Question re: DD not playing HS ball senior year

[Cannonball]

JJS, that line about pay made me laugh. I am the lowest paid coach in the athletic department with my softball stipend. I'd do it anyway so don't tell anyone. LOL!

 

[hssoftball101]

I will give you my 2 cents....HS ball did not get your daughter her opportunity to play in College. Your TB team did. Why should the HS take the credit of something they had nothing to do with?????

I got one DD....She did not play HS ball and she is playing in College. I remember talking to the coach as she was being recruited by and asked about HS ball specifically. Coach point blank told me more girls are quitting HS ball now more than ever. They do not recruit out of HS, do not care about stats out HS its all inflated as some schools are really bad and they run up the score or are able to keep a super low ERA. Many have said stick it out.....Me, I am of the mindset of I want my DD happy. If HS ball gives her that then play if not don't play.

The beauty of maxpreps. You can enter your own stats anyway you like! We played a team who walked in 7 or 8 of our runs and they had a scorer but on the website it says they walked just 1 batter. And then I had a team count 18 hits and said we had 1 error, but we had 10 errors, so they only got 9 hits.

 

[JAD]

My DD gets unnecessary crap from her coach when he doesn't say anything to the players who are actually screwing up, so I can kind of relate. We both know that the coach has a history of nit picking and yelling at his best players (she is one). Good luck- I am tired of team drama and coaches not having a clue how to coach, not knowing the rules, believing that cheating is an acceptable tactic, etc.

I have always told my DD that a coach, and myself, will get onto her because we care and expect more from her. When a coach stops getting onto you they have usually given up on you.

 

[Hawkeyes]

Unfortunately, many of us can and do speak from experience that there are many coaches out there that coach either for themselves or for a bump in pay, and not for the girls, the betterment of the game or to help girls get to college[/QUOTE]

I am very supportive of high school coaches, but i do have a funny story to share to support your point.

I was the AD at a school and the principal hires this new Art Teacher and she wanted all the coaching she could get. Principal gives her assistant basketball and assistant track. I had ZERO input on this decision. Basketball season comes along and it is clear that she is clueless. She didnt understand how the bonus worked for free throws and the difference between signals for a time out. It was really bad, nice lady but was clueless. The head track coach puts her in charge of throwers. She didnt know what a shot put was. She had to ask one of the students what to call that thing. It comes time to renew contracts and i let the principal know that we just cant have her coaching again, so we didnt renew her coaching assignments. During this time, i really went to bat for our coaches and got them pretty significant pay raises. After the announcement came out about the pay raises, she was livid about all the $ i was costing her. She was purely in it for the $. Very nice lady and a great Art teacher, just didnt have her heart in the right place for coaching. At a small school, sometimes you have to take what you can get.

So far this TB season, the best coaches also coach high school ball.

 

[JJS]

I was the AD at a school and the principal hires this new Art Teacher and she wanted all the coaching she could get. Principal gives her assistant basketball and assistant track. I had ZERO input on this decision. Basketball season comes along and it is clear that she is clueless. She didnt understand how the bonus worked for free throws and the difference between signals for a time out. It was really bad, nice lady but was clueless. The head track coach puts her in charge of throwers. She didnt know what a shot put was. She had to ask one of the students what to call that thing. It comes time to renew contracts and i let the principal know that we just cant have her coaching again, so we didnt renew her coaching assignments. During this time, i really went to bat for our coaches and got them pretty significant pay raises. After the announcement came out about the pay raises, she was livid about all the $ i was costing her. She was purely in it for the $. Very nice lady and a great Art teacher, just didnt have her heart in the right place for coaching. At a small school, sometimes you have to take what you can get.

And you know what? It doesn't make them a bad person. After all, there might not had had been anyone else to coach those sports if she hadn't stepped up and wanted a little Christmas bonus, but at the same time I wouldn't want her talking to UCLA's track coach about a possible spot for my daughter in shot put.

 

[JoeKC]

You are the exception not the rule.

That's the thing about successful people. They can't imagine that everyone else doesn't work just as hard as they do for their success. It is a fear and a drive that makes them work even harder than they perceive others to work. Often times successful people or people otherwise deemed heroes are quoted as saying, "I did nothing different than what anyone else would have done in the same position".

Unfortunately, many of us can and do speak from experience that there are many coaches out there that coach either for themselves or for a bump in pay, and not for the girls, the betterment of the game or to help girls get to college

I find discussions like these which disparage HS coaches fascinating. Without a doubt there are poor HS coaches, but there are also horrible, incompetent travel ball coaches. Every population of human beings, including the coaching population has standouts, above average, below average and even incompetent segments. A quick review of the HS and travel ball coach populations in this area validates that premise.

In my opinion, HS coaches have much more challenging roles because unlike TB coaches, they have to select from a population of athletes that enroll in their school. They can't recruit (in most cases). If they cut players, or cut too deep, there is no team. There is no guarantee they will have key position players (pitchers, catchers, etc) tryout (imagine teaching the skill/art of pitching during the two weeks of practice before the first game...). The most successful TB coaches actively recruit top athletes from increasingly greater distances. Their ability to recruit doesn't necessarily mean they do a better job of "coaching". Teaching correct fundamentals, instilling a passion and knowledge of the game, helping athletes develop a strong work ethic, and teaching leadership are not the exclusive domain of travel ball. In fact, I would argue many travel ball coaches lack key coaching skills, but most can sell.

We all attempt to place our kids in situations absent of poor coaching, or challenging team dynamics. However, that's a reality most will encounter the rest of their lives. Rarely are work environments, family situations or communities perfect. Learning how to make the best out of every situation, and learning how to be part of a positive solution rather than being part of a problem, are great life lessons that are best learned early....

 

[hssoftball101]

I received more "coaching" from my PE teachers than my sports coaches. I expect head coaches to teach you their strategies and fine tune your talents a bit, but not to teach you how to play the game.