The Coaches ain’t coaching their parents.
Amen?
Doesn’t matter who failed the kids. The Coaches have the kids every day, not the parents.
I’m gonna go ahead and kinda disagree with you there.
The parents are the worst. Some examples from my real life experience (20+ years ago)
> Meeting in the principals office with Lena’s mom. Lena, an 8th grader, wasn’t getting enough playing time. She was the best second baseman on the team but I was playing a senior over her for no reason. Well. Lena can’t hit and doesn’t field well. She’s never in position. She’s learning the game the way I want her to play. Mom: well her Dixie league coach said she is the best player he’s ever seen. Her Dixie coach is her uncle. Principal? Tells me to play her more to placate mom.
> I’ve got a dad climbing the fence in the outfield to countermand the instructions I’ve given his daughter on where I want her positioned. I’ve got moms behind the backstop countermanding my instructions on batting stances, when to take pitches. I’ve got moms changing the pitch calls I send to my pitchers. All them former Dixie league “assistant coaches” who know more than I do. And we were winning doing what I said. I took a program with a total of five wins over the previous four seasons and went 16-4 our first season. All four losses came to two teams, both of which made the state tourney in their classification. But the parents meddled constantly. I had to institute a running penalty for every player who told me “but my daddy says…”
> In football we constantly had parents coming out of the stands to demand playing time for their kid, to question position assignments, to criticize play calls - and we were winning. Big.
Parents were the worst. They trap kids in the middle.
Granted, I never humped a defensive back’s face. That’s out of bounds. But I did drag a few kids by the facemask or shoulder pads.