Advice about coaches

[toquin]

I'd like some other parent's advice (hopefully without volunteering my DD for scrutiny). My DD just made her middle school team. She has several years of experience in LL and puts everything she has out on the field in both practice and games. That being said, her performance in practices has always misrepresented how well she plays in an actual game. The manager is an on staff teacher and the asst coaches are a couple of the other girls fathers who also coach their travel team. We live in a small town that tends to foster nepotism and we happen to be outsiders because we are a military family. The two coaches continue to tinker with my daughter's mechanics (pitching, fielding, and batting) and have blatantly advised her to do things that are against what I know to be standard technique (i.e. hand position while batting, and the are big fans of the HE pitching method but only were it pertains to adjusting pitchers that aren't their daughters). Having been a LL coach I know how frustrating it is when a parent critiques what I'm doing on the field, but I really feel like these two coaches might be hindering my daughters development, but I don't want to be one of "those" parents. So to close up my long rant, should I approach the coaches about this or just tell my DD to soldier on and listen to the coaches for the sake of sportsmanship?

 

[James Smith]

MS season goes pretty quickly here. I do not think they spend enough time with DD to cause any major/ long-term issues so I just leave DD and coaches alone.

 

[toquin]

MS season goes pretty quickly here. I do not think they spend enough time with DD to cause any major/ long-term issues so I just leave DD and coaches alone.

You're absolutely right James the season is pretty short, and my initial feeling is to leave the situation alone and allow her to learn the life lesson of being coached by someone who's perspective is different from hers. Thanks for the advice.

 

[marriard]

So to close up my long rant, should I approach the coaches about this or just tell my DD to soldier on and listen to the coaches for the sake of sportsmanship?

This is never easy because multiple things are in play.

My DD knows how to nod her head at the coach and then go ahead and do what she is being taught by her individual instructors. She is also willing to try something new and if it doesn't work, she will revert to what her long-term coaches are telling her. Hell she'll even throw a HE pitch in there on occasion if it makes them happy but in games and 99% of the time she is going with what she knows works for her. This assumes you are actually having her be instructed outside her team practices of course (or doing lots of individual work with you) - if you are not then why not if you are hoping she develops because team practices only go so far.

You shouldn't step in unless it is effecting her playing time and even then it should be only to say "We are using so-and-so as a hitting/pitching coach and she is working on XXX' and she is getting confused with what you are are asking her to do in addition to things she is already working on. And even then you should only step in of your DD is not comfortable having this talk herself (mine wasn't the first time this happened, she was the second time and honestly the second time worked out faster than the first).

Lastly are you SURE they are teaching her wrong - yes HE is not the agreed pitching technique here, but there are multiple ways to teach and be successful at batting. Are they good coaches? Are their teams successful (maybe they do know something worth hearing)? Lot of factors.

edit: Agree with James - if it is just a short MS season a few weeks isn't going to make any difference long term.

 

[Little Angels Softball]

Just wondering .... are the travel ball coaches teaching your DD differently than they're teaching their own DDs? If so, they need to be taken out behind the woodshed and beaten senseless.

 

[RubberBiscuit]

My DD got really good at nodding at good-intentioned-but-misleading MS & HS coaches, telling them she is trying to adopt their incorrect teachings while sticking to her true skills and form she needed for TB and to be successful overall. They eventually gave up on trying to change her and they eventually found they had to keep her on the field because she was the best performer.

I am not trying to support being disingenuous, per say, BUT when hard-headed coaches get confronted with somebody "bucking" their system they can get pretty ugly pretty fast.

Hopefully your DD can start to shine in practice too and prove to the coaches that she is more valuable IN the game. But she has got to perform on the practice field too....

 

[toquin]

I'm trying to take the right perspective on this because you are absolutely right (marriard), the coaches may see things that other coaches or myself haven't. And I completely get that there is more than one way to skin a cat which is part of the reason I get slightly irritated with their "tweaking" of her techniques. An example of advice that I find completely off is telling her to place her hands near chest level while she's batting. First, she's never had issue batting against live pitching and second, putting her hands there is going to naturally slow down her swing because she's going to instinctively try to wind up (hands closer to her back shoulder). The oddest thing about it is that they are instructing her to do things that their own DDs aren't doing. I'd completely understand if their DDs used these methods and were successful, but they don't and it confuses me.

 

[toquin]

Just wondering .... are the travel ball coaches teaching your DD differently than they're teaching their own DDs? If so, they need to be taken out behind the woodshed and beaten senseless.

Angels, that's exactly what's feeding my frustration. Why would you tell my DD to do something different than what you're coaching yours to do? They rarely say anything to theirs, but have no issue "tinkering" with my DDs swing in the middle of an at-bat. And because of her nature and how she's been raised, she does her best to do whatever the coach is telling her to do, often with bad results. She's a contact hitter (rarely strikes out) but when she gets "adjusted" she whiffs with regularity.

 

[marriard]

Angels, that's exactly what's feeding my frustration. Why would you tell my DD to do something different than what you're coaching yours to do? They rarely say anything to theirs, but have no issue "tinkering" with my DDs swing in the middle of an at-bat. And because of her nature and how she's been raised, she does her best to do whatever the coach is telling her to do, often with bad results. She's a contact hitter (rarely strikes out) but when she gets "adjusted" she whiffs with regularity.

Coaching my DD I can answer that one...

Mine is still reasonable at listening to me coach (so far), but on our travel team we generally don't coach our own DD because they are MS aged and they don't want to hear it. I spend a good deal of time coaching the other coach's DD's because they aren't listening to dad any more.

Also their DD's have probably been hearing this tweaking talk for years - your DD is in their mind a blank canvas they haven't yet had the chance to try their wisdom on (especially since it sounds like she is coming from a non-travel environment). I bet they expect their DD's already KNOW what they are telling your DD so they don't need to tell them that.

A common theme we hear is all the Pitching Coaches who teach nothing like they throw. They teach what they were taught - not what they do. The smart ones realize this (especially when confronted by video), but I hear all the time that they are 'teaching the fundamentals' before they get to the 'advanced stuff'. I even have a local PC coach who teaches HE to new pitchers to start and once they throw strikes he then moves to what is essentially IR. I don't even try to convince him to just start with IR.

Last thought on whiffing and adjusting - this is when she needs to learn how to nod-and-do-what-she-knows-is-best. Part of growing up - learning adults aren't always right, thinking about what authority tells you, etc, etc. She is right at that age... You don't have to say ignore the coach - you say "Take what the coach is telling you, try it, decide what is right for you and go 100% with that even if it means going back to what you were doing"

Coaching and teaching pre-teens and teen girls is an emotional nightmare - I had no idea what they were thinking at these ages when I was growing up and the same age and it is even worse now because I do know more about what they are thinking and it makes no sense.

 

[Little Angels Softball]

Angels, that's exactly what's feeding my frustration. Why would you tell my DD to do something different than what you're coaching yours to do? They rarely say anything to theirs, but have no issue "tinkering" with my DDs swing in the middle of an at-bat. And because of her nature and how she's been raised, she does her best to do whatever the coach is telling her to do, often with bad results. She's a contact hitter (rarely strikes out) but when she gets "adjusted" she whiffs with regularity.

Not quite sure I made myself clear .... sorry about that. But are they teaching different mechanics to your DD than they are to theirs (like saying, "roll your wrists at contact" to your DD and then "extend through contact" to their DDs) or are they giving her the same instructions but merely in a different manner (like during an at-bat for your DD while they say nothing to theirs until they are back in the dugout)? Is it the "what" that they are teaching is different or the "when" and the "how?"

If it is the "what," then beat them senseless. If it is the other two, then it is the old "skin a cat" adage and I'd just see if I could pick up a couple of things from them that might help DD down the road.