- Oct 22, 2009
- 1,779
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Ugg. I have a talented young lady that has taken pitching lessons from me, for a year. She recently has started slapping her thigh, because the coach is making all of his pitchers do. I was quite surprised to see her doing that. I asked her to stop and to pitch the way she has been taught. She stopped for about 2 pitches.
Her mom wants the girl to speak up to the coach.
The coach has no expertise in pitching. So, I may lose a student, because I can't instruct her, when someone else is overriding my decisions. It is just to difficult for the little girl to be in the middle.
I don't have a problem with thigh slappers, most of young pitchers that do it, eventually grow out of it. The ones that complain about pain, I give them drills to stop, but I don't make a big deal otherwise about it.
But, in regard to your pitcher getting instruction from a league coach and undermining your instruction, that is a big deal.
I had to make a dad choose between me and his DD's 10u league ball over this.
The coach had a DD attending a step style instructor and he was making my pitcher, step and slam the door, hello elbow.
I explained to the dad the difference in the styles and she was not to slam the door and hello elbow while releasing.
This went on for a couple of months where the girl would continue to this and not make progress. I talked with the dad yet again, and he said he was allowing her to do it, because it made the coach happy and she was allowed to pitch as long as she was doing it.
I asked him, if making a 10u league ball coach happy was more important than his DD's long term pitching goals, then he needed to start giving that coach money and stop seeing me. So he quit.
She doesn't pitch anymore.