Complaining about coach? is it worth it?

[375H&H]

Unless she is destined to play professionally, it’s not worth it.

I played high level baseball up to division 1 in college and had parents who often complained directly and by any method possible about the coaches. I was never going to play professionally and the day I walked away, none of it mattered, except the lessons I learned about life.

Those lessons included sometimes you don’t get recognized as you should, after sports people are completely different, and any sports recognition you did receive means nothing in the real world (among other lessons).

These “issues” you describe truly aren’t issues in the scheme of things, but good on you for wanting to support your daughter.

 

[Gerald Martin]

I think there are often times a lot of difference in the goals that people hope to see achieved when their kids play sports.

Personally, I want to see my child developed into a better player and then be given the chance to put their skills to the test in a competitive setting. Whether their team has a winning or losing record is often a combination of luck of the draw in the talent of an individual team.

There’s been two times in my kid’s sports when I directly intervened and asked for meetings or conveyed my displeasure in how coach was treating one of my kids. Both situations had a coach who was prioritizing his or her strategy to develop the players who they thought were assets for future years and were not playing seniors because they didn’t figure in to next year’s team.

I was pretty adamant that high school sports are for the development of young people and to enable them to have an opportunity to experience competition over and above the coaches desire to win.

My son’s basketball coach was completely understanding of my perspective and agreed that he had tunnel vision as he was developing his program and wasn’t considering how it might affect a senior who was putting in the work with a good attitude and was more talented than younger players but wasn’t being given playing time because he wasn’t going to be there the following year.

My daughter’s volleyball coach was a completely different story and got very defensive over how she wanted to run the program even though they were 3-8 for the year. Her attitude and continual drama on her teams is the main reason my two other daughters pursued other sports and interests.

 

[Irrelevant]

IMO, if parents want to complain about coaching that is to a great deal voluntary in many HS sports, they better have a damn good alternative lined up or be willing to step up and take on the roll themselves.

This is where I landed recently. Coaching the team myself. Because for two years I couldn't stand my daughter's coaches, for many reasons but mostly because they treated the girls like crap. Am I technically better? Probably not. But the girls are having more fun and there's no complaints from parents, and honestly, I'm enjoying it.

 

[Gerald Martin]

This is where I landed recently. Coaching the team myself. Because for two years I couldn't stand my daughter's coaches, for many reasons but mostly because they treated the girls like crap. Am I technically better? Probably not. But the girls are having more fun and there's no complaints from parents, and honestly, I'm enjoying it.

I can guarantee that when the girls are adults they’re not going to care what their win/loss record was nearly as much as they are going to care about how they were treated and how they were developed as players and as a team.

 

[MLC]

I am a former boys varsity basketball head coach and then a superintendent of schools for most of my career. At my school district we offered an abundance of activities beginning in grade 7 and culminating at the varsity level. Very few years went by that some parent or group of parents didn’t want some coach fired for something. Often playing time was the underlying issue, although never admitted to. Things like awards were also common complaints. The coach costing kids college scholarships was another common complaint. As a former coach, I had better insight than most into which of our coaches were good, excellent or lousy. As superintendent it was important to me to not only support the good coaches, but also give the appearance of supporting them. And I didn’t support them blindly. In fact the year I retired, I fired a lousy coach, who should have been fired by our athletic director.
My advice to the OP here would be to stay out of the parent vigilante group and tell his daughter to work hard or harder in practice and be a good teammate. Understand, coaching, especially at the varsity level, is a very, very hard job.
Finally, it would be interesting, and probably eye opening, to hear the coaches side of this story.

 

[Ben Lamb]

I was hoping this was about flying commercial.

Sad. 2 stars.