a bit different?  Yes, thank goodness.  Do many of us have players who played beyond HS?  Yes.  And had the HS coach decided that winning was not as important as everyone getting playing time and you didn't have to work hard and compete to earn your spot, it would have been far more difficult (in some cases, impossible) for those players to make it at the next level.  Most of us also have other kids with different interests, abilities and priorities who might have participated in HS sports with no aspirations to play beyond HS so I think we understand HS sports from a much broader spectrum than you think.  

 

I take a lot of pride in what our staff has accomplished in developing a winning program.  Winning is important for a lot of reasons.  Winning is the objective of the game and the act of trying to win fulfills our competitive nature.  Winning is a source of pride for the team, school and community.  For a baseball coach, winning (or the opportunity to win) also serves as one of the primary motivators when trying to impress upon his players all of those important life lessons - always try your best, work hard, be a good teammate, set goals, be a good sport, find your passion and on and on.  Winning is tangible representation of progress in those efforts. Providing the opportunity to win one of the nine spots in the lineup or one of the 18 spots on the roster does the same.  All that said, when I think back over the last several years, I always have had a favorite player who is not one of the starting nine.  In some cases, it is someone who is trying to be and sometimes it was someone who knew they filled an important role other than being a starting player.  Some of my most rewarding time coaching was spent working with and mentoring these players and I believe they felt the same.

 

 

This theme again! In all of my playing days from LL through HS through College playing time was EARNED. Plain and simple. I played for a variety of coaches of every stripe. As a parent of a ballplayer it has been my observation that now playing time is EARNED. The more things change the more they stay the same. With all of the stories and pardon me, complaints that I have read about regarding HS coaches one would think that there are no good coaches left. This just cannot be. I think most parents of players who feel that they are not playing enough should tell there children to man up and just get better, or at least try and get better. The woe is me attitude is just about to make me jump off a high bridge. Life is not fair, all is not easy. It is that lesson that sports is so well positioned to teach a High School athlete.

Definitely a good to great coach coaches all of his players! Also I agree that one should always try to be part of the solution rather than the problem.  (Just for the record as unhappy as I was with the coach never said a word to AD or Principal. I suppose you could say I let other people do the dirty work out of cowardice or something, but that would be mean.)  also, I put the blame as much on my son -- who is growing in maturity but isn't the yet -- as on the coach.  But that's all water under the bridge now.  Focus forward is always the best course.  But I also think there are a fair number of dogs, as it were,  out there.  Lots of guys who maybe know the game, that's for sure.  I mean there's a ton of baseball knowledge here no doubt.  But it's not a simple matter to find great coaches. 

And I also don't deny that parents in this area are,  shall we say,  a special breed, lots of people who are accustomed to being listen too when they speak.  Lots of people accustomed to shall we say throwing their weight around and with lots of weight to throw around.  Tough situation for anyone to deal with.

Personally I have said to a number of people that the ideal coach would be somebody who doesn't really need the job and isn't trying to make money off baseball or travel teams or training facilities or lessons but is just doing it as a way of giving back.  Such a person couldn't be pushed around, wouldn't have to try to please this or that powerful person, wouldn't have any hidden agendas and would be free to just coach.  A couple of the HS around have or had coaches like that.  Hard to get one though. And if you do get one don't let him go.

High school coaches certainly aren't doing it for the money. When my son was in high school four years ago varsity coach pay was $3,500. Divide that by the hours put in. Flipping burgers at McD's would be a better choice if in it for the money.

 

It really doesn't matter what a coach makes whether it's a lot or a little. It's about their character, their ability to coach and doing their part to get a player to the next level. I don't know any character people where their income had any impact on how they do their thing. But if parents keep running off the character people due to their perceptions there won't be many character people left to coach. 

 

I believe one of the issues with parents is their kid has always been a starter in whatever age travel the kid played. Then the kid gets to high school. High school is 18u ball. Their 14u stud (in their eyes) isn't entitled to start. And the talent funnel is getting real narrow.

RJM

I agree the money per se is negligible. Peanuts really.  But if you are a HS Coach and you run a travel team or give private lessons or run a training regimen, you get access to players -- both those who are in your program and those who aspire to be.  I'd rather have a coach who was totally divorced from that whole scene if I could. Tricky thing though but it is possible. I can think of a couple of guys in a couple of programs who were not at trying to make any money of selling their baseball knowledge.  Just loved teaching kids.

 

This was part of the article by Michael Lewis' about his  HS coach, which ended up with the revered and veteran coach in trouble with parents:

"another blamed everyone but himself for his failure."

To be perfectly honest, I did this as a HS senior. It is one reason our son is my hero in baseball. as omm says, everything is earned. Baseball is mostly pretty black and white with few shades of gray.  Playing time is "EARNED."  "I didn't get my job done." Actually, sometimes it is "tipping" the cap to the other guy...and moving on.

I get that parents hate, absolutely hate, to see their son fail.

Gosh, we watch the anguish on the faces of the CWS families, but parents at the HS game on Tuesday have those feelings which are felt just as deeply to those parents.

Baseball is a cerebral game which creates so much emotion for parents who are watching.  The emotions are understandable since "failure" is not an option in every aspect of life...except baseball.

If failure is not an option, and our son failed, but he doesn't do it except in baseball, it logically follows it is not our son, it is..."THE COACHES!!!" Failure is the responsibility of everyone other than our son.  As the Lewis article describes, that "my son failed" is not okay anymore. More than that, it is not "okay" for the coach to say that to "my son." My son "did not fail..you failed him."

Other than in baseball, this would be a pretty compelling position for a parent.

One could conclude a game steeped in history truly "is not on speaking terms with the present."

 

 

...There is not this vast pool of smart baseball people who also make great coaches who also are moral pillars who also have 8-10 months a year of free time to spend doing volunteer work who also don't mind dealing with piles of safety and administrative work who also don't mind handling field maintenance and program budget/equipment ordering who also don't mind dealing with the occasional problem parent and/or player....  you get the idea.

 

We elect school boards to make the best decisions they can within the guidelines and limitations that exist to hire coaches (among other things, of course). So, the best we can do as parents is to be as supportive as possible toward the person who does get put in that coach position despite the fact that all of the "ideal" boxes will not be checked.  Our kids will be far better off for it.  Again, dealing with a coach, regardless of strengths, weaknesses and personality quirks, is yet another great learning opportunity for the players.  We, the parents, set the example.  Do we make the best of the situation and focus on the positive or do we fixate on the imperfections and the things that don't mesh with our personal interpretation of what the HS sports experience should be?

 

What would the environment be if each time a parent had an issue with a coach, that coach was replaced?

 

This is partially why, when people come to this site with complaints about coaches, the coach is often defended.  Young players read here also.  We are setting the example.  We are trying to convey the right message.

 

I realize this can be viewed as hypocritical since I am a coach but I have played the role of parent in the parent/coach relationship far more often than I have as coach.

I think most parents of players who feel that they are not playing enough should tell there children to man up and just get better, or at least try and get better.

That might teach them a lesson.

 

Old fashioned!!!  Today parent will whine to AD to other parents maybe band together and get coach canned. 

Exhibit A

The premise of this thread crosses all sports.  The money situation is a given in most places in this country and so, any coach getting into coaching at the HS level should know that going in.  Still, that doesn't mean that a coach doesn't get frustrated sometimes when they realize just how much time that they are putting into their team/program and just how little the financial reward is.  I built a nice summer camp with over 100 participants.  Then, I had HS teams from out of our area ask if I would put on a camp for their kids.  As you might know, you can only have 4 kids from one HS in any camp in my state.  Therefore, I had to mix HS.  So, I did.  Then, some parents wanted an "advanced hitting camp" where it would be limited in number but they would pay more.  Before you knew it, I was camping all summer long.  Some of you "old timers" might recall how I outlined everything that we did back in the day.  I could have made major money.  Instead, I paid my assistant coaches and then put all of the rest of that money into the program.  We bought uniforms, I put up 3 full cages, 2 half cages, we had 2 rolling cages, 6 machines, and built a four station bullpen.  The reality of that is that no one really cared that I did all of that and I guess the assumption was that the school bought all of that. 

 

I mowed the field all year long, planted seed in the fall, bought turface, bought diamond dry, and had to follow all of the EPA rules for using chemicals like weed killer on the field.  My daughter was so happy when I resigned.  Her first question to me was, "Dad does this mean that I don't have to help you mow and pull weeds on the diamond anymore?"  We put in a sprinkler system to water the grass infield and rotate to do the infield turface early in the morning.  How many people looked at that diamond year around and wondered how it was kept in that condition? 

 

We bought 6 turf hitting mats, 4 indoor pitching mounds, a new indoor cage, and tanner tees so we had exceptional facilities outdoor and in.  In fact, area colleges often noted that we had better facilities than most D-I school with the exception of the top schools.  We built a concession/bathroom, storage, and coaching office down at the field.  We had very nice dugouts. 

 

Per winning, we set records, won the first regional title in school history followed up by several more.  We won sectionals titles as well.  I got myself on all of the nomination committees so that I could promote my players.  Each year we wrapped our season up with a very nice banquet where I provided each player with a PowerPoint that highlighted all of the events of the year.  Each had a special section to recognize every senior. 

 

I could go on and on but why am I pointing all of this out?  Because one powerful parent could wipe all of this out.  Every coach knows it.  You can't coach in fear of it.  In the end, you have the relationships you build with the players and, believe it or not, it is enough.  I've mentioned this one before but one of my former players called me early one morning from Portugal.  He had just had his first son born.  He wanted me to be the first to know.  Per the parents, I really don't know what they thought.  I stayed away from them.  I was so blessed with the parents that I had that I believe I was spoiled per what I hear now. 

Because one powerful parent could wipe all of this out.

 

Powerful parent? somebody let that happen. 

 

At the high school level this happens because administrators do not have the *((&^% to tell these parents to take a hike. 

 

Will... sometimes the powerful parent is an administrator. I work at a private school and I have at least 3 of my players parents that are in the administration of the school...

In my not so humble opinion, perhaps the biggest factor in having a quality coaching job is the administration you work for (and a positive attitude). I've got a positive attitude, you give me supportive admin with a backbone and I'll show you a place that could be a good baseball job.

 

Parent issues will never be gone unless you're coaching at the local orphanage, but strong administrators who have your back will wipe out the stress from the equation.

 

I'm very fortunate where I am.

And to answer the question posed by the OP:

 

I would. Still the greatest job on the planet.

Nope. Getting to umpire is. Best view, and you always win.