Parent turning Coach

[cmustangsfp]

The key is to find your corrosive parents and cut that girl. It sucks for the girl, but it makes the team better. One of the quickest killer of any team is a parent or parents who are a cancer. Leave them around for too long and it will destroy your team. My coaching staff and I were joking around at a recent tryout that we should divide the parents in to two groups. When we pointed at a group of parents they were to say their pre-approved chant. One side would chant "Good Eye" or "Good Swing" and the other would chant "Don't swing at that cr@p!" or "Lay off the high ones!", we figured we would try to make it as much like game day as possible . We would just randomly point at the different groups so the girls would get used to game day banter from the parents.
Seriously though, the parents will be your challenge. We actually took the rec all stars, who were a C class team to some A/B tournaments. In one tourney we won our first pool game (bracket games were seeded on pool results) so we purposely lost our second game. The parents were upset when we lost and thought we sucked at coaching. They were willing to point out our coaching "mistakes". We got placed in the silver bracket and lost our first bracket game, but got placed with another C level team in the consolation game and won. So we left the weekend on a high note. The girls were happy that they won their final game and went to an A/B level tourney and won 2 games (we never told them that they were only "C" level). Nobody expected us to win 1 game, let alone 2. We called the parents over, separate from the girls and explained that we purposely threw the second pool game so that we would not get placed into the gold bracket and run into the buzzsaw that awaited us there. (Our 3rd pool game was against one of those A level teams and we got demolished). I explained to the parents that had we won that 2nd game we would have went to the gold bracket and faced 2 A level teams, got demolished and the girls would have been demoralized. The way we coached was to try to leave on a better note and face competition more like us. Once they "understood" why we coached the way we coached, they were more understanding, but it didn't take back the hurtful and undermining comments they had already made.

So be prepared to be questioned. But also be prepared to have some good times. Be prepared to be considered the most wise coach out there and also the dumbest one that ever put on a cap. But remember that you will make a difference in at least one girls life, if not more, do not take that responsibility lightly. Some of the development I saw in the girls was worth it. I saw several girls who had that spark lit in their eyes because of the experience and have it turn into a softball inferno. In other girls I saw the flame being slowly extinguished by their parents words and actions. Run with it and enjoy.

 

[undergroundga]

Last fall we were kinda in this same situation. We decided to take our league all star team to a tourney. Before it was over we ended up playing about 25 games, fall up until a couple weeks from now. We haven't won much, but half of our team are only 10. My dd, who also pitches on a 10u team has had the opportunity to pitch in about 10 of these games. She throws a 12" better than she does the 11".
I would be prepared for girls to drop out along the way. It's a long year and some families and get tired of playing. We had 3 players quit by time spring came around and we had to use pick up players most of the season. That's how dd got the opportunity to pitch more. We had 2 older girls that pitched , our #1 n #2 pitchers, that quit early on. So it worked out good for her.
We are planning to keep our fees low and depend upon fund raisers. About $200. Pork butts are the best fundraiser I have found.
We hope to play about 50 games next season. But half of those will be in our home park. We have really nice fields and can bring lots of teams in. This year we held 3 non-sanctioned tourneys that were filled up early every time. We drew some really good teams for our area, and our fall tourney last year, including a couple teams from the south. As a side note, this is an excellent fundraiser for your park league. Hard work though. We are attempting to have some fall "select" team leagues, but we'll see how that goes.
Please keep the suggestions coming. We are facing decisions about our team too, and to be honest we are just some dad's from So. IL. Right now we are trying to decide about our uniforms too.

 

[Andrew72]

Pork butts eh?